Time sure does fly faster and faster. Another week is gone, so here’s another round-up. I promise I will have more content in-between the round-ups… one of these days 🙂 Theme music while preparing this round-up: Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europe Express” album, FLAC (rip from CD), with the Philips SHP-9500S (review is coming, just like the “Winds of Winter” is coming; unboxing already posted) through the Fiio X1 DAP.
These round-ups are intended to be a fun/funny round-up of the action, but they are not intended to be comprehensive. I can’t post every review, every new headphone announcement, every news item. That’s a full time job ~ please feel free to load up the Patreon if you want that 🙂
SENNHEISER HD820 LEAKS
Sennheiser has unleashed a boatload of HD 5XX and HD 4XX headphones, they even teased with a special edition of the HD 6XX series at Massdrop, but it looks like they are not done. A leak spotted the mention of a Sennheiser HD 820 headphone in marketing material.
This is discussed with varying degrees of excitement in the various forums, such as Super/Best/Audio/Friends and the Rule 9 forum and a little bit at Sponsor Fi. Meanwhile DMS3 TV (video) crackpot-theorizes this might be a closed back headphone (Sennheiser already has two open models in the HD 8XX series after all).
This should not be confused with a new “real” product from Sennheiser that got ushered out, the HDV 820 headphone amplifier which got a four minute preview at HeadFI TV (video).
NEWSY
Headroom is going back to their roots again, they announced earlier in the week they are getting out of the retail business and going back to producing amps and headphones. Their planar magnetic has a summer 2017 release estimate. They also have their prized domain (headphone.com) up for sale, bidding starts at $100,000 at the moment.
The domain name should not be confused with the plural headphones.com which is owned by two brothers in Portlandia that sell headphones too.
AUDIO SHOWS
Another long post about the CanJAM 2017 (SoCal show) got posted at Headphone Guru after I finished last week’s round-up. This is a very well done report, with a good mix of pictures and text, and no autoplay audio/video. A great read to sneak in while taking a self-determined break at work 🙂
If you are interested in AXPONA, there’s more action at Stereophile. This is not headphone centric, but audio-centric.
LEARNINGS
Metal571 is back, this time with a new 24-minute educational video on equalizing headphones, more specifically with EqualizerAPO with the Peace GUI. YouTube embedded below, relevant links and example equalization file in the YouTube video description box over there…
MQA? That is so 32 Kbps mp3! All the cool kids are doing Multichannel MQA now 🙂 Joking aside, here’s a four page article on Multichannel MQA at Stereophile.
REVIEWS
It’s an earphone-heavy week, with all kinds of IEMs reviewed, from three figures to four figures 🙂 But first, some action on the … Windows 10 front. The Creators Update is bricking systems rolling out as we speak, and @Archimago posted a detailed evaluation (with lots of charts and graphs) of the USB Audio Class 2 Driver (that comes with Windoze).
+ Hifiman HE-1000 V2 at Audioholics
+ Meze 99 Neo by The Headphone List
+ Zero Audio Carbo Tenore by Headphonesty
+ as you may recall, this earphone generated a big wave of buzz last year when the resident headphone reviewer at the Verge used all the superlatives available in their review style guide 🙂
+ Noble Audio Kaiser Encore earphones by Headfonia
+ Audeze iSine 20 by Headphonix
+ NF Audio NF6i IEM review at Headfonix
+ Empire Ears Zeus XR Adel Custom Earphones by at Innerfidelity (not written by Tyll)
+ 1More Quad driver at The Headphone List
+ xDuuo X10 DAP review at PortaFI
ODDITIES
A Fiio Happy Birthday video with birthday wishes from various headphone reviewers and personalities and business partners.
Thanks for picking up on our review of the Carbo Tenore. 🙂
You are welcome 🙂 Thanks for sharing your findings on the headphones!