Higher sensitivity (efficiency), and lighter weight primarily. I auditioned both headphones at Audio46 in NYC off the Questyle M15, and thought each sounded great. The Empy2 probably had a more spacious soundstage, but both were very neutral and highly musical to my ears. In a desktop scenario...

Lots of entertaining speculation from various corners. I think I'll conserve neuron firings and just chillax until the actual announcement...... :dt880smile:

Yep, estats are well-known to lack bass impact relative to planars, although the Warwick Acoustics offerings and Sennheiser HE-1 do bridge the gap to varying degrees. Enter the new Raal 1995 cans, which combine estat resolution with bass on par with the best planars... per early user reports...

Yeah, Susvara sounds like the last word in resolution... until you listen to a top-class estat or ribbon. Given that planar drivers will probably always have more mass, it's not clear to me that they will ever quite catch up in that department. OTOH, I don't need ultimate resolution to truly...

As a former Noire owner (who upgraded to the E3 at its release), I actually prefer the Noire's bass to Stealth's. I do agree that in all other areas of the frequency response, the Stealth is superior, but I still found the Noire a more fun and involving headphone overall. The E3 is the sweet...

This new HFM flagship rumor came out of nowhere, and my curiosity is definitely piqued. I was a bit ambivalent about attending CanJam SoCal this fall, but if the reviews are enthusiastic, I may have to head down and check it out. :relaxed:

I've never heard the MDR-R10 or ATH-L5000, but of modern closed-backs, the DCA E3 is the best I've heard if you're looking for a neutral-ish tuning, à la Susvara or Utopia. And similar to Susvara, E3 needs some power to get it fully on song, so it's not ideal for portable use. In terms of cans...

No, Groucho Marx. Woody Allen later "borrowed" it...

Yes, I meant the peak at 50 Hz. I no longer own my X9000, but I did usually apply a 2-3 dB bass shelf below 100 Hz, as I routinely do with any estat. Had I done some research into the X9000's actual bass response, I clearly could have tailored a much more effective EQ, but bass wasn't the only...

Given your love of bass, I'd recommend floor-standers over bookshelf speakers... else you'll probably want to add a subwoofer or two, which takes up even more space. Also, if you plan to move around the room a lot, prioritize speakers with wide dispersion. Unless you want horns or powered...

Thanks for generating and posting that. The resonance peak (and associated roll-offs) would seem to explain why *I* found the X9000 bass to sound much more realistic and satisfying on some tracks versus others. Overall, I find Susvara's bass more accurate, consistent, and subjectively superior...

Not to keep beating a dead horse, but your hum is quite possibly due to a grounding issue (loop). You should probably unplug everything from your amp except your headphones and see if it goes away. If not, maybe plug the amp into a different outlet (and by itself) to see if that fixes it. In any...

Noise is just a small AC voltage. How does a transformer distinguish that from signal voltage?

Probably the two you reach for most often...? :relaxed:

Well, I'll let you know within a few months. :relaxed: From my limited audition time with Immanis at CanJam NYC, I can say it clearly performs on a higher technical level than Susvara. To my ears, both cans offer a balanced, organic, and coherent sonic experience, and are genre-agnostic. The...

I did detect an intermittent hissing sound in your SGL on one of the channels, but that was clearly noise, and not a signal distortion. It was also below 16 kHz, as I can't hear that high anymore. FWIW, I heard a similar sound from one of the channels of my SGL Junior shortly after I purchased...

Yes. Fantastic, based on my brief audition at CanJam NYC, and other user reports. You can search this thread for "VM-1a" for further details...

NO STAX headphone is "extremely well-built", IMO. I owned the X9000, and would give its construction about a B+ grade. The sliders are plastic, and I had to install some backing material on one side to keep the detent from slipping during normal use. The clamp force was too light for my taste...

The OP stated: "there is no sound coming from the right side". Gunk seepage may manifest as such, as it did in my case. Obviously, there are other possible causes of driver failure, but I was simply suggesting he start there. I didn't see anything posted that would rule out gunk seepage as a...

No, mine weren't stored in the box. There have been a fair number of reports of Utopia driver failure due to gunk here on Head-Fi, FYI.

I question your heat thesis, as I rarely used my Utopia after I acquired my Susvara (two years into ownership, and two years prior to failure), and I live in a temperate, moderate humidity climate (SF Bay Area). That said, heat could very well accelerate the seepage.

Meh, I loved her vocals with The Sugarcubes, but pretty much all of the solo stuff is too artsy for me... and I frequently like artsy. OTOH, she has legions of devoted fans, so who really cares what I think? LOL.

Did you check for the infamous pad gunk issue? That's what killed one of the drivers in my OG Utopia. Probably won't be cheap to fix if it's out of warranty, but you should probably confer with your dealer, and ask for leniency since they were in storage for a long time. Best of luck!

The Source AV in Torrance is a great place to audition headphones! They carry the full DCA range, as well as Focal, STAX, Meze, and several other brands.

You want to speak with Danny McKinney of Raal Requisite. Just search this thread for "Danny" or visit the R-R web site for his contact info. Immanis price is roughly $9500. It's less if you already own a transformer box and/or Star-8 cable.