Headphone Reviews

Recently, a friend played me a masterpiece: Ike & Tina Turner's River Deep—Mountain High, arranged by Jack Nitzsche and produced by Phil Spector (LP, A&M SP 4178). It sounded terrible: murky, distant, with badly booming bass. Even before the first track was over, we both laughed and called it a night.

Nevertheless, I went home obsessed with Tina's inspired singing and Spector's infamous Wall of Sound production.

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

Oh baby...don't read this if you've got $800 bucks in your wallet and a yen for some good sealed headphones.

For digital playback, in recent months I've been breathing some rarefied air, pricewise. In December 2016, I reviewed dCS's Rossini Player and Clock, followed in May 2017 by Meridian's Ultra DAC, and in June by Chord's DAVE DAC. The Rossini Player costs $28,499 without the Clock, the Meridian $23,000, and though the DAVE is less expensive than either at $10,588, that's still a fair chunk of change. Even PS Audio's PerfectWave DirectStream DAC, which I bought following Art Dudley's review in September 2014, costs $6899 with the Network Bridge II, which hardly counts as "affordable."

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

About a year and a half ago, SCOTTeVEST sent me a jacket to be included in the 2015 Holiday Gift Guide. I liked what I saw and included it. But for a product like this, the proof is in the wearing...the long-time wearing. I figured I'd use it for a while before giving it a real thumbs-up.

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

One hell of a story here. Interesting roots in a buncha places. I'm going to power through it with pics and links if you're interested in a deeper dive. Here we go!

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

Dag nab it! I got so busy last week with the Focal Utopia measurements that I neglected to get the new Massdrop Noble X measured and listened to for a quick report before the drop. Sorry about that.

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

To my eyes, the Atticus is one half of a two part experiment by Zach Mehrbach, Founder and CEO of ZMF Headphones. His past has been dominated by the venerable, but in my opinion underperforming, Fostex T50RP planar magnetic driver. I guess Zach sees his future with a more modern—though more common—dynamic driver. It seems to me he's designed these latest two headphones as an experiment to find out just how good a headphone he can build using two different types of dynamic driver: the Atticus with a TPE (Thermoplastic Elastomer) diaphragm driver; and the Eikon with its bio-cellulose cone and rubber surround.