abyss

High End 2017: Reaching for the Abyss

June 14, 2017

Going deep, abyss deep has been a trademark for JPS Lab’s/ Abyss Joe Skubinski, designer of the absolute flagship headphone for years. The AB-1266 has been among our favorites here at Part Time and I could not possibly lose the opportunity of [...]

Dr’s Orders: Push it to the limit

May 2, 2017

A good Dr. should never insist on having his patients pushing themselves to the limit but this is audio and the limit of what is possible is a good thing with only one major hiccup, it’s rather expensive. Audiohub.gr of which yours truly is the [...]

RMAF 2016: Lee at the End of Line and Best in Show

December 13, 2016

I approached this year’s Rocky Mountain Audio Fest with a strange mix of excitement and trepidation. The long-time venue of the Denver Tech Center Marriott was in the midst of significant construction which literally shut off half the hotel [...]

RMAF 2016: Abyss and Woo Audio, with Mytek

November 19, 2016

Scot had me covering several CanJam titles but one of the best headphone rigs was outside of the tent in the Tower at the Marriott. Here I found Joe Skubinski’s Abyss Headphones paired with the Woo Audio flagship amps — and the WA5s as [...]

CanJam SoCal 2016: Wells Audio shows a triple threat

April 3, 2016

Wells Audio has some good marketing advisors — they’ve come crashing into the headphone market with some serious offerings, all scattered across a variety of price points. First up is the Enigma, a $3,699 headphone amplifier ($4,000 with [...]

CanJam SoCal 2016: Portable tubes with Woo Audio

March 31, 2016

Woo Audio, purveyor of fine tubed gear for the discerning head-fi’er, have finalized their portable — the WA8 Eclipse ($1,619 Black or Sliver, $1,709 Gold — but note that these are intro prices, which will jump in April!). The [...]

Review: HiFiMAN HE1000 flagship headphones

November 7, 2015

by John Grandberg The proliferation of really-high-end headphones is undeniable. Back in the day, a $500 headphone was considered expensive, and the few thousand-dollar-plus models in existence were typically limited-edition rarities. Nowadays? Not [...]

RMAF 2015: CanJam round up

November 6, 2015

Hitting the CanJam at RMAF is a highlight for me, and an instant reminder of the health and vibrancy of (at least one corner) of the high-end audio industry. This year, there were too many vendors for me to cover to even a remote level of accuracy [...]

RMAF 2015: Abyss and Lampizator, clarity and finesse

October 14, 2015

The hype around the LampizatOr products from Poland has also been building for a while, but my experience with that brand has been zip. I got a chance to fix that when I ran across Bruce Brown early in the show –I’m a fan of [...]

Review: Woo Audio WA5LE v2 vacuum tube headphone amplifier

September 27, 2015

Woo Audio offers a remarkably deep bench for those headphonistas interested in vacuum tube amplifiers. But when it comes to the 300b, arguably the finest audio tube the world has ever known, Woo Audio has only a couple of options. Aside from [...]