The LCD-5 is one of my favorite headphones and I love its tuning, so based on the graphs I expected to like the MM-500 and MM-100, aswell. That also turned out to be true. I did find the MM-500 somewhat forward sounding (upper midrange) and this particular unit was also somewhat soft in the bass. 

The MM-100 actually sounded tauter, but I also found it lacked some of that last bit of bass extension the MM-500 and LCD-5 offer. But I preferred its tonal balance to the MM-500: Less forward upper midrange, but the treble was as forward. So ultimately I think it's more neutral than the LCD-5. I may get one. I wonder how it sounds with LCD-5 pads on it. I suppose that may help the bass and staging and hopefully not change the tonality too much and if anything push it closer to the LCD-5.

The LCD-5 sounded better than I had ever heard it on the Holo KTE May + KTE Bliss until I plugged it into the DCS Stack. It opened up even more and the treble sounded more natural. I blame mostly the amp, though.

I tried the LCD-X with the newer pads now and I still thought the upper midrange was too recessed.

I thought both new headphones kind of sucked. The treble was piercing. That is until I tried them on this one 300B amp at hifideluxe. So synergy is very important here.

Even so I preferred the smaller one which has a bit more upper midrange presence and just had a less diffuse soundstage.

With the right amplifier they're pretty good. They now seem to have proper bass extension and decent bass quality, but even so I might still prefer the SR-1a.

They're just not the most open sounding and I think the pads take away quite a bit of the magic.

The new Diana DZ sounded pretty darn good with the pads with the soft velvety surface on the inside. I did not like the midrange tonality with the pads with the soft surface touching the skin and the leathery surface on the inside. More expansive than the other Diane units they had there and smoother, too. More resolving, indeed.

I listened to the AB1266 Phi TC again and nothing really changed. It sounds a bit distant and probably needs and amp with lots of oomph and zippy transients, because I thought guitar strings still sounded too jumbled together. Don't get me wrong, it is better than even the new Diana, but given the flagship status I also have different expectations for it.

X8000 sounded really quite good on the MSB setup and pretty mediocre on the T+A setup, so I think they should scale quite well. The design is not finalized yet, as the pads aren't ready yet, so while it sounded open and it seemed quite neutral/natural sounding that's subject to change. Still, I think this could be a hit. It seemed to resolve very well, indeed. Yes, it was hooked up to an MSB rig, but the SR009 on the MSB rig didn't move me as much.
I did write down that the treble was problematic, the bass didn't extend and that stage depth is an issue, but I liked the midrange, FWIW. And that it seemed clear and resolving sounding.

Did not like the D8000, too weird sounding.

Finally heard the Utopia v2 and Clear Mg. Clear Mg was okay, but the Utopia v2! Treble much smoother, but also a warmer tonality. I really liked it and it might make it my favorite headphone. Unless that Final turns out to be awesome when it actually releases.

Bathys was both too bassy and also too weird and sharp sounding for me to consider it. Honestly I think I prefer the AirPods Max.

Unfortunately the two new headphones were quite disappointing to me:

Azurys, the new closed back also sounded kinda warm, weird and sharp. And I was one of the few who liked the Stellia!

Hadenys also seemed to be a departure from their Clear / Utopia signature. To be honest I mostly just found it unremarkable sounding, just not very resolving as far I could tell in the noisy halls. Tonality wasn't as natural as the more premium headphones, either. I haven't heard the Elex, but that one might be better. Overall I was sort of reminded of when I listened to the Elear first with the SBAF NYC gang and I immediately hated it. It's not as bad, but it's not good.

It's not bad, actually. Sounded sort of like a bigger Utopia with quite a bit too much bass. It's also not quite as clear and resolving sounding. But I was pleasently surprised by how natural and open it sounded. Did not like their speaker setup FWIW.

Tried the R10P, Audivina and R9 and unfortunately all of them sounded too weird for me and I took them off pretty much immediately. R10P has some merit and I don't know what they were thinking with the Audivina. For the R9 my standards wouldn't be very high, anyway.

Shangri-La Mini sounded quite good, actually. Smooth and I don't think it has as much of an upper mid dip. Transients still too smothed over and has that bouncy quality to it, but that's to be expected. It wasn't the most resolving on this setup, but since I can't listen to the other two Shangri-La headphones due to treble peakage this is quite an achievement. I find that often the smaller driver models work better for me. At least with Audeze and RAAL 1995 that was the case.

I almost missed this room, yet it was definitely one of the best of the show for me.

He started by playing a mono LP from god knows when and I thought it sounded fantastic, albeit somewhat colored. The microdynamics and clarity! When he switched to digital I realized that these speakers really aren't that colored, which is actually what I had expected from the Lamar M1 driver in a large folded horn like that. Those are often quite neutral and uncolored sonding, just lacking in extension towards both ends, which is why there were two super tweeters and a large bass section.

Anyway, I have a feeling his DAC isn't the best, but all of his amps definitely are. Well, they were all equipped with the silver transformers and he demoed the ones with tubes of his own design. Definitely one of the setups of High End! Maybe my favorite overall. It's also one of the priciest ones.

Demoing his equipment with the large PAP speakers a couple years ago definitely did the amps a disservice.

Snap back to reality. I did not like the setup on the smaller speakers. But the one with the larger speakers with another folded horn and Lamar M1 driver was also really good. A little less incisive and blurrier than the Thomas Mayer setup. But I hope it's not like 850k€.

There were two rooms with the new Coltrane Quintet speakers and I thought both were good. The one upstairs with the Engström tube amps defintely had the disadvantage of playing in a trickier room with less room treatment and as such the other one more or less sounded "better". Also the new MSB DAC is likely awesome.

The tube amps were more rounded, but I think the speaker does need some rounding to the transients. So with vinyl this setup was quite good.

Aside from that these speakers generally do what I am looking for. Yes, the bass is a little slow and soft sounding. This seems to be a theme with Marten speakers and until proven otherwise I will blame the convex Accuton bass drivers. But they have that first order "minimum phase" kind of sound that I've been exclusively listening to for 8 years now.

In other words transients have this righteous quality to them and the instruments are locked in space. This is mostly just a quality of the crossover and not even the drivers.

The downside is that for there to be three drivers you need to have a larger spacing between the lower midrange to treble and I generally felt the treble was a bit too high in space. And most importantly first order speakers with a tweeter never sound right when you're not a at the right listening height and these are no exception. You get comb filtering when you stand up and it sounds very weird. This is normal and part of the first order crossover.

The power handling and resolution seem to benefit from the switch from Accuton to BlieSMa drivers. It's just a bit sad to see drivers like these padded down 10dB just to work in a passive speaker. The sensitivities work out and you could design a semi active direct radiator at 96-98dB sensitivity!

I think I get the Carbon diaphragm now. It's probably just a better match from the slower sounding woofers to the lightning fast Beryllium driver.

Priidik didn't disappoint. The signal path from terminals to the individual parts on the crossover could not be any cleaner. It must've paid off as this was also one transparent sounding speaker. And I can tell the super thin, narrow baffle with irregular shapes has advantages here. I think it's the 158mm cone Accuton and if I were to pick one of the two I would definitely go for the more sensitive and more extended one as a midrange unit. I also like the height of the drivers and that the tweeter is below the midrange, not above. I find it generally images better like that.

The advantages in terms of how it radiates sound and in that sense also in how it images are sort of offset by the 2nd order XO behavior. 

It's also a small speaker and doesn't have the bass a larger speaker would. Even if I like that Accuton S280 sandwich bass. I suppose it also doesn't have the efficiency a larger speaker would. In fact it's likely a similar efficiency as my small monitor speakers.

I did consistently find it a tad brighter than my idea of neutral FWIW. Priidik told me it's the room and I believe him.

I don't think the Weiss DAC was the right move, but I did still end up enjoying the newer Andagio speakers on the 211 amp. Still not the smoothest around and I still kind of blame Neo and the wood cones, but it really sounded quite "there". It has this presence to it. Well, in reality it's resolution, microdynamics, clarity, etc. Just a general sense of transparency. And yes, it's still basslight, but the integration was a bit better. basically this is an Ampeggio Due, but deep instead of wide. 2m horn length.

I did not like the 9.88 on the 845 amp. Ines mentioned how the 845 amp sounded a little harder than the 211 one and I didn't think the Neo driver needed that. But what the 9.88 needs is the increased power output from the 845 amp as the Voxativ driver and the lower mid are a passive system.

Quad ESL-57! I can't believe I got to experience it and I think I might prefer it over the newer Quad models. The signal path has less components and I was surprised at how much extension towards both ends it had. The midrange seemed quite good and it didn't sound super soft.