It is fair to assume that a purpose-designed preamp is better as a preamp than a purpose-designed amplifier that is also a preamp. If you are made of money and/or intent on min-max'ing every aspect of your system, Serene + Bliss is no doubt the way to go. But for us normal folks, Bliss is...

Forza Noir Hybrid. I use Verite Silver with my Caldera, but Forza Noir Hybrid with my Utopia, to GREAT effect. You can certainly get better, fancier cables than Forza, but you can't get better value for your money, and I would put it right on par with ZMF's own cables.

I get how you might find a lot of her more modern stuff too "out there" to enjoy. Personally, I can't get enough; I think she's an artistic genius. Next year is my 50th birthday and I'm actually planning a trip to Iceland for it, in part to hopefully catch her DJing in her hometown, Reykjavic...

Staging "better" and staging "wider" are not the same thing. One is too often confused with the other. Caldera and Susvara both stage "better" than HD800S, but neither stages "wider". HD800S has an artificial widening that blows out the sound so that it is all around you, but never touching...

Fantastic review, thanks for sharing! :)

I actually don't doubt it, unless they come up with some sort of headphone tech that literally emulates a 3-d soundscape. For binaural sound, I'm not sure perfection can be improved upon.

Ok, I'll grant you that wasn't her BEST album. LOL But there is also this...... :D

Bjork is my favorite artist of all time, I've listened to this song literally thousands of times. It has SO MANY layers and textures and rhythms going simultaneously. Just now, listening to it on Susvara for the first time, a particular passage sounded "wrong" to me for a moment, until I...

Yeah, not so much anymore. ;) And 1-bedrooms start around $1M now, or $6k/month rent. And so I might as well spend my money on headphones, right? Because that condo I lust after ain't happening either way. lol 🤷‍♂️

Caldera is SO pretty. 1266 is, err well, 1266. :wink: TBD. Not enough people have one in hand yet to know for sure. But those that do have it are saying it is at least competitive.

Cough.... Caldera. Cough.... ;)

Great review. With Lampizator as a DAC I would be surprised if Aperio WASN'T better than HE-1. Question is, what happens if you feed Lampizator into HE-1's amp? :thinking:

Yeah, May takes a few months to arrive, but my Bliss arrived like 3 weeks later, too. Congrats! :)

I've always found this to be true. Soundstage width and "dynamic slam" have an inverse relationship. The bass is either right up in your face or it's pushed out slightly away from you. The dB level of the bass makes no difference to this effect (i.e. you can EQ HD800S all you want, you will...

I feel like Empy & Atrium are almost redundant in that way? Both are relaxed listens that lean in more to smoothness and euphony than resolution or detail.