They are in my opinion (ZMF) hard to justify when going in blind and on top of everything else…hand built so you are throwing a lot of money at something that 1. will take what will seem like forever to get to you, and 2. hard to demo. But the end result so far across the board well worth it! I find them almost heirloom levels of quality…they are just beautiful headphones. I have a couple issues with them, but nothing that is worth even mentioning.
I was lucky to have the opportunity thanks to the generosity and proximity to @Torq to demo his Verite…and at the time, the most I had spent on headphones was way below the asking price of the Verite…so I went with the ZMF Aeolus…but couldn’t get the Verite out of my head…Actually this is actually similar to how I came to “need” and acquire the SR1a … I need to stop hanging out with @Torq…he is bad for my wallet
Anyhow having tried @Torqs greatly influenced my ability to get around the price of them. Plus not being able to get the sound out of my head…even when compared to @Torqs Utopias. Though I still want the Utopia…but I’m not sure how much use it would get with the Verite sitting there next to the SR1a…
Build quality is not always a selling point with technology…“My genuine IBM 286 is almost heirloom quality, weighing a solid 30 pounds. Not including the green 80x25 ASCII monitor. I paid $3,000 for it and I’m gonna get my money out of it. It handles a 2400 baud modem even. They don’t make 'em like that anymore.”
Tried both, both at private demo sessions. I will preface that Estats aren’t my cup of tea. The only Estat I’ve ever owned is the Stax 003. I’ve also considered buying the KSE1200 but I’ve never heard a desktop Estat system that I really wanted to own. That’s the context of this response.
The HE1 is uninspiring. I would take the 009S with a really, really good amp (think MSB or BHSE with a bunch of upgrade tubes and whatnot) over the HE1. It doesn’t do anything that a 009/009S can’t do, there’s a tiny bit more resolution and bass extension but the staging is just as small, and compared to something like the Abyss Phi TC on a good speaker amp the presentation lacks focus and energy.
The Shangri-La does the bass presence thing best of any Estat system I’ve heard. But in a bunch of other regards I would say that it’s even worse than a cost-no-object Stax setup. Presentation is what I would call “bombastic” but also soft-ish and unfocused, density is much worse than the HE1 too. Bass extension isn’t that great either relative to the very highest end planar setups.
If I had to listen to a Estat system every day, I would probably run the 009 on the MSB Select amp (haven’t tried the 009S with this amp). I would take the Abyss TC running on a ATM300 or some big CH integrated over that setup any day of the week. And I would prefer my own SR1a setups over the Abyss.
I should add that it’s fine to subjectively prefer Estats, they do have their unique signature and won’t be as sharp or aggressive as the SR1a. But when performance is a consideration, it would seem to me that the technology is simply not enjoyed enough R&D to be competitive. Sennheiser has sold, what, a hundred sets of the HE1’s? And the Shangri-La’s decision to run on 300b’s has as much to do with the perception of the 300b being a premium tube as actual performance concerns. Look inside something like a Thrax or Airtight and every single component in there is an order of magnitude more costly than what Hifiman sees fit to use.
Stuff on the left is the source/DAC and power-amp for the SR1a. DAVE’s native headphone output will be used for sensibly-hungry conventional cans when I am in a “solid-state” mood. The stuff on the right is for every other headphone, except the SR1a, either when I need the power or want the orange-glowey-tube-goodness.
I highly doubt anything here is going to change anytime soon except the coming and going of various conventional headphones. And were it not for that potential I would, right now, be saying “… and … I’m out!”
It’s making me want to stick a Chord TToby with the Hugo M-Scaler and Hugo TT 2 that I run in the office and put a 2nd set of SR1a there. I’d just do a Vidar there, because that really does a fantastic job with the SR1a, but I like the compactness of the Chord stack.
And the smaller stack is like to be what will be accompanying me on most of my “world tour”, since I can have a single Pelican case with a custom molded insert that’ll take all three Chord pieces, the SR1a interface, headphone and cables.
Though I am going to wait until I see what Jason comes up with regarding “Weldenheim” before I do any of the above, as that’d be an even smaller and neater setup, and if it can still take the same modules as Jotunheim, it’d be MUCH smaller and lighter propostion (doesn’t even need the SR1a interface box).
makes sense. i’m certainly enjoying the hugo tt2/m-scaler/dual-vIdar flow with the sr1a. weldenheim sounds most intriguing - would simplify everything.
the sr1a has taken over and completely reconfigured all my listening preferences, explorations and experiments.
@Torq let me know that I had them on backwards for my listening session even though i had them on the right way for CanJam. So i think that says a ot about the headphones haha!
I’m considering eventually trading down to the TT2/Mscalar/TToby stack, so that when I travel I can still bring the TT2 with me and even run it on a battery pack with power delivery. I guess I still won’t feel comfortable enough to check in a TT2 even if I used a Pelican, mostly concerned about theft and loss, but the DAC itself will fit into a backpack just fine.
Weldenheim seems extremely interesting, still not something I’d take on international travel but I might be able to stick one in the office and run it off the SP1000.
That sounds sensible. Good solution if you’re not hopping around too much once you get to the destination. That said, I really wish that the TT2 kept the (however extremely limited) battery capacity of the TT, 5 hours would get through most plane rides in North America. If I manage to sell my Spectral stack, I’d get a TToby in a heartbeat.
It’s a weird complaint that the portable is not yet sufficiently upmarket, but I’d love to see a Chord or Astell & Kern take on a DMP-Z1 competitor. There were rumors that AK was going to do a $15k FPGA dap close to the Z1 form factor, but no followups yet.
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