Audeze el-8 danh gia review
I had originally posted this in the impressions forum, but after a little updating and some consideration, I decided to post it as a review as well. Show
After owning the closed-back EL-8s for 4 months, I finally feel confident enough to give some impressions. These represent approximately 150 hours of listening to the EL-8s, and probably about the same amount on a collection of other headphones. First, a bit about me. In 2011, I bought some ATHM40s. In 2014, I sold them for HiFiMAN HE-400s. At the time, I was lucky enough to own a pretty decent floorstanders. But then I moved from my roomy Tucson townhouse to a tiny Boston graduate student apartment. Since then, I've been on a war path that included a Maverick Audio D1, the NAD VISO HP50s, a Project Debut turntable, Audeze LCD-3s, a DACMini CX, and the Grado GS1000e. So I've been "critically listening" since 2011, but only for about a year and a half with headphones. Second, the EL-8s seem to be a very divisive headphone. On one hand, we have three different five star reviews, and on the other, we have awesome folks like . I don't mean to pick on Asr specifically, he's just the first I recalled. There's a lot of love for the EL-8s, and a lot of hate too. Personally, I think that's because the EL-8s have a very distinctive sound that works for some people and not for others. Third, my first pair of EL-8s had a failure in the right driver. If you tapped on the cans a bit, it might cut back in, but there was no doubting that there was an issue. Audeze was quick to send me a new unit, which I got back in about a week. They were very responsive when I called them, so I would recommend that route if anyone else has the same issue. Finally, since this is my first attempt at a "real" contribution here, I thought I'd explain how I went about listening. I'd start with my LCD-3s, and listen to a song while noting the moments in that song that struck me as awesome. Then, I'd grab my EL-8s, and listen to those same parts and try to compare. Eventually, I built up quite a large list of songs and moments. For me, the most helpful reviews are the ones that compare headphones to each other, rather than talking about one set of cans in vacuum. So I took a few of those moments, and wrote down my thoughts while listening to the EL-8s side-by-side with as many headphones as I could. I think I built up a pretty big list.
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