These are quite exceptionally high on my interest list as well. If anyone in the EU is a serious potential customer there are demos to be had. I’m focusing on my sources for more readily available stuff first so I haven’t done this yet, but headamp (being the only us dealer I know of that has them listed) may be able to set something up for a serious customer (though again, no promises as I haven’t reached out to him myself yet)
So I acutally go to listen to them back in october. Unfortunately they had problems that day with the wifi and I couldn’t play the things I usually listen to, but they had Marilyn Manson’s The Pale Emperor which I used to listen to a couple of years ago, not so much of a MM fan today. To be more precise the track I listend to was “Warship my wreck”.
Comparing them to my HD800S they have a very strong bass presence, not exagerated or bloated mind you, very interesting. Voices are really, really good. I really liked MM vocal performance even though the album is far from being well mastered. Highs were nice, but I was more focused on the vocals and the bass honestly, although there was sibilance with MM’s voice, but I’m pretty sure it was because of the poor mastering.
Soundstage was not as wide as HD800S and separation ddin’t blow me away, but it might be just the nature of the not so great mastering of the recording. Overall technical abilites might be better with a better mastered album, but I had so little time with them that i really can’t comment too much on them, MM isn’t really the best for evaluating these things. Dynamics were really good, I am listening to “Warship my wreck” now and the Valkyria was definitely the more dynamic headphone, especially thanks to it’s bass elevation that made them extra punchy.
One thing that I remember is that the background was far from black. I don’t know if it’s the amplifier fault but it was custom built for the headphones and i doubt that they cut corners in the amp department. Again, might be because of the poor recording.
In conclusion, even though I prefer a more neutral/slightly bright sound, I liked them, they really were “fun headphones” without having a V shaped response. I think the bass was really was something else. Never heard such a presence in the low end while not sounding bloated, it was as if it had a pretty strong elevation without touching at all the other frequencies and keeping everything in order and in its place.
Keep in mind but had so little time with them that i really cannot comment too much, also I never listened to anything above a HD800S and my setup (Ares II into a Feliks Echo) is’nt that high either, so my experience with high end headphones is basically none, take all of this with not just a grain, but a whole spoon of salt, this is far from a proper comparison since I am also going off of memory, but those are the things that I remember.
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