2018 Hong Kong Personal Audio Fair impression

Was there for about 6hrs today. Had some brief listening on almost every headphone. Disclaimer: I don't have trained ears, take everything with a grain of salt.

Final Audio TANE SILVER DIY earphones: I was told that you can only obtain one through attaining one of their DIY workshop. Basically a soldered but not assembled single DD IEM with filters for you to attach to 4 different places(tip, nozzle, back of driver and back venting) and customise the sound you want. IEM without any filter is shrill city, my ears almost bleed from it. Adding stuff in front of the driver seems to tame it a bit. Mine is still in progress since time limit. Quite good looking IMO.

Luminox Audio Day-for-night IEM cable: I originally plan to not listen to any IEM stuff since I don't care much about portable, despite being in Hong Kong. Well one of their rep is super attractive so why not.(yup) Day-for-night is the only thing they had with MMCX and 4.4 termination. Surprisingly good pairing with ZX300 and andro. I think it sounds more "in the middle of the band" compare to my PW audio no.5, or maybe it's placebo due to the attractive lady. Need more listening. This cable has noticeably more resistance vs no.5 though I had to turn up my volume from 24 to 29 for the same song. Tried to use their other cable with a 2.5 to 4.4 adaptor but it added tons of hiss and noise while pressing button on the player. I think 4.4mm may simply not work well with adaptors.

Sennheiser HE-1: Really noisy environment + unfamiliar music. Source was a Marantz CDP. There's one song in the CD that I know but the master is terrible, I suppose a SAMPLER CD named "perfect pitch" is suppose to have good master? Fair soundstage(a tad behind HD800 I think), tight bass, pretty coherent but the "sss" is a bit too much for me. Not impressed given the price, or it's the environment I don't know. It's really a bummer that I didn't get to try the original Orpheus, but the environment was bad anyway.
P.S: This unit stopped working during someone else's audition and the staff had to find a Senn representitive to fix it. Apperently it overheated in an air conditioned room. Really? $50000?

AKG K240 Sextett: Unfamiliar music. Better experience than HE1 since it is closed back. Don't remember much of the sound TBH, was kinda meh.

Audio Technica ATH-A100Ti: Great with female vocal. Bass is OKish, but the sibilance killed me.

Audio Technica ADX5000: Finally some music I know! Powered by HA5050H with both output employed, Dual 6.5mm TRS to 4pin XLR to headphone(I don't even know how this output method work, I believe the 2 outputs was for 2 different headphones). Kind of retains the classic audio technica open back's weird ass limp dick nasal bass but loses the magic with jpop female vocal. Not impressed. Didn't AB with my HD6X0 so could be the amp.

AKG K1000(serial no.11XXX): Source is a DAC/AMP stack which looks expensive. Mids are sweet. Feels like there's something missing in the bass. Really weird on the head, definitely can't use while lying down.

Sennheiser HD800: Amp is HDVD820, Biggest soundstage of the bunch, sibilance killed me.

From this point every headphone I auditioned was directly compared to my modded HD6X0(coin+removed spider+dynamat, 650 driver with mix and match enclosure)

Sennheiser HD660S: My 6X0 has better sustain in the bass region. 660S seems to have less sparkles vs my coin modded 6X0.

Focal Clear: Source was some DAP>USB>Luxman DA-150. Much tighter bass and better instrument separation vs my 6X0. Still a tad too much "sss" for my taste. Thoroughly impressed.

Focal Utopia: Source was Macbook to a Luxman stack consist of p750. TONS of information bombarding in an intimate soundstage. Some upper mid/lower treble suck out perhaps? It gets weird with some high pitch female vocal, gets super weird in the last clapping part in Hotel California Hell Freezes Over. Plus the ear piercing "sss" was more apparent that the Clear. When I switched back to my HD6X0 things seems to get much more natural, informations are kinda still there(maybe loses a bit) but not in your face style. More importantly those claps are much less weird(still a bit weird lol). Not so impressed.

Denon D5200: Source was a $5k Marantz SACD player with a $2.4k gigantic amp(I am talking 1 foot tall). I remember it being OK, until I switch to my HD6X0. "sss" too much for my liking.

Audeze LCD-2C: Source was some random DAP>line out>Deckard. The quality of the bass had me wanting more quantity of it. Still a bit too much "sss" for me. Gotta listen to it from another amp.

Final Audio D8000: The music they had playing was really meh. I asked for some more hi-fi stuff and they asked if I wanted pure instrumental music lol. Finally got some Four Seasons playing. What came across my mind during the audition is it sounds like the violin was played by Itzhak Perlman from HD6X0, and I was playing the violin from D8000, with poor bow control, idk why.

Didn't have time to try: MSR7SE, TH900mk1, mk2, CA Cascade, Pioneer SEMaster-1, Stax L-300 with portable amp, Obravo headphones. Might go back tomorrow and to see if there's chance to audition the original orpheus as well.

Sidenote: Sony's new CIEM looks interesting, really long queue(~1hr) throughout the day tho.

TL;DR: nothing beats a modded HD650 in treble smoothness.

btw I wore the sbaf t-shirt and no one seems to have recognised it.

P.S: Some of the photos appear normally in my phone but couldn't be found while viewing from the computer. Does anyone know what's going on?