FiiO FT7, Meze 105 SILVA, and more! - Munich High End 2025

I have picked up an friend. Alright, let's go. Get off. Stop it. Let go. Jesus Christ. Thank you. We just finished Munich High End 2025, the last year that this crazy high-end audio show is going to be at Munich. Yeah, next year it's going to be in Vienna. And yeah, it was a whirlwind. It's always a whirlwind. People seem to think that this would be like more low-key. Oh God, no. It was not. No. At least not in the headphone side of things. No, I mean the headphone side of things seem to be busier than ever. Busier than ever, yeah. I think it was the busiest one I've seen personally. It's four days long. It feels like 10 minutes. It's a little wild. And we saw some very wild things. Yeah. What were your sort of standout highlights, just sort of in general? In terms of highlights, stuff that's good? Yeah. Okay. Not everything is good. Not everything is good, and we'll get to that later. I think a particular highlight for me... The benches have just started sprinkling water. Is that going to stop? You can't make this up. in terms of highlights for stuff that's good and sticking to headphones specifically i think my main highlight honestly has got to be the fio ft7 the f27 was the first day that was the one that i heard where i was like this so far is the highlight of the show right and it's not that it was like the best headphone it was one that i felt was like this is like really solid for the price and it is it's just a good it's a good product it felt like it's a good thing and deserving of praise at that price point. Yeah, it was surprisingly good. I don't think we got a confirmed price for it yet. I didn't. But actually, we did listen to it in New York, and that was a prototype. So this, they had made, I believe, some changes. They told me that whatever they had here was updated from what they had done in New York. Ooh. Ooh. This sounds better than what I heard at New York. Yeah? I think, yeah. We actually measured the one in New York. And it actually measured reasonably, but there was a bit of extra spice in the treble and maybe that was something that they addressed. The way I describe it is, it's a little less mid-bass focus than the FT-1. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it sounds more detailed, it's a little bit... I don't know if I'd necessarily say more neutral. No, but it definitely has more of that, to me at least, it had more of that low-end gumption. Yes, it's got more good sub-bass, not just bass overall. And that's what I like, because I don't like too much mid bass, it just makes things sound a little bit woolly. It's just a clearer, more technical sounding headphone without doing it by just being brighter. I think for some people maybe that like 3kHz range might be a little too far forward, but it was like always on the right side of that for me, for my tracks I've listened to. Is it a sweep? Yeah. Cameron is going hardcore. Yeah, the 3K is a little spicy for me. See, the thing is, that doesn't actually give you your HRVF. No, no, I know. But I just relative to other stuff, because I do that on most stuff. So I still know that the 3K is a bit spicy for me. Don't do that and think that everything should be the same volume. It shouldn't. Yeah, for me, the 3kHz was just a touch on the high end, but nothing too bad at all. But yeah, that was a particular highlight. And if that's going to be, well, under a thousand, presumably. Solid. It's absolutely solid. Theo is crushing it lately with good releases. Yeah. - Vinyl toasters. That one's a vinyl paper shredder. The other one's a vinyl toaster. That one, there's the vinyl toaster. - Oh, that's the vinyl toaster. Okay, gotcha. - What about you? What was your main fan of headphones? - You know, it's a headphone that I had listened to before and liked, but I just, I struggled with its price point a little bit, because it's very, very expensive. The Austrian Audio Composer. They actually had some other pads, and they said the pads made a very subtle difference. - Yeah, it's like a one or two dB tilt. - Yeah. - So a little bit more bass, little less travel. - Yeah, and maybe, and they also had these little sort of like pad mounting rings for people to make it more comfortable. - So if your ears touch the material inside before, there's little spacer rings, which just move the pads a little further away so you don't get that anymore. - This is a great headphone. This is just a great sounding headphone. That, with both pads was just a solid experience again. For me, that's probably my favorite of the headphone experiences that I had at the show, because it's just sort of like a reminder, like, you know what? This is just like a generally solid, competent headphone. And my hope is that these... I want to get the new pads to test. Yes. Because I had a bit of an issue before with the upper troubles a bit much for me. Yeah. Maybe with these new pads, it might kind of, you know, bring that a little bit more in line to how I like to use it. Yeah, I mean, because for me, I've always liked the Austrian Composer a lot, and I'm working on a video for the one at the moment. But the thing is that it just had a little bit too much treble and not quite enough bass. I run it on the HM1 and I just click the bass knob up plus one. Might as well be Canadian. We're all bass heads. Yeah, I run it on the HM1, click the bass knob up one, then click the treble knob down one. And these pads basically do the same thing, basically. Right, right, right. I don't think I need to run it with EQ because I like the actual treble profile. I like the other profile of the headphone and all the more fine-grained stuff. It just needed a bit of tilt. with this it just kind of fixes it yeah and it's great and it's a well-built good-looking headphone it's it's something where i mean this is a high-end show you expect a lot of high-end stuff there but this is one of those products where it's like it it delivers on sound it delivers on comfort and it delivers on the high-end look and feel and all that stuff sometimes you get one or two of those things not all three and this delivers on all three the build with it just the like rotatable cups and everything it's great the only thing i don't like about that headphone is the connectors It's using like well proprietary connector they have made the connectors that have schematics and everything available So other people can make connectors, but there just aren't any and I kind of wish that it was using something a little more normal Because I don't like the stock cable, but other than that It's that's a solid headphone and I'm looking forward to spending a bit more time with it with the new pads What else? There were actually a lot of new headphones that I hadn't had a chance to try like the there was a new and there are prototypes as well There was a prototype from Aoun. - That's the Aoun, Aoun, Aoun, how do you pronounce it? - That's making the video. - How do you pronounce it? - Aoun, Aoun. - Aoun. - It's a headphone that ends in 9000. - Yes, a new high-end model. It had a similar kind of look to the AR5000 that everybody knows and loves. - Yeah. - But this one was, they had to stress that this was like, you know, pre-alpha, like very early on. And they, there was a prototype that still needed some development. but one of the things that they had really focused on was its bass and sub bass performance. So just overall the general sort of bass profile that it has. And they did this, to my understanding at least, acoustically. So not using any sort of analog filters or anything like that. And yeah, the bass delivered on that headphone. I was quite impressed. It's overall pretty neutral tuning. It feels like there's a slight sub bass lift, which is just the right amount. The bass is great. The bass is great on this. And by that I don't mean there's tons of it. I mean there's just the right amount of slight amount of lift. Like with a Svar or something, I always run it with a bass shelf. These I wouldn't need to. - No, that's got enough bass. Open back with enough bass. - Yes, open back with enough bass. They sound super resolving. Overall tooting is pretty neutral. It's sort of pretty HRTF-y. There's a little bit of like a 4kHz thing going on, but this is a, this is, hey. This is very much a prototype though. Like it doesn't even have the rear damping or anything. So bear in mind, this is likely to change. - Yeah, for an open back headphone, usually for folks who aren't aware, Open back headphones, it's hard to get that kind of like distinct bass and sub bass kind of sense of punch and impact. And then this one has it. So that was really cool. And as far as the rest of the tuning was concerned, it sounded mostly pleasant. I think there was maybe some something around. Oh, I said maybe between four and six kilohertz, but I don't know exactly where it is. The one thing about that headphone, which I'm not concerned about, but just hoping it doesn't change things, is they said that they hadn't done the rear damping. That's right. So the driver, like you can see it through the grill. and obviously that's going to change sound to some degree. I'm just hoping that it doesn't detract from what we heard there because honestly, for a pre-alpha headphone, it's really solid. It's really solid, yeah, and they had the, they'd moved the drivers, you know, quite far forward and angled them a lot, which is, it's interesting. I've seen this now a couple of times from a number of brands where they're kind of, they're trying to do that. I mean, obviously Axel Grell's doing this. And speaking of Axel Grell, he was there along with Yermo and they were actually outside. They had sort of a Grell soundmobile. Yeah, the soundmobile. Outside of the event. And there were a lot of people who, you know, were giving it positive feedback. You know, a lot of people were liking it. So it just, it goes to show that you actually have to try these products if you can. I mean, that one's, yeah, it's one of the headphones which is going to vary more than most others depending on whose head it's on. And so it is one of the ones where you really just have to try it. For me, it doesn't work so well, but I get what he's going for. And I'm really looking forward to Grell's next thing. I'm really hoping that he can kind of make a, you know, a true HD600 success. Well, we'll see. I mean, to me, the most, I love chatting with Axel Grell because he is so, all the things that we talk about and all the technical stuff that we get into, he knows all that stuff already. So it's like, you know, he, talking to him, it's like he's, he's like on another level and the things that he's designing for and implementing in headphones is stuff that we don't have the answers to these questions and he's trying to find them in these products which is really really cool and there's things where you talk about where it's sort of new and you know people are just kind of starting to work some of this stuff out and he goes oh yeah we did that 10 years ago and so to me the big thing with Growl and what he's doing it's there's a lot of folks who are tuning things by ear there are a lot of folks who are just like hey does it sound good to me right? Grell is much more theory concept based, you know, like finding a concept and saying, okay, let's try this concept. And, you know, however it's designed, nailing that concept and seeing if people like it. So yeah, that's why, yeah, you got to try it if you can. Mese Audio over there, they had another new headphone. 105 Silva. It should be around the, you know, between 500 and $600, something like that. And we both actually quite liked it. Yeah, I mean, I like it more than the 109 Pro. It's not quite as detailed as the 109 Pro, mostly because it does tame some of the kind of treble forwardness that the 109 Pro had to great benefit. Yes. It's like smoother. It sounds a little less detailed or crispy, but at the same time, that's not in a bad way. It's not a trade-off. No, I think that one was kind of a little in your face with it. And that one stopped that. It's a bit, yeah, like, yeah, it stopped that, basically. - And it feels like a lot of the lower end stuff is a little bit more even overall as well, potentially. - Yeah, the whole thing seemed more smooth. I mean, like the things that people didn't like about the 109 Pro, that's not there on this. It's a smoother kind of presentation. - Yeah, exactly. Like it's not a smooth headphone, it's just quite a bit smoother than the one here. - It's smoother, yeah. - Because the 109 Pro was not smooth. - Yes. that maybe like i don't know you say like grittiness or something yes yeah that's not there uh but also it did have they they're positioning as as kind of like in between the 105 aer and the 109 pro and i think that's basically what it is yeah i still personally prefer the one and i pro because i it does have a little bit more sense of detail for me um i just was never quite able to eq the 109 pro i know what you mean i know what you mean there's like this little little thing of of of grittiness there in the trouble. - Yeah, and it's hard to get around. But yeah, I think that one's gonna be interesting because it is cheaper than the 109 Pro. - Yes. - And I do think there's gonna be a bit of a split in terms of people preferring the 109 Pro or the new 105 Silver. - Yes, yeah. It's a beautiful looking headphone too. - Looks gorgeous. And I'll tell you what else was really gorgeous is the headphone stand, but rather than putting the headphone on a stand, it's like firmer, you know, movable wires with 3.5 mil connectors. So you just plug the 3.5 mil connectors into your headphone and it rests on the... great idea. Why did no one think of that? It's always fun to talk to the guys at Mezze and and they're great. I just also really appreciate their design philosophy. They're one of the few companies that again you're if you're buying a high-end product say what you will about the sound quality you they absolutely deliver on comfort and aesthetics, build quality, all those other things to do. It's one of the few brands I would say honestly that actually nails the luxury aspect of high-end audio. There's a lot of stuff which is expensive and may sound fantastic but still looks a little bit like a science project or something that you wouldn't want to be wearing out in public whereas mezze stuff is just built wonderfully looks gorgeous it's classy it's classy that's a good way it's classy yeah and the other thing i love talking with the mezze guys the other thing is if ever you go to a can jam munich anything like that and uh you're not sure where to eat ask me uh antonio mezze if if you go to a restaurant and you see antonio meze that you know it's gonna be good it's good yeah this is my wonton soup it's the best mushroom That was a really good mushroom. Why is it a mushroom? It was one mushroom! We didn't plan this, but if this man, Antonio Meze, is here, then you're gonna have a good time. It's great because your head is just unobstructed. There's a bunch of audiophiles, go to Munich and just admire listening furniture. Sounds about right. Can confirm. Moondrop was there. They had a number of new releases. They had a Para 2, which sounded better than the original Para. Notably better, I thought. Better bass. They also had a headphone, I forget the name of it right now, but it's the replacement to the Void, I believe, and much better than the Void. So they have an entry-level model there. I believe it should be under $100. Okay. Well, we'll double check. But yeah, it's entry-level into their open back line. It's a dynamic driver headphone and yeah, considerably better than the Void. For folks on a budget, that might be one to consider. I'm actually quite keen to get the Para 2 in for review if I can, because a lot of folks will be interested in that as well. and the Peril 1, it was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Like they did some things well, but I did find it a little bit on the shouty side. This one, I don't quite get that. I do get a couple of things into trouble that are maybe not quite for me, but yeah, certainly I think this is a better, this is not great. - Everything being bigger at Munich, if you've been to a Cangem recently, you may have seen the Warwick Acoustics soundproof pod with the Imperios in it. And at Munich, there's a sound isolated room and we have the Imperio Golden Sound Edition there. - Did you use Isoacoustics isolators for the Imperios? I couldn't bring the stack of ISO acoustics isolators, so it sounded terrible. I used a set of ISO acoustics isolators to isolate the isolators that were isolating from the isolators that were isolating from the desk. That was really fun to have there and people seemed to really like it, so thanks for everyone who tried that. A lot of people came into that room and were sort of going side by side with the original GSC, so yeah, that was cool stuff. We did get a chance to try out the Odyssey Closed-backed S20. S20? S20 I think it was. And yeah, it was okay, I guess. That's kind of where I ended up. It had a bit of that sort of honk at around 2kHz, honking down the mid-range. And it's kind of, it's so weird because like Odyssey for the longest time, they had these products that didn't really have much ear gain. And now it's like they have kind of too much ear gain or like in the wrong spot. Yeah, it's just, it's shaped wrong. Yeah, the base I thought was solid. The base was solid, yeah. And it was more comfortable than I thought it would be. The build overall was really nice. It's a very premium looking headphone with a fabric outside and stuff. Yeah, yeah. It looked and felt great, but the sound for me was a bit of a mixed bag. But here's the thing. I actually like the sound of it better than the Carbon 2. The Carbon 2, I don't know what's going on with that one. Like every time I've tried it. It sounds different every time I've tried it. Yeah, but also not good. I don't know what's going on with it. Yeah, it's somehow like warm, but also kind of sharp in the treble. but also then like it's a bit honky in the wrong place. - As you said, they fixed the fart. - They fixed the fart from the car. - It's nice when your headphones don't fart. But as far as the sound is concerned, it just, it was one of those things I couldn't really pinpoint what it was that I didn't like because there were so many things that I didn't like. - No, to be honest. - It just... Yeah. But this is one that just sounded far enough from neutral to me that I was like, I don't know where to begin with what's weird about this. Because I heard it at a CanJam, and it was on a really warm-sounding energizer. Like a tube-based one. Okay. And that one, I liked the sound of it more, because the treble stuff wasn't quite as problematic. Yeah. But also then it just was like, this doesn't have anywhere near the kind of technical performance you would want if you're getting an E-stat. Whereas here it kind of did, but then it was wonky in a bunch of other ways. I'm unfortunately just not a fan of that one. Which is a shame because there kind of needs to be more good e-stats. Like there's not enough of them. And I do know people like the original. Like the original was one of the people. No, let's think. I like the original Carbon quite a bit more than this one. Yeah, I did enjoy the original one. It just farted a lot when you moved it. There's trade-offs. Speaking of Dan Clark. The Noir XO. Yeah, the Noir XO. Kuhnback Noir, where basically they've really shot after this sort of new interpretation of the Harmon target based on the 5 and 2.8. So they're transposing of Harmon from Gross to 5 and 2.8. This one has upper treble. It does, has upper treble. So much of this for me when I get to go to these shows and chat with folks like Dan, it's about discussing the concepts and targets and methodologies and all this kind of stuff. And he's got a very particular approach to this. And I'd love to chat with him further about it because I think it's like there's so much there. Plus getting into the history of like Harman coming from the wealthy Pina and going to the Gros. And people using it incorrectly on the Gros and now going to the 528. So it's like this is just fun for me. But as far as the headphones are actually concerned, like how they sound, it's not like other DCAs. No. That's fantastic. I think that's my favorite DCA I've heard. Yeah, mine too. Yeah, hands down. Not even really close. I like that a lot more than The Expanse. Yes. It's a lot more detailed. It's a lot more detailed. The problem I had with a lot of them is that the upper treble just was not there. And these feel more punchy as well. They got that base. They got that base. You know, it's probably one of my favorite DCAs. It sounded fantastic to me. Yeah. And I think a big part of the reason actually, for me specifically, is that it fits me better. The way- - It was good. - Yeah, the fit, the pads are slightly different shape, it's a slightly different material, and I just get much better of a seal. Whereas with the Stealth, for example, they're very sensitive to leakage. And so if you don't get a proper seal, a lot of the base falls away. And for me, I had to kind of hold them on my head if I wanted to get that. Whereas with this one, it just works. It's great. Really comfortable overall. In fact, I'd say this one's probably just generally quite a bit more comfortable than a lot of other ones. that any of the headphones were uncomfortable but the overall sounds was just really well balanced really technical sort of dynamics and punchiness and the low end was fantastic i do agree with dms that i think that whether or not somebody's gonna like this is going to come down to how they hear the upper treble yes that's the contentious part with dan's headphones if you don't like the the sort of extra upper treble that he's got with this headphone he's got other headphones that will suit the yeah he has different different flavors available yeah and that that's good stuff Yeah. But there's this one. It sounded more detailed. It did sound more detailed. Probably because it has more. Because it has more. Plus you do get the sub bass boost, which is a rare thing. Yeah. In an open back. In an open back. So yeah, I think a lot of people might, when I listen to it, I was like, a lot of people are going to like that. Yeah, the bass profile in particular is great. Particularly for an open back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really, really like that. It's a lot of fun. And more headphones need to do this kind of thing. Yeah. I think, you know, it's like. Stop, stop just bumping up like mid-bass. Yeah. Sub bass. Let's see what happens when we can do that kind of sub-base thing. Somewhere I can hear a listener dying inside. That's because of the upper treble. As far as other products are concerned, was there anything else in the headphone side of things that you heard that made you go, that made you interested? Well, interested but disappointed, KOS. Turns out KOS has a new headphone. It was not, like, announced. It wasn't, sort of, really known until someone stumbled across it at a completely random booth selling some vinyl stuff, I think. It was plugged into an R2R, like a reel-to-reel machine. It looks fantastic. I really like the aesthetics of it. - Yeah. - And then it does feel pretty cheap, and it sounds very, very dull and muted, unfortunately. It's like there's just no ear game to it. - It was a blunty boy. - Yeah. - Not a fan of that headphone. It was comfortable. - Yeah, it was comfortable. - Not an on-ear, so that's a plus. - Yep. Over ear headphone. Yeah, just the sound was not special. - I mean, it's not offensive. It's just not good. - No, that's because there's not much there. - Yeah. - It's just like unseasoned flavored porridge. - Yes, but no, 'cause I like unseasoned porridge. - Of course you do. - Yeah, I was a little disappointed because I was kind of hoping that that could be like a surprise grapevine and it just kind of wasn't. - Speaking of reel to reel stations, once again, one of my favorite experiences of the show was checking out that Perun headphone. - Yeah. - The Perun E-Stat. They have it set up at a, there's a, well it's not a record store, it's a reel to reel store. - Zavalinka records. - Zavalinka records. - Yeah. And so they have this reel to reel system that with the Perun plugged in on a Blue Hawaii. And then they also had Stax. - Yeah, they had a Blue Hawaii SE with the original Peruns. Stax L700 Mark II, which is nice, 'cause then you got another E-Stat to directly compare to these Purins. The original Purins, those are great. - They're great. - They are fantastic. I really, really like those. - Yes. - This is... Transported into another dimension again. You know, it's that kind of thing. There's some, it has that sort of, it's that music enhancement device. - Right. - Better than the Stax, I thought. - A lot better than the Stax. I really liked those a lot more than the Stax. And then the new Puruns, unfortunately, not as much. - The headband is implied. - Yeah, the new Puruns, I mean, yes, there's more mid-range and there's less treble, but for whatever reason, that didn't work for them. - No. - Almost like removing the treble revealed some problems. - I don't even think it's that. I think it's just that the overall sound changed significantly. The timbre of things was kind of just gone. It had a bit of an etchy sort of thing to it. - But it looked maybe like it's still, I don't know if that's a full version or if it's a port type or what. But yeah, the original, solid. The new one, maybe not quite. Brune, if you're watching, the original, solid. Yeah, please keep making that because I actually kind of want to get a pair of those. Great. Fantastic hitters. Ferrum. Ferrum's got a new streaming control thing for the Wanderer, which is interesting because sometimes if you're using a network streamer, you can have the song show up on the device and you can control playback and stuff. Whereas this, if your DAX is just connected to your PC, be it Windows, Mac OS, Linux, or Volumio. It'll show all the playback information. You can control stuff, even on things like YouTube. So even if you're using Rune, Spotify, YouTube, whatever, you can just control all of that and see all the details with the remote and everything. And it's just a nice quality of life thing. It's a free upgrade. It's just the next firmware update that's coming for the device. That was cool. I liked that a lot. Speaking of source equipment, Michael Zale was there. Michael Zale was there. And all the, I think the DCA headphones were hooked up. Yeah, all the DCA stuff was running on the HM1 and H1. And obviously I've reviewed the H1 recently and I use the HM1 as my main amp. But what I was quite excited by was actually one of his pro audio devices, which he had. So cool. Which was the EQ one. So cool. Yeah, it's a sort of 500 series module, but they built a sort of desk unit for it, like shelf enclosure thing. Yeah, it's an analog EQ thing. You can adjust frequency, cue, gain, there's different selectable ranges and things. The only issue with it for people that aren't super familiar with EQ is there's no visualization or anything, but just to have-- - Maybe something you can put in at some point. - Yeah. - 'Cause it's not, this doesn't exist in the HM1 line or anything like that. - No, no. - It's just, he had that there, right? - No, it's a by ear thing, but having that level of flexibility and analog EQ and Michael Zayle's stuff is super transparent in terms of the amount of distortion and the lack thereof that it adds. I think like a hyper sophisticated lokius. - Yes. - You know, something like that is sort of what it was. - Yes, that's exactly what it is. You can adjust the exact frequency you want to adjust and there's like five or six bands I think. You can do shell filters, you can do peak filters, you can adjust the queue, you can adjust the amount. You can just do all the normal things that you would do with the digital EQ, but it's all just analog and it's great. - And that's the kind of thing that I want to see more of in the amplifier world, right? Or whether or we're talking DAX, like EQ functionality as well. - Yeah, I mean that's a pretty complex device. I think the actual thing itself is 1500 or something. So it's not the kind of thing which you can just easily implement. But if you have the budget, you want to be able to EQ stuff, that's really cool. And I'm definitely going to try and check that out because that I was using it and I was trying it with, yeah, I think it was the XO. And like, you know, just, I want to add a soundstage dip. So just two kilohertz, Q of one or something, take it down a little bit and just, ah! It's just being able to just do that on the fly is great. I love it. - Were there any other amp stacks? I mean, this is more your world than mine. I don't play in that world. The DAC-man? The Felix Bliss. Oh, right. It's a crazy looking thing. Yeah, it really was crazy. Unfortunately, on day one, the DAC that they had running into it was too high in output voltage, so it was clipping it a lot. So I did point that out, and then once that was fixed, it sounded really good. They actually did have it here last year, and we got a sneak peek of it whilst we were at Felix's place last year too. was it was still in a metal box and anything and now it looks very pretty i like the aesthetics of it a lot yeah with the shangri-la senior it sounded great and it's probably one of the better things i've heard the x9000 on i haven't really spent much time with the x9000 or shangri-la senior hard to have a reference it's hard to have a reference yeah but i did did like what i hear it's the thing that's tricky with that is these stats get into a bit of a different world where just everything's so expensive i think i think that bliss is going to be nearly 20k so it's that plus an x9000 or something you're looking at you know 25 grand and it's i i can't afford that so it's it's and there's just not that much in terms of uh yeah what the hell to compare it to but it was nice to listen to yeah i just don't really do source code the shows there's just no point that's what that's that's the problem right like these shows are actually kind of a bit loud so you it's a it's difficult to do you know comparisons especially with open back headphones Well, with Open Back Heaven's old speakers, like, because like, we go to these shows and people message me saying like, oh, you know, did you try this DAC? And what do you think of it? It's like, well, yeah, I tried it, but I can't, I can't tell anything because I've never heard those speakers before. Or even if I have heard those speakers, I haven't heard them in that room. Unless you're A-B-ing something, which there are some rooms that do that, you know, they'll swap it, but it's usually one of their own products or one of their own other products. Unless you are A-B-ing something, I don't know how the hell to try and interpret something. Even with the speakers, again, it's a case of, I've never heard that run before. So it's a little tough to say. The ones that always get me are stuff that is a little bit even more snake oily, where it's like people are like, check out how this cable sounds, right? And it's like, that's one thing. But then even if it did make a difference, how the hell could anybody tell in these environments? It's ridiculous to me that this is something that people seem to care about. But they do. If you wire up like your microwave and stuff with something like this, then when you like reheat food and stuff, the meat's more tender. You can taste every grain of rice. Will the microwave sound better? The ding has like a better, yeah, more detail to it. That's what we want. Yeah, that's what we care about. Yeah, trying to do it at shows. Wild. I'm not, I'm not. I'm trying to be diplomatic. Don't be diplomatic. It's hard. Say it. Like, if you're trying to judge cables at shows, yeah, I'd... Stop. Please stop. Yeah. Or just know that they don't make a difference. Oh, no, they sent the German engineers into the mines. Oh, right, into the mines. Yeah, it's all approved. I keep forgetting about the mines. Complexity of production and technology is insane. German engineers search for the best copper ore in mines worldwide. Deliver it to a precision plant in... What? Oh. Klaus Heinz. Oh yeah! Klaus Heinz of Head Audio and Adam has a new brand. They have a new high-end planar magnetic headphone that uses a pure silver membrane, I believe. I think so. And it sounded pretty good. Like it was... It's one I want to get in and actually test a little bit more. It's not finished, it was a prototype again, but that's one where I think it can compete with, you know, the other stuff that's in, you know, like the high-end planar world. I think the treble profile on it may have fit me a little bit better than it did you. But the cool thing about it was he had a BNK 528, the whole thing at the booth. - And he had all the measurements and everything. - And he was doing the measurements there. But obviously it didn't use the same sort of like baselines that we do, right? But for anybody who's used that system, you know how things kind of measure on it. And so I was looking at the measurements, yeah, that's gonna be one that people like, I think. - I really, really liked that headphone. I know it's really solid. The only thing for me, I think there was something around 4K-ish, which I would take down a little bit. Honestly, besides that, really, really solid. - Really solid. I'm really looking forward to checking out the final thing because it's very comfortable. I think that just with it's very much a prototype, but I think the build may be something which people are... Well, yeah, it's hard to know what the actual build is. Yeah, we don't know what the final thing is going to be like. I mean, for the price that was stated, which we probably shouldn't say, I think the build quality could do with maybe being just a little bit more luxury, I guess. But in terms of sound, I like that more than the vast majority of other stuff in the show. Yeah, that was one of the highlights for sure. And also just, to me, the big thing is like when you get to go and chat with folks who have that sort of like technical expertise and they're doing things like measuring on, you know, industry standard test equipment and they're showing it. It's like they're proud of whatever the measurement result is. That's always encouraging to me because it shows how much they're focused on, you know, like getting things precise and getting things right and following a methodology, right? That's the key thing for me. Klaus Heinz is a fantastic and really, really interesting guy as well. Some of the history and stuff. I mean, the AMT, the air motion transformer, and the guy that Klaus Heinz worked with. Oscar Heil. Yeah, Oscar Heil. That's also the guy that invented the field effect transistor, the FET, which is what's powering the device that you're watching this on right now at most of the modern world. And Klaus Heinz has... How long has he been in this industry? I don't know, but he's a legend. I mean, it's... People like Klaus, people like Axel, people you know this there were there were legends at this show the guy who invented mp3 was at the show was he yeah yeah he was at the he was at the same booth at when we were talking to klaus heinz damn he was right right next to him yes there's a ton of craziness there but there's also like a ton of legends who go to these shows and it's great to connect with them and it's also great to connect with some of the other people in our our community oh yeah i just to hang out with zeos that's always great fun we uh we did a bit of a fun challenge where we went around the show trying find the most expensive item we split up into teams and the most snake oily item which uh go watch this video i think i think you won that one do you feel god no he's in the room right now it's because of that it traps spirit the soul is here because i love feeling of that i mean they're nice looking with blocks i don't know what what do they do i don't know how what is the like What is the price of the big powers of mine? I don't even dare to say. Outside of the show as well, getting the chance to hang out with everyone was a lot of good fun. The Zeus, Joe came over from the US which was awesome. So the original Zeta had to have a soft top because if you rear-ended someone you had to be able to get out of the car. I wonder if it's the same reason. The Warwick guys are always great fun to come out with too. Yeah, and it was my birthday yesterday. So happy birthday to Cameron. Wish him happy birthday in the comments feel old now I can't even hear over 20. Oh, yes anymore. You can actually do the ABX testing. Yeah, he'll be 15. Kilo. That's the best Immediate yeah, it immediately switches off right? Yeah, yeah, that's turns off But at least now you can enjoy more headphones, okay? So your next headphone it's gonna be a flagship top of the line like we're talking $3,000, okay, you're gonna call it Formula one. And in purple color, huh? Then you can have a line, you can have Formula 2 as like one step down. He looks thrilled. Put the golf lever on it and get sued. I'm banning you from my website. But of course, we're the headphone guys, but speakers are kind of really what Munich is about. Even though the headphone side of things is just getting, again, bigger every year. and I'm quite curious to see how things go once we go over to Vienna. But, speakers. Oh my gosh. There was a lot of speakers. Oh my gosh. There were some very good speakers and some very bad speakers. Yeah. So, for me, the big highlight was, of course, the Genelec room. Yeah. There were other rooms that sounded good or like, I described this earlier, but there were rooms where you'd go to those rooms, you'd listen to the speaker setups, and you'd be like, okay, this sounds good, or there's something, you know, unique about the sound that you're getting from a set of speakers. And you think, okay, there's something cool there. And then you go to the Genelec room and you realize, no, that was just bad. Oh, this is just right now. Yeah. When you go to the Genelec room, things just sound correct. And everything else that you'd heard before, you're like, okay, that's just not quite right. And sometimes people do want something a little quirky. And some of the colorations that can make things more fun, more enjoyable. That's totally valid. And I don't necessarily know that I would use Genelecs for my own personal listening. Oh, I would. Yeah, I know you would. To hell with everything else. It's like the timbre king of speakers. That's how I would describe it. I like my focals quite a lot. Oh, yeah. There you go. But at the same time, for what they're for, for actual professional environments and for getting a genuine reference point, that's it. That's it. That's just it. And it's not just the speakers themselves. There's a lot of things about the speakers themselves. the not just coaxial design but the way that they put the low frequency drivers behind the baffle to reduce intermodulation distortion things like this it's that that's brilliant but what I really love is their approach to room correction and how important that is addressing the acoustic environment that you're listening to your speakers in because one of the biggest things about these shows is that the rooms that you go into which are using room correction to me every single time doesn't matter what speakers they're actually using they all sound better than the roms that are not If you're using a high-end system and you're not using room correction, you're missing out on a good chunk of performance in your system. And this is the crazy thing. It's like for all of this high-end stuff that's there, people are overly focused on the devices, right? You buy a high-end fancy thing. Not necessarily focusing on how to get the most out of those devices. With headphones, we talked about this at length. It's things like EQ. It's things like the Zale knob, you know, thing. Or even analog filters for the ones that have the XO and stuff like that. With speakers, it's things like room correction. And room treatment. Room treatment. The number of times you see people with two million dollar systems and no room treatment. Just like glass panels. And it's like, oh no. Because in my room... Hey, you can just put more acoustic stickers on them. Oh my god, there's two. Oh! I don't even see those! I don't even see them. Oh, I feel it. I feel it. Okay, it sounds so good. Yeah, like, you know, when I was doing the room treatment video and stuff, and since then, because I've experimented with just trying to get my room as dialed in as I can, like, I would hands down take my cheaper, which is still great, but like, just much lower than like, Triangle Borea BR-08s in my room with treatment, then like, Focal Sopra number 3s with no treatment. Like, it's not even close. Your room has such a massive impact on sound, not just in terms of the treatment, but also the setup and positioning. And that's another thing where there were certain rooms like the the audio quest room Never mind what you think about the cables. They always set up their room well And the speakers are more modest like they're not these yeah, they don't use crazy speakers They just put like decent reasonable speakers in there set it up Well with just a little bit of treatment and stuff and it always sounds better than most of the crazy esoteric rooms We did also get a chance to try the JBL summit series with the JBL Summit series, which is this flagship speaker that they had. I quite liked it. I did quite like it too. The thing is that for me, I don't think I've ever heard a horn-based speaker, horn-loaded speaker of any type that I... There wasn't something that just bugged me a little bit. There was just a little something in the treble that was just a little bit aggressive to me. But everything below like 5K was great. Fantastic. Really, really good. Some of the best mid-range I've ever heard. Yes. And it was also kind of interesting because like the just the lower range in that room, both given the size of it, which is pretty substantial, and the fact that they were quite close to the wall sounded great. It did. So if you're going to be listening to Fetty Wap, what you really need is a bunch of these. These, as a good friend would say. These. You put five of them in your car and then it'll finally sound okay. Fetty Wap on the JBL speaker never sounded so good. I was gonna say, they were also playing music that did kind of like span the full frequency range, right? So you get a chance to actually hear what it could do. A lot of these other rooms, they're playing like, I mean, disregard what you think about like different music tastes, but some of the music is just like, you're only gonna get content in one band. One guy in a really low voice speaking like this, just in the middle, that's it. That's the only thing you can hear. No percussion, no, you know. Just one stringed instrument. Yeah. Well, okay, that sounds all right. That particular violin sounds fine. Can we try a few other things? Yeah. Yeah, you go into some rooms and they're playing proper music, but the stereotype about every other room being Diana Kroll. It's the same for you Diana Kroll song. We did hear a few of that. Hey, when they played the Diana Kroll song, I was like, hey, she's from my neck of the woods. I'm not bashing Diana Kroll. That's more just saying it's like every room, every room is the same couple songs. I'm kind of curious after a can jam or something, the Warwick one, I'll set Runa, and I'm going to make a list of every single song that people play. Yeah. And compile a list, you know, based on how many times they get played as well, of what are the top 10 audiophile test tracks. I kind of be curious to work that out. Yeah. And then we can judge them and shame them. Well, yes. But also I think that what you let people play is going to be very different to what brands choose to play. Oh, for sure. Yeah. So I'd be curious to see what do people actually want to hear when they go and test that. For the rest of the speaker stuff, there was absolutely all the craziness, esoteric nonsense. Madness. It was a $7 million or $9 million, which we found just after we did the challenge. So we all lost, technically. Well, that's the one we were actually looking for. Yes. Oh, okay. You were looking for it? We knew that it existed. We were looking for it. You should know it was. It was like out in a separate room because they were huge and needed a hole. Yeah. The acapella hyperspheres. Yeah. Good lord. It looked a little bit like a butt. Just putting that out there. Sort of the big butt speaker. I mean, they didn't sound bad. Okay, this is the thing. They didn't sound bad. I wouldn't pay €7 million for them. Okay, they didn't sound bad, but I can think of setups under $2,000 that would sound bad. under a thousand dollars it's not better yeah you know so like really i feel like you're paying for they're paying to flex and to have the biggest horn golden speaker and you're paying you're paying to buy something that looks like a butt whatever crazy room that you have at least with the uh the dragon the oh yeah crazy hormone which we we didn't actually go to see this yeah because it's we've seen it like at least with that one you know you you invite someone over to your house and and they go, what the hell is that? I mean, there were some crazy esoteric, but also kind of good ones. This brand, which was one of the few horn speakers that I actually kind of liked. Yeah, I mean, I liked it for the first track they played, and then they started playing some stuff where I was like... Oh, yeah, it's not perfect, but it's a horn loaded for the lower frequency driver and then a coaxial offset tweeter. It was a cool design. It was a cool design. I will say it sounded better than most other horn. I was impressed that it had good low end or better low end. It did have good low end. So that one was really interesting. It was a lot better than what I expected. Yeah. And the first song especially sounded really, really good. What surprised me was that you look at it and go, okay, that's going to sound terrible. And then you sit down and go, oh, it doesn't. There was some unique relationship for the ear gain that was very clearly like there were some dips and then peaks and things like that. But not necessarily in an unpleasant way. all the time. Sometimes. But sometimes when it worked, it like really worked, it was weird. Okay, what was one of your favorite speakers aside from Chen, like in terms of stuff that like, just actually, yeah, really enjoyed the sound. Actually, I did like the, whatever they had set up in the AudioQuest room. But again, it's like, it's probably just because the room is set up. I mean, the room was set up well, but also just, I mean, I was trying to listen to stuff that would have been the speakers, you know, particularly narrow frequency stuff. And it's, yeah, those speakers are actually really solid. Yeah. So I need to find out what those were because it was pretty good Cable risers do all the things for that thing is after you all the time. It really is One that I was actually particularly interested in because of the technology behind it So there's this thing called back DSP which is coming out of uh Basically, it's not just room correction, you know, changing the frequency response and stuff. The full fat version of it, you have head tracking, so you use a camera, and you use some in-ear mics so that it does stuff specific to your own HRTF, and it not only corrects for frequency domain issues in terms of room correction, it also does cancellation, so it can cancel what is coming from the left speaker for when it arrives to your right ear. It can do reflection cancellation stuff. It's really, really cool tech. and there was a soundbar that was using a kind of slimmed down version of backdsp they unfortunately didn't want to use the camera for aesthetic reasons which i kind of get but also it meant that there was a very small sweet spot like that's the one thing yeah moving from you know the chair behind the sweet spot to the chair in front but the cool thing with this soundbar is that you know you sit in sweet spot and like you can you can have stuff coming from your left it really did sound like that yeah it was a weird it's throws your brain off a little it really does because there's a sound bar you know six eight feet in front of you and there's stuff coming from other directions not just in like they're throwing it off and trying to reflect sound like some soundbars okay yeah it's no like you have bass coming from your left and also like when you're listening to music like the the song money from pink floyd they played that one and there's the intro part to that where there's like different sounds being played yeah and they're coming from different places it made my brain go weird it yeah it's a very strange experience so that was pretty cool and they did say that you can add the camera so you can do the head tracking and have the back DSP stuff work quite a bit better. That was just one of the most sort of innovative things as we saw the show and I thought that was really interesting. So the other cool thing speaking of tech yeah was the area in the back section of the head zone which is international parts and supply. More of an OEM kind of stuff. The coolest subwoofer that I've ever come across GSS. GSS. GSS yeah they had a a really small, flat and narrow little box that had a crazy subwoofer in it. Yeah, it's an ovoid almost, with a really strange membrane design. Their whole thing is to try and get all of the base out of the thing. Yeah, to have compact devices. And they had a number of different sets you could put on the wall. It's the kind of thing for, if you don't have a lot of space, you have a small apartment, this is the kind of thing, you know, a speaker with something like this in it would be what you want. - Yeah, well they had on-wall speakers. I think they said like, you know, for car audio stuff, for anything where you need something compact, like more like the on-wall stuff, but also I mean, soundbars potentially as well. - Yeah. - I remember seeing that and being like, I want one of these in my house. - Yeah, genuinely a great subwoofer. That setup, they were using some Neumann monitors as well. - Yeah. - That setup sounded great. - The setup sounded better than most of the rooms upstairs. And there was this tiny little, you know, But just getting not just that much space, but that quality of space. Like it was super tight, super punchy, not even in a room, out of tiny little thing. And the excursion amounts wild. That was really cool. - Speaking of excursion. - Yeah. - So we should talk about that. - Yeah. We'll put the name of the brand up on the screen here, but there's a company that makes coaxial drivers. They are coaxial. - They are technically coaxial-ish drivers. - For headphones, they had a demo of some headphones, they don't make headphones, so they were saying this is just like a prototype, that really they focus on the drivers. It sounded surprisingly good for just like a little-- - Yeah, it was a pretty good demo headphone, like nothing. - For somebody who doesn't make headphones. - Yeah, they did a pretty good job. - Did a reasonable job. And they had some 3D printed baffle stuff. - Oh my God, the bass, not in the way that you're thinking. - The bass is unlike anything you've ever heard in headphones. - No, it's unlike anything you've ever felt in headphones. Nobody has heard bass like, or felt bass like this in headphones. It's bass in headphones with an actual subwoofer feeling. Yes. Dude, every time the bass hits, it's so fun. It's so fun. It's not that the actual sound of bass, they've not just put an ATV shell phone. It's not like massive bass tone. No, it doesn't sound like you've got too much bass. It feels like you've got probably bass. Literally shaking my head. Yeah, it is wild. Vibrating your face. To the point where you know, they they built this demo and they said okay So you can't actually turn it up too loud because it turns out that in this particular chassis that they put it in if you turn it up to kind of moderate volumes the low frequency bit of this driver will just hit the The actual girl yeah mess with little destroy the yeah Because the excursion amount is huge you can you feel it I know you know Skullcandy or something did something with a like pads that vibrate it and that was not great This was genuinely worked. It was really really cool and I really want to try and do something with those drivers So they they let us have some sample drivers So I will be seeing what I could put that in and we'll maybe do some videos on that to see if it works The thing is it's very difficult to tell how the rest of it's actually going to perform. You can see the driver They showed us the driver performance in free air and it kind of had like two resonance frequencies, which is yeah Well, it's sort of two drivers. Yeah, but it's the fact that in free air it had sub bass In free air it had sub-base, which you never see. Yeah, like, okay, for those who aren't aware, normally when you completely unseal a headphone, measure it just... Measure the driver. Measure the driver, sorry, in free air, this is the kind of response that you would get. So there's a big peak at the resonance frequency and then it just completely falls away, you don't get lower. And then it just was like, it had a resonance frequency, and then there was sub-base. There's also sub-base, yeah. So when you instantiate that into a headphone, yeah, in this case it was a closed-back, you get that extra extra driver yeah punch yeah um so i'm very curious to see what i can do with with this in an open back design right because again it's like in free air getting the sub bass and imagine what it's like in an instant sheet in a proper headphone design so just wild it's yeah that was wild stuff i'm i'm i'm looking forward to seeing what you do with that yeah i want i that that's the first time i'm like i want to try do something yes as well there was so much it's it's one of those shows where even if you go for all four days, you can't see everything. It's just not possible. And then we spend a lot of time talking to you guys. We feel like we only get to see a small percentage of it. This wasp is really going for me. Shout out to MindTheHeadphone, by the way. He's a YouTuber in Brazil who came up and said hi. And lots of other people who are doing content creation and covering the show as well. YouTube videos. So it was great to hang out with everybody. And also all the folks who came up to us and said hi from the community. Yeah, there was a lot of you guys there, which was awesome. I feel like there was a lot more than last year, which is nice. And this is the one show, if you are thinking about going to an audio show and you're not sure which one to go to or anything like that, or if you can go to this and you're debating it, this is the one show that you should go to. Well, Vienna. Vienna next year, yeah. But it's incredible. There is so much stuff from the amazing to the terrible to the crazy good, crazy bad, the massively expensive to the super budget stuff. Yeah, Sennheiser was there demoing their HD 550. Sennheiser was there, Tompkins there, Moondrop's there. Yeah, it's got everything. And it's also, for speakers in particular, it's one of the few shows where things are actually set up in good rooms. I just kind of, I'm not really going to any other speaker shows because in hotel rooms, like I've heard the same speakers, the same setups in many cases in other shows, in hotel rooms, and they just, it's not even that they don't even sound as good. It's just that they don't even sound anything like what those products sound like when you put them in a real environment. It was fantastic. I had a blast. It was great hanging out with everyone outside the show as well. We got up to a lot of fun. I had an okay time. He smiled, I think, at least twice. That's good. I'm excited for next year, and hopefully we see lots more of you guys there. Obviously, this trip of both of us was made possible by headphones.com. Thank you very much to Taryn and Andrew for sending us. If you guys are considering buying any kind of audio gear, and if you want to be able to buy something with confidence, if you're not sure if you're gonna love it and you want to be able to send it back if you don't love it and if you want great customer support from people who actually know what they're talking about and are into this stuff just as much as we are then headphones.com is the place to do it if you want to ask any questions about audio gear trips like this anything to do with music then come and say hey on the headphones.com discord server or the headphones.com forum but until next time we'll We'll see you guys soon. Bye. Hello. Is that for me? Yes. Yeah, that's for your replacement broken HE1. Thank you. I'll send you the chunks. OK, cool. Which is going to be like-- it needs to work on every-- Yeah. That's my chance for the other day. Yeah. It's like-- I usually leave my door. OK. I can't leave that back. -