Jaben Malaysia @ SS15

Headed down to Jaben with hou and his girlfriend amcheong.. after he saw my tweet/blogpost on wanting a good pair of headphones (i.e. my Sibelius 2.0), he was trying to poison me to get a pair from this place. I've seen the LYN audiophile thread, the Garage Sales thread, and Jaben seems to appear quite often. I'm glad I decided to finally check it out - it was the highlight of my day!

For one thing, amcheong & hou really know their stuff, makes me feel so inferior =P Was a good place to audition the headphones, and I really learnt alot from that one trip. Despite my previous attempts at homework/research on headphone brands, some really unexpected and non-conventional brands came up (this is coming from a non-audiophile). Usually people would spew stuff like Sennheiser, Audio-Technica, Bose... here I find that the gold lies in the more classic brands like Crossroads, Grado, beyerdynamics, Westone and Hippo.

Honestly speaking, the place looks simple, but don't be fooled - it's almost like a holy grail for audiophiles. Alot of technical terms being thrown around - soundstage, bright, dark, flat, noisy, dirty, warm, aggresive, sound signatures, burn-in... normal verbs with a world of difference in meaning. And the other integral part of an audiophile setup that I got to try there - the amps. Boy do these make a difference, and for each headphone/IEM there will be one amp that works better with it than the rest - chemistry? Seriously awesome stuff.

I remember grinning to myself like crazy while auditioning a couple of these headphones - and leshock! some IEMs really blew me away, and this is something coming from a person who doesn't normally swing well with IEMs due to the comfort factor - especially hated the stock earbuds that came with my iPod.

Notable IEMs:

Especially loved the Crossroad Woody, listening to classical music gives me the impression that the orchestra is performing right in front of me. I swear, these things are to *die* for! There was also another pair of IEMs that are custom-made (of which I don't remember the name/brand), that cost around RM4k! omagawd I could almost swear I was seeing my life flashed before my eyes as I listened to the music that came out of them, it was breathtakingly good. Also tried hou's UM1, he really paid top dollar for a top-notch IEM. The thing that took my breath away about all these IEMs was that apart from the sound, they were surprisingly comfortable, I always had this idea that they were going to be uncomfy after awhile.

Notable intro-level headphones:

Now, I've always been a fan of headphones. For one, the vintage look really melts my heart (and kills my wallet, I know). For two, although prolonged periods of headphone love makes my ears hot/sweaty, they're comfy from the second you put them off to the second you take them off. For three, somehow the sound seems fuller coming from headphones. I tried the ATH ON3 (uncomfy for portables), beyerdynamics DT-231 Pro (lovely, lovely warm sound, and super comfy to boot! Love the pads and the elastic band - I can imagine I will end up sleeping with these around my ears and not know the difference...), Grado SR60 (mmmm yummy yummy bass, and yes the bass hits the sweet spot with me - a classic pair of headphones, these.. although I'm not sure if I want the rest of the world to listen to what I'm listening to)

We easily spent 2.5 - 3 hours at the place just trying out all the headphones, fiddling with the amps, and oh yes chatting with walabies. He's a reaaaaalllly nice person, and (duh!) knows his stuff, and how to recommend depending on what a person is looking for, type of music... you can really tell he's passionate about it (apart from seeing the audiophiles that keep going in and out of the place) ... I is very very very sorely tempted to go back and grab those headphones.

しっかりしろう! I've got to figure out a way to plan my spending to get them.