[MorganE]

I promised to post some impressions for other RWA owners, so here goes:

CanJam positives - you get to listen to a lot of equipment all in one place over a short period of time.  CanJam negatives - some of the rooms are quite noisy when crowded, and with open headphones ... I don't need to tell you the problem.

RWA products and setups I listened to at CanJam 2010:

ALO Room:

- Macbook Pro optical>Isabella>Audeze LCD2; Beyerdynamic T1

- iPad (mine)>DAC (?)>Amphora>Audeze LCD2

Sennheiser Room:

- iPad>Isabellina>HD800

I like to have a reference point for listening to audio equipment, and my first stop at CanJam was at the HeadAmp Room to listen to the most highly regarded Stax setup that at least I am aware of:

Sony SACD player>Blue Hawaii SE>Stax 007 MKI

o.k., no surprise, this is a great system. I auditioned it with a SACD of HeadAmp's, Holst: The Planets (which I know well), and listened to Mars and Jupiter, which seem to me to be the best test, for different reasons, of audio equipment.  Justin did not have any other classical SACDs or I would have tried them.

Next stop - ALO

I got in there fairly early on the 1st day, and came back several times once I had visited other rooms.  Incidently, Ken Ball of ALO is a great guy, and I wouldn't hesitate to deal with him.  He was very accommodating to everyone, and interested in people's impressions.

I couldn't wait to try the Isabella with the new Audeze LCD2, and was not disappointed!  I also auditioned the LCD2 in the Audeze room on Cavalli's new Liquid Fire hybrid amp. for comparison. Both sounded great to me in the limited time I spent with each. 

Sennheiser Room:

I had my own music on my iPad (USB camera connection) to Isabellina, and I was very impressed by the HD800 with the Isabellina combination on everything I listened to.  No sibilance at all (as some have mentioned with the HD800) and not thin sounding or lacking in bass in any way, to my ears. 

Comments on the Audeze LCD2 & Stax 007-MKI &MKII:

You can read lengthy threads on Head-Fi praising the LCD2 from the initial owners, as it has only been out a few months.  I won't repeat their impressions here, but as a former Magnaplanar (3As) owner and Stax SRX MKII owner, I was somewhat surprised by the sound signature of these headphones collectively - which in all cases was a little 'darker' sounding and more neutral than I expected. Do they all reveal the details in the music? Yes, but in a different way than I thought they would.  I also got a chance to listen to the Stax 007 MKII and Stax SRM 404LE on a Woo WES.  The 404LE was noticeably brighter sounding and more forward in the mid-range than the others - actually what I expected from the LCD2 and Stax 007s.  My old 3As, for example, reminded me of music seeming to come out of thin air from the middle of the room - completely transparent with a slightly 'shimmering' quality to it. If that's the sound you prefer, I would likely rank the HD800 slightly above the LCD2 as the way to go on a dynamic setup when combined with the Isabella or Isabellina for classical music.  It is certainly making it a tough choice for me!

One final story about CanJam I hope you find interesting.  I had the pleasure of meeting a very knowledgeable fellow Head-Fier at CanJam who owns Sennheiser Orpheus, Stax MKIs, and the KGSS amp., etc.  and he happened to come into the ALO room when I was listening to the Isabella/LCD2 - coincidentally to a performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (Heifetz) that we had been talking about a half an hour before in the context of how great the Stax MKIs reproduced a specific technique used by Heifetz.  I gave him the LCD2 to listen to, and judging by the look on his face, he seemed completely amazed by what he was hearing - on a dynamic setup!  He even insisted that Ken listen to it.  I thought that this said a lot about the Isabella and LCD2 combination!

The bottom line?  From my fairly limited auditioning of equipment at CanJam, in Meet conditions, both the LCD2 and HD800 combined with either the Isabella or Isabellina sounded very comparable in sound quality to me to the three Stax setups I listened to at CanJam.  Please note though, that I did not listen to any popular music - Rock, Pop, etc. with any setup at CanJam, just classical, choral and some Jazz and R&B.  All the headphones mentioned, except the Stax 404LE were also clearly superior to my current Isabellina/ATH-W1000X, HD650 (Equinox); AKG 701 combinations. You've read the expression elsewhere - "sorry for your wallet"!

Cheers.

[Earman]

MorganE,

Thanks for your nice write up of CanJam. Any comments about the sound of the Beyerdynamic T1 driven by the Isabella in the ALO room?

[MorganE]

Thanks Earman.  I was also hoping to avoid a question on the T1 by not mentioning them, so as not to offend T1 owners with my impression of them!

I auditioned the T1 on the Isabella, Amphora and on Beyerdynamic's own amp. at CanJam, but unfortunately, I was one of what is clearly a minority of people there who didn't find anything particularly special about T1 - no matter what source/amp/DAC I tried with them.  Maybe it has to do with their synergy with classical music, I can't put my finger on precisely what was missing, or why they didn't impress me - just that, at least based on a limited audition, they didn't stand out.  For example, I much prefer the sound my ATH-W1000X to the T1 - and it is less than half the price of the T1. 

[Vinnie R.]

Hi MorganE,

Thanks for posting your impressions at CanJam - nice report!  I'm glad you enjoyed the show (and I agree, they can be quite loud so it is hard to do critical listening, but you get to check out so much gear and meet a lot of people.  Sorry I couldn't make it this time).

I was really flattered that Eric at Sennheiser called me to borrow the Isabellina HPA
to show off their HD800s at Can Jam.  He heard it in the Fall of 2009 and loved it.  This is what he wrote to me when he returned from Can Jam:

the HPA performed like a CHAMP and it got rave reviews. In fact, your amp was well talked about and even blew away amps costing much much more that were balanced, etc etc.  You have a killer product with a unique approach. It pairs so well with the HD 800.

The Isabellina HPA (and the Isabella) are also great with those LCD-2s!  Alex of Audeze and I listened to this combo at the NY headfi meet last fall - fantastic! 

Let me quickly wrap up this post (I have guest coming this weekend) by mentioning this:

To all my RWA customers - I have some very exciting stuff in the works that will take your RWA gear to the next level!  I've been busy, busy, busy these past few months working on this, and I look forward to posting more info soon enough (should be within a month)...   

Thanks again for the post!

Vinnie

[kitten]

To all my RWA customers - I have some very exciting stuff in the works that will take your RWA gear to the next level!  I've been busy, busy, busy these past few months working on this, and I look forward to posting more info soon enough (should be within a month)...   

Ok Vinnie, it's been nearly a month. Not that I've been counting or anything...

Based on the what you've written to date:
i) exciting stuff for all, but especially existing RWA customers
ii) the tube rolling thread will soon see a lot of action
iii) some stuff to do with batteries (??)
iv) the Isabella headphone jack will be moved to the front of the case (no big deal, not for me anyways) plus other things...

So looking at all that....I have absolutely no idea what you have in store. I can't stand it any longer. Please spill the beans. What's up??

[Profbratsch]

I have absolutely no idea what you have in store. I can't stand it any longer. Please spill the beans. What's up??

I think the answers to your questions will appear soon.  Good things come to those who wait!

[Vinnie R.]

All,

The announcement will be made live on Friday, and there will also be details
on our website.

Thanks for all your interest, excitement, and patience 

Vinnie