Alex uses a lot of different amps. When we were at his lab 2 years ago he had one of the Cavalli amps that he was really loving. I believe it was the Crimson but don’t quote me on that. His setup was very nice though. Looking forward to when things return to normal and we can drop by again.
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Makes sense that he/producers use different amps.
It would be cool to have a LA chapter meetup while you guys are in town, assuming schedules/circumstances permit.
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Looking forward to comparing those two after the Aeolus ships. Getting it in Cocobolo wood hopefully soon. Have had the Atticus 15 months and love them.
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As others here have mentioned, the ZMF Eikon is a great choice. Vocals and bass on these are especially sublime. But for something more budget friendly, I would seek out some E-MU Teak (with detachable cable). The mids and bass are very flattering for a broad spectrum of tastes. For a slightly bassier tilt, find your way over to some E-MU Rosewood or Ebony. Fostex TR-X00 variants will be a great substitute if you don’t find any E-MU around.
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When I have the house to myself and can really turn up the music, I find the Audeze MX-4 to be my favorite. I enjoy the strong detail retrieval and tuning for those, the soundstage isn’t too wide and being able to feel the reverb of snare drums and string plucks against my ears along with the usual bass slam is a really fun experience. They eq rather well also and find myself toggling between the profile I set and default often.
I also find myself going to the TH900 often when I need a little more noise isolation in the house and is by far the most ‘fun’ sound signature, it would be my first choice in showing off to my non-audiophile friends for a first impression wow factor. In terms of out of the box performance they are tuned perfectly for what I expect them to be and never found a benefit to EQing them, and are usually my go-to for unwinding at the end of the day.
As for enjoy-ability after modifications, the Ether CX surprised me a lot which were my daily headphone for almost half a year. I swapped the earpads for ZMF Universe lambskin (cutout is still sized perfectly for the tuning foam if you need them) which immediately improved the bass response and opened up the soundstage just enough. I found the stock pads to have a rather poor seal and were a little too soft, my ear would almost touch the driver after using them for a few months.
Then I applied a parametric EQ profile for the Ether CX off of the AutoEQ github repo and it floored me in terms of how much it improved the sound profile to my ears. The stock tuning is considered pretty neutral and dry for the CX but these headphones are capable of reaching Audeze levels of bass slam without compromising the mid range, as long as you apply enough headroom to avoid clipping. It completely changed the entire profile of the headphone and gave me a new appreciation for them.
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I find the old Rectilinear III Highboy 12 inch 3 way speakers, powered by the Wyred4Sound STI-1000 Integrated amp, and sourced from vinyl spun on my VPI Prime Scout to be my favorite. I enjoy rattling the windows and the floor, and able to feel the reverb of snare drums and string plucks at a realistic volume as if they were playing in my living room.
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