Mrspeakers Ether C Final Thoughts

Mrspeakers Ether C Final Thoughts (and some PMs answered here)

Also, refer to the following:

Mrspeakers Ether C Measurements: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/mrspeakers-ether-c-measurements.1810/
Mrspeakers Ether C General Discussion: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/mrspeakers-ether-c.341/
Mrspeakers Ether C TP Mod: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/i-fixed-the-ether-c.1820/

Executive Summary:

I can conditionally recommend the Ether C even at its outrageous ball busting price. The conditions are as follows:

1. That you use the 1.1 version.
2. That you implement the TP paper mod - one two-ply later of cheap toilet paper (Costo / Kirkland) instead of any of the supplied inserts. The stiff black pieces included with the headphone don't seem to do much. One piece does barely anything, and two pieces dulls the sound too much. The thick white piece will reduce the top end significantly, but makes everything sound dead.
3. That do you not wear glasses and ensure there is no gap at the nape of the neck. There must be a complete seal.

Things I am Going to Bitch About:

1. I would have liked to see better driver matching. This is a $1700 headphone. HiFiMan is getting good at driver matching. America must not lose this race. Still, the consistency in sound from Ether to Ether has been pretty good from what I have seen compared to some of the competition.
2. Still slightly lean sounding despite mods. Use EQ if you are smart. Or spend more money to "invest" (dollar average to zero) a warm smoothed over lush rolled off tube amp.
3. Does not scale as well as the likes of the HD800, HD650, HEK, LCD2r2 Unicorn Edition. The Ether C is only slightly better from my reference system compared to Vali 2 / Modi 2. About the same as HEX in terms of scale-ability.

Compelling Reasons:

1. Does not scale well. No need to worry about higher fidelity sources or amps (most of which probably measure worse). Easy to drive.
2. Made in the USA. Designed from the ground up. AMERICA f**k YEAH!!!
3. Supremely comfortable. The standard all other headphone manufacturers should strive toward. Seriously, I'm sick of this Dark Helmet or Cyberman headphone shit. Somewhere along the way, we all got stupid about what we were willing to put on our head for the sake of sound quality. Only one entity I want to blame for this. f**k YOU DOLPHIN!!!
4. It's a closed headphone that doesn't sound totally screwed up. There are only maybe a total of one and half other such headphones (mid-fi up) in existence.
5. Slight EQ such as a low shelf +2db at 200Hz q=1 does wonders.
6. Serious potential for mods. We have barely scratched this.

Finally, I would like to extend a thanks to Dan for allowing us to buy this headphone from him for the loaner program.

Q: Marv, what should I get, Ether or Ether C? I am worried about the Ether C being worse in technicalities compared to Ether, because you know, all close headphones are weird.

A: If you need a closed headphone, obviously Ether C. Otherwise with TP mods, the Ether C has better quality bass. The Ether (open) bass goes fart fart fart. However, the Ether (open) has better tonal response (not as lean as Ether C) and has more last octave air. On my reference system (not cheapo system), the Ether C has more low bass heft and sustain. So I would marginally prefer the Ether C. The fact that it is a closed headphone is a bonus. There is a reason why I have kept the Ether C around for such a while instead of immediately sending it off to someone else.

Q: Marv, what should I get, Ether C or LCD-X?

A: The Audeze LCD's headphones are too uncomfortable for me. The sound quality of the LCD-X isn't exceptional enough for me to torture myself with it. The Fazor models are overpriced with inferior sound quality compared to the Audeze's from the LCD2rev2 era. I haven't heard any new units recently, so I don't if Audeze has gotten their stuff together.

Q: Marv, what should I get, Ether C or LCD-XC?

A: Take the LCD-X, and then screw up the frequency response more. Then you get an LCD-XC.

 

Uh oh, @purrin has gone all soft and mushy.

 

yah, this sort of recommendation was depressing to read. especially since we/SBAF had to pay for them.
maybe he should stick to vinyl.

 

The only thing I could think of in your case if that the Ether C may not be a good match with the HA-1. Be willing to use EQ.

 

Bad synergy. HA-1 is leaner sounding - goes well with PM-1. EQ should do wonders so give that a try first. WA7+WA7tp might be a good match tonally, but could be like killing the patient with goo. Maybe Lyr 2 - more heft and slam.

 

TP is over on top of that .. Outside

 

I did play around with various permutations and ended up liking what Dan had done with 1.1 The TP is

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