Best sounding headphones you have owned?

Thanks Soix...

Three geniuses interest me in audio now... I know only one by his product...

The three are physicist loving music, and in two cases two acoustician...

Dr. Gorike is an underestimated genius who designed the best of AKG because he founded the company after the second world war... His K340 is the most advanced design since Stax... He patented his acoustic specifically tuned resonators grid creating a dual acoustic chamber making the headphone Speaker like in sound... I even read his patent... He used Helmholtz principle of resonators as i did my way with 100 in my room... :) Dr. Gorike located them at a specific location around the dynamic driver behind the electro-acoustic cell... so with this dual chamber he fooled the brain with the back wave incoming in differential timing with the direct wave of the two drivers helping the brain to recreate a 3-D speaker like impression in a room...

And it was way better than even my two Stax or my planar experience or better than any dynamics i owned ... No comparison...But this K340 was terminated because too costly to made and too complex to figure out right by most consumers and very picky to drive, more hard than the HE 6 and hard to optimize at an era where headphone amplifier for portable headphone emerged ... It takes me 6 months to figure out how to optimize them ..

Dr. Choueri created virtual room acoustic with his patented BACCH filters ... it is a revolution which make headphone or speakers optimal for localization without loss in timbre quality...He works in plasma physics but listen too much music all his life... Acoustic bein g his hobby...His dac is the ultimate dac...

Dr. Berning a physicist who revolutionized tube amplification completely... I dont understand why people stick to hot tubes with short life in the old tube technology... He worked as physicist but also loved too much music and coupled it with his physics knowledge to redesign amplification from ground zero...

Thats the main revolutionary things in audio for me ...

I dont know if i will be able to afford a Berning ZOTL before dying and a Choueri dac but the K340 help me to be happy so much good it is ... Then all is ok... But true audiophile always dream even happy... ;) i dream but with no frustration thanks to Dr. Gorike...

My very best to you with a silent prayer for your next months...

@mahgister I promise I will let you know as soon as I can, and thank u so much for ur kind thoughts. The sad truth is I’m using the MZ2 not only as my HeadFi amp but also as the pre in my 2-channel rig and I screwed up because I’m an idiot. I got over zealous and impatient and hooked my new MZ2 up to my big rig while I had my amp powered on and fried the MZ2. I’m hoping I just blew a fuse in my MZ2 by doing something insanely stupid, but it could be worse. Ironically I also now have a recently highly-upgraded McCormack DNA-0.5 amp that SMcAudio incorporates a lot of their mega-dollar consulting work from Berning’s top mega-$$$ projects that eventually trickle down to their SMcAudio upgrades. I’m dying to hear what this combo of several Berning technologies will yield and will let you know not only what I hear in my HeadFi rig but also in my 2-channel system for whatever that might be worth. Berning is a damn genius in our audio world, and we’re just living in it.

@soix - I can drive my Susvaras perfectly fine with my Eddie Current Studio B and my Donald North Audio Stratus tube headphone amps and they are delightful to rock out to. Sure, you can scale up and get even more, no question, but you can say that about just about anything; my speakers would sound better with a pair of Boulder monoblocs, but ya gotta stop somewhere! 😀

Dr. Choueri created virtual room acoustic with his patented BACCH filters

@mahgister Yes!!! YESS!!! U nailed it there man. The BACCH system is THE most interesting thing I’ve heard about or would like to hear either in headphones or in a stereo system, period. I’m right there with ya. I’m just afraid that once I hear a BACCH setup I’m totally busted for life. In a good way, but totally busted. I’m totally with ya dude and thanks for bringing it up. You wonderful bastard. Yet another audio rabbit hole I know I will inevitably need to crawl down and be wrecked forever. Thanks for bringing this up my friend. NOT!!!  I think I hate u, but in the most beautiful way possible.  Thank u for u being u, and keep bringing it!!!

I posted earlier in this thread about the RAAL SR1a and the VM-1a tube amp as being the very best I have heard. That is still the case, but I was flipping a coin this weekend as to whether to sell the VM-1a tube amp. I am not selling it.

The reason being that I burrowed the RAAL Tl-1b box ($800). I plugged that into my CODA #16 amp and wow, it was ALMOST as good as my $7K VM-1a amp. In the past, nothing came close to the SR1a and VM-1a combo. However, now for 2-channel people with great amps, you have a solution to drive the SR1a.

I am getting a Peachtree GAN400 amp this week on a home trial and I will use it for both 2-channel with my office Magnepan LRS+ and the RAAL SR1a via the Tl-1b interface box. I think it will also be excellent.

Another great thing wit this Tl-1b box is that I am able to use a 25-foot cable from the amp to the TL-1b and then use the expensive RAAL Star 8 headphone cable to the SR1a. I am able to listen in my guest bedroom while connected to the 2-channel system in my office. The long cable does not degrade the sound.

BTW - a few years ago there was a thread on the BACCH system. I posted something about getting that system setup for about $5K if you are able to install the software yourself on a MacMini.

I went to CANJAM 2022 in NYC and listened to ALL of the TOTL headphones and ended up buying the RAAL SR1b with their VM-1a Tube amp, For me the only other headphone even remotely close was the Abyss AB-1266