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I am currently on a work trip in Atlanta, its a big city so I google "Hifi Audio Shops" which showed the closest one being a place "Hifi Buys" so I took a trip there today after work. It was a hole in the wall, on the bottom level of a strip mall. When I walked in however, I was shocked at the immediate selection of headphones right in front of me (Pic below) they had a lot of Hifiman, Audeze, Focal, Meze and some rather unique ones as well, as well as an assortment of amps.
The owner greeted me right away, really enthusiastic guy, who let me listen to a pair of Susvara on a dCS stack! which I had not heard of before. Unfortunately he forgot to tell me that it had an EQ applied, so I listened to the Susvara not stock for far to long.
As I started talking to these guys about audio though, the more I started to wonder if they knew what they were talking about, not because they weren't professionals in the field with vast experience, but because there were no mention of specs, numbers, data or anything that would give me something quantifiable, they just gushed over how much the systems costed "The stand alone this is on cost 60K!" well that's nice. The guy was really eager to let me have a listen to this balls to the wall stereo setup, featuring tube amplifiers that looked like they costed more than a Mercedes each... Well I listened to a female focal performance, SsSsSSs uhhh that S region we all love to hate and hate to love. I asked him, I said "Would this not be better served with solid state" he was beside himself, he immediately said "I don't usually do this" then proceeds to turn the speakers all the way up with nothing playing "Do you hear anything" he said, well only slight hiss I replied. He the showed me how loud it was with some music tracks. This guy no doubt millions worth of gear, and his show piece was based on tubes? I even mentioned that this would technically have higher distortion than solid state, but he was not buying it.
They treated me great, I got to audition all kinds of headphones I never otherwise would have. But.. I get the sense that this hobby can become dogmatic and rife with subjective analysis based nothing more than on emotions or superfluous high dollar woo woo nonsense, I already knew that, but today I got the first hand perspective and seen it with my own eyes.. and wow! but I certainly admire the passion. I almost bought a pair of LCD-2C, but have no way to get the giant Audeze box home.
The owner greeted me right away, really enthusiastic guy, who let me listen to a pair of Susvara on a dCS stack! which I had not heard of before. Unfortunately he forgot to tell me that it had an EQ applied, so I listened to the Susvara not stock for far to long.
As I started talking to these guys about audio though, the more I started to wonder if they knew what they were talking about, not because they weren't professionals in the field with vast experience, but because there were no mention of specs, numbers, data or anything that would give me something quantifiable, they just gushed over how much the systems costed "The stand alone this is on cost 60K!" well that's nice. The guy was really eager to let me have a listen to this balls to the wall stereo setup, featuring tube amplifiers that looked like they costed more than a Mercedes each... Well I listened to a female focal performance, SsSsSSs uhhh that S region we all love to hate and hate to love. I asked him, I said "Would this not be better served with solid state" he was beside himself, he immediately said "I don't usually do this" then proceeds to turn the speakers all the way up with nothing playing "Do you hear anything" he said, well only slight hiss I replied. He the showed me how loud it was with some music tracks. This guy no doubt millions worth of gear, and his show piece was based on tubes? I even mentioned that this would technically have higher distortion than solid state, but he was not buying it.
They treated me great, I got to audition all kinds of headphones I never otherwise would have. But.. I get the sense that this hobby can become dogmatic and rife with subjective analysis based nothing more than on emotions or superfluous high dollar woo woo nonsense, I already knew that, but today I got the first hand perspective and seen it with my own eyes.. and wow! but I certainly admire the passion. I almost bought a pair of LCD-2C, but have no way to get the giant Audeze box home.
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