The Diana seemed to reveal the limitations of Geshelli’s basic DACs and opamps. It sounded horribly compressed and forward. The mere fact that a visitor loaned the Diana and that Geshelli was promoting the comparison suggests to me that some headphone owners don’t have a clue about suitable headphone setups. While Geshelli is very respectable in the $200 to $400 price class, the don’t stand a chance against high end amps and DACs (nor even against my Bifrost 2/64).
Indeed, as long as the treble was under control. Spend $10K or $100K and it’ll sound pretty good.
I put them in my ‘niche’ category (see my post above). These were old school vented wooden box cabinets. My take was a more compact update to the ancient Klipsch open wooden boxes. They vibrated all the high range image and definition away. Intended for the nostalgia and vintage crowds IMO. Fun for a song or two, maybe.
My ‘worst of show’ on technicalities was the pro-audio inspired, adapted(?) guitar hardware from Terry Audio. They sounded abysmal when I entered the room: really heavy and thick and and just off. The creator bent down and changed the timing modes several times – they were much better than the starting mode but still more like a plastic box speaker’s timbre than anything. I took these as of interest to fashion decorators or the pro audio crowd. In the past I’ve run music through my guitar amp cabinet speaker and hated it – this was a commercial version of a similar effort.
Honorable mention for misguided demos: BlackIce for playing at 90 dB.
I’m in the broader DC area, yes. Will send a note later.
Some of the vendors listed Eggleston as a ‘carried brand’ but I don’t recall seeing a setup. I could have missed it, as I prioritized headphones. I heard quite a few QLN speakers in the general integrator/retailer booths, and they appeared to fit the default under-the-radar-quality niche (e.g., starting sub $10K).