Most Popular Items
While I was not involved in every conversation, of which there were many, all seemingly fully engaged and enthusiastic, there were, I think, four items that seemed to generate the most obvious and consistent interest:
Given the array of gear available to fiddle with, it was quite striking to see such obvious and concentrated interest in a comparatively small subset.
While I will defer to the individuals for more details and nuance, there were some common themes in the post-listening discussions for these items.
Vérité C
The Vérité C were, as far as I can ascertain, near universally enjoyed with positive comments from everyone I spoke too about them - which included multiple owners of the original Vérité as well as some who’d not heard a ZMF headphone before.
Two common themes in that commentary were, in essence, “most open sounding closed-back I’ve heard” and “these sound just like a Vérité but with isolation”.
SR1a
Opinions here were more varied … and while there was a solid locus of common, highly positive, commentary, more “issues” surfaced here for different listeners.
I’d break down the feedback into two camps … those that wanted to add a set to their collection right away, and those that like them overall, or aspects of them, but had specific reservations and/or that didn’t think they were “for them”.
While everyone commented positively on the detail, clarity and speed, some thought they were light in the bass (they were being run without any EQ to give the most realistic impression of them). Some thought they were very powerful in the bass. Some were amazed at the imaging, and some were not so impressed by the stage at all.
Some of this comes down to positioning but certainly not all.
Like most things not everything is for everyone. It’s always a bit of a challenge to listen to something unconventional at a meet, with lots of people that want to hear the same thing. Anyone that’s ever tried to audition the Abyss AB-1266 in meet conditions will know exactly what I’m talking about!
Andromeda SE Gold
I got the impression that there were favorable impressions about comfort, with the new nozzles, and that everyone pretty much agreed that the hiss problem of the classic/original Andromeda is simply not evident here.
Another common comment was that they were not as sensitive to the output impedance of the source as the originals (which were like chameleons at the best of times in this regard).
Beyond this, two camps seemed to emerge … those that thought they were too bassy and those that thought they were just right. One comparison to the Cascades indicated that Golds were heavier in the bass than those … which I regard as bass-canons.
Anole VX
I’ll have to let others comment here, I just noted the level of interest … and the fascinating discussion about relatively unknown vendors operating in the premium IEM space.