This Dynaudio speaker, completely made out of Lego, will be present in all the show overviews I’m sure. Even the connectors on the back were extremely detailed. Love it.
This is basically me harassing Felix from Pro-Ject Audio (more on that tomorrow) while another reviewer (you all know him right?) was trying to get a good picture 😉
I kid you not but every single piece of FIIO (has to be in capitals now) was present at the show. I hadn’t seen the M3 myself yet as Paul did that review and it looks, well, cute.
Of course the X7 was there. The German representative had a hard time believing I was listening to AM5 already. Headfonia who?
Final Audio. For some reasons it’s one of those brands I just can’t get to like. I tried them again at the show but it just doesn’t work for me. They did have a new 3D printed IEM going for around $3000. If anyone is interested in an overly huge IEM with a unique sound, you know where to go.
All around the show in the more “neutral” areas you would very often find the excellent NAD Viso HP50. I kind of miss it.
Another brand that was all over the place was the American Grado, theur SR80i is still one of the best entry headphones.
And then there’s Hifiman, one of my favourite brands in personal audio. Fang himself was present at the show, it was the first time I met him in person but he was very kind. He let me listen to their new Supermini DAP and the Edition S headphone that is both open and closed and the combination was incredibly musical. The SuperMini should be shipping in June but we’ll be getting the S earlier
The Edition X is the headphone I am listening to right now on my Hugo + Lycan setup while making this report. Being a big fan of the HE-1000 (well amped, V281 style) the X was kind of hard to like. It does sound better with DAPs though but is nowhere near the HE-1000 level actually. Hifiman agrees.
The HE-1000 was one of the most popular headphones at the show and it seemed to be this year’s headphone everybody used to dhow off their amplifier designs. I like that.
And then there is the Shangri La that Fang brought to the show. It of course was in a private booth but I got to spend some time with it. While it doesn’t sound as refined as the new Sennheiser Orpheus, it still does sound remarkably good. I just don’t put it at the same level yet as the Senn or the Abyss. Fang did mention he doesn’t like the design and that it will be renewed
It seems a lot of people expected the SL to have a different design from the “regular” Hifiman range. I for like that they are sticking to their designs lately. The cups look oh so sexy but as you can see they’re almost as big as my wife’s head.
The design of the 300B amp that was powering the SL wasn’t that special and I would certainly recommend changing its design as the tubes aren’t even visible unless you’re looking at it from the top. There’s still some work to do Fang 🙂
Tomorrow, part 2 of the Picture report!
