Soups

I wanted to get a closed back for work but...sold out.

@Mithrandir41 - I have a Mini-S (semi-closed) that I could be talked into selling.

@M3NTAL I bought an expensive pen recently, and that wiped out some of my fun money. Much appreciated though.

Will eventually write up Cosmo bass mod that elevates both sub & mid bass (easy, cheap, reversible). An improvement, but does not make it a 'bassy' hp by any means.

Curious if you've heard the Venus and how the Cosmo compares.

Unfortunately haven't heard the Venus... which I've read could be a bit bright, which is not at all an issue with Cosmo.

Such a shame they're so hard to even pre-order. Was hoping for something that trades blows with the Caldera. Caveat - these really need power to unlock their potential. They sounded only ok off MJ3. But they sound incredible off Tyrs. Will write more once I log some more time, mostly being lost in the music.

Just looked at the specs... wow only 78 db/mW?? that's like og he-6 levels of inefficiency.

Although I've only heard the he-6se, one thing that initially intrigued me was how some were calling Tungsten a spiritual successor to the he-6. The he-6se, while being much easier to drive, is definitely a few tiers below the Tungsten.

Damn near DNA wait times. I hope you dig it!

Single or double sided? If it's not worth the wait, hit me up! ;)

Joking aside, I hope you like it. I really enjoyed the ones I heard at CAF last year; like an LCD-4 but with better tuning and a bigger headstage.

Double-sided. I was optimistic enough to pre-order without hearing them. I am mostly hoping for good synergy with my Tyrs!

Only have my limited perspective to go off, but I imagine the plethora of manufacturers is at least in part borne of folks ripping designs off and not wanting to be too obvious about it. IEMs are also effectively jewellery for a lotta folk, ergo the multi-kilobuck stuff. Think Vertu smartphones and how idiotic that whole business model is.

I know in India, it’s either IEM or speakers. TOTL headphones have little to no market there. There is great interest and demand for IEM.

Humidity is one of my guesses.

I bought a Aeon 2 directly from Headamp since I really liked the Aeon. Their return policy was 60 days which was great. I listened to the headphones for a few days and decided it wasn't for me. I sent an email telling them I wanted to start a RMA and they asked "Why!? What's wrong with them?". I told them I didn't like it. Then follow up email made me feel like I was being interrogated for a crime.

Maybe you were supposed to select 2 day even though there was a cost associated, which would have been zeroed at the end of checkout….but then, maybe you were supposed to read minds ;)

@crenca - Mind-reading would come in handy, ha. I definitely wondered if I missed something, so I double-checked before reaching out. Turns out, they offer not just 1 or 2 but *7* different 1 or 2 day shipping options for that item - none free, and ranging from $17 to $96. Honestly, a simple explanation or apology would have gone a long way, but from what I can tell, that's not how they handle business.

Hey, if it works for you, there's nothing more to add! I've wrangled with 10AWG snakes and they were a bitch to terminate. Ended up soldering them into speak-ons.

Interesting. My speakers (Magnepan 1.6QR) have the option to biwire or go stereo+jumper and I've always done the latter. Just never got around to trying the biwire option. My Mogami cables are from Take Five Audio in Canada (3103 cable) and use the same z-plug banana connector as the WBC do it looks like.

Yes, I was actually hoping the cleaner bi-wire option would work just as well or better, but it seems the low freq binding posts just benefit from whatever extra juice they're able to draw from that thiccc stereo cable, with no noticeable decline in hi-freq quality via jumper cable (also WBC Ultimate).

I’m confused, they say political activism is invading “everything”, like football. Is this the same football that has massive odes to the American military at every game? How is that apolitical?

I guess if you think a military wouldn't exist apart from partisan politics. My hunch is, any nation that wants to continue existing would have some sort of military.

The army would exist even without partisan politics, but choosing to loudly and gratuitously venerate the military every game is not an apolitical choice.

At least you stop listen to depressing stuff from Songs from the Big Chair.

I wrote a deep dive on that album, if you’re interested. https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/the-best-version-of/the-best-version-of%E2%80%A6-tears-for-fears%E2%80%99-the-hurting-and-songs-from-the-big-chair-r867/

@Josh83 - looks fascinating, thanks for sharing (and writing)!

Still an on ear vs over ear tho? My delicate prissy ears prefer things not touch them.

Ha, I also prefer over ear - but no pain, no gain! And Ada is actually very comfy for an on-ear. And I'd take it over wearing any of my IEMs... which I place in the 'necessary evil' audio category.

My 6 yr old son saw me listening to the funky looking Ada and asked to listen. Put a track on for him and he immediately gets a big smile on his face and says "I...feel...good." About sums it up. 8)

I've been using the Pentaconn Corier Brass tips to make my Bonneville's bass tight and punchy rather than rounded and thick. It should also give the same effect to the Casara

One more vote for Spiral Dots from me.

I use sprial dot on my Lyra and Vega.

I had never heard of ROHM until the DC Elite. I'd say, for the use case of a sub $500 dongle, iBasso's implementation is excellent. Continue to be impressed with its stage, layering, dynamics, resolution, tonality. So much so that while it has no true line out, I have a 4.4mm to Dual XLR adapter coming to see how this thing sounds through my other amps.

I'm not optimistic about companies like SMSL using ROHM. Because like with most DACs, implementation is almost everything.

I caved and should have a DC Elite here later this week. If it sucks, it goes back to Jeff Bezos.

Email their orders support. I've had them just forget to ship items before. Also had an item get lost in shipping.

Yup, did that after the first week went by. Got the 'sorry, it'll ship in a week, you're not forgotten' reply. Another week goes by, still haven't gotten any updates. Trying to give the benefit of the doubt, but curious/impatient nonetheless. :)

Yes, that sounds about right. Schiit basically gave me the "Dunno, probably Prism's issue..." response, and I'm expecting Prism to volley me back to Schiit. As for drivers, I'm trying to feed directly from Urd's USB out to Callia... would a driver install address that? Otherwise, I know I'm running Callia's latest firmware.

At this point it wouldn't hurt to try the drivers. Leave the Urd plugged in but disconnect Callia. Install driver. Plug in Callia to Urd when prompted and it should finish the rest of the install. Knock on wood and hope that works?

Thanks @Armaegis, I'll be sure to give that a try!

How was it? I'm seriously curious about the CA-1a. It's bigger bro didn't fit me very well

My MJ3 hasn't shipped yet, but hope to share impressions soon, comparing with the Tyrs. Despite the fit, did you otherwise like the SR-1a? The CA-1a comes close in resolution/speed, but with moar bass. I still use EQ to tame the treble and boost the upper-mids.

Urd + Yggdrasil A2 Unison + Tyrs = Droolingly good. Need to write up some impressions.... but can't stop spinning CDs.

One way to go is an eGPU through a Thunderbolt port.

Not saying this is a killer deal but this is a perfect laptop IMO.
There are newer variants of it that are faster, AMD or Intel choices.
QHD resolution, doesn't look like a toy, is upgradable with ram and NVME, etc. https://slickdeals.net/f/16598018-lenovo-legion-5-pro-refurb-16-qhd-165hz-ryzen-7-5800h-rtx-3070-16gb-ddr4-512gb-ssd-1010-99?src=jfy&prop=rcmid-2e90049d1e2ec24123477cd34a75b4d5

Thanks all for the feedback and helpful leads.

Bought the HE6se over a year ago. Sounded lean on all my amps back then (Jot 2, SW51) so I returned them. Glad I repurchased because via Tyrs, they sound very well controlled - w/ impressive slam and resolve (albeit slightly bright).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRz8-EXlhBo&ab_channel=1PUTTZ

As long as we don't start growing hair out of our eyeballs and all

Would love this. Not because of some audiophile need recover high frequency hearing but rather for tinnitus relief

Google shows a lot of research into this problem. From drug-based to genetic engineering. It's too much for my non-medical mind to process. But I think I am far too old to be a beneficiary of any successes.

(Talking about the hearing loss, not the arse hair ;) )