I spent all day yesterday measuring the two different pads with four filters each of the Torque t402v headphone.
Some things just don't go as expected.
I'd like to believe that neutrality, low-distortion, and excellence in transient response is what leads to a satisfying listening experience.
The HE1000 makes me question that belief.
But this is no mere nostalgia: Only once every 12 months do we set aside our complaints, our contentions, our niggling criticisms, and simply declare: Here are seven products that kicked righteous wads of ass and made it worthwhile to be an audiophile this year. And precisely half of our top-place winners are priced within reach of the average consumer.
It's hard to imagine a more auspicious debut than Joanna Newsom's The Milk-Eyed Mender (Drag City DC263): Her songs on that 2004 release were imaginative, memorable, and almost uniquely literate, and her performances of themshe sang as distinctively as she wrote, and on most of them, her full-size Lyon & Healy concert harp was the sole accompanying instrumentwere effective and thoroughly charming. At the age of 22, Newsom had created one of the most original pop records in memory.
