TheSloth

That's not quite right. The 70's set is a complete, one orchestra set. The mid-80's set is a mixture of live recordings, including the NY Phil, Berlin Phil, Vienna Phil and Concertgebouw (i.e. the absolute best 4 orchestras in the world at the time).

how about just calling it by its name?

Greetings from the West London chapter of Head-Case.

Don't like 'em. Not that anyone's gonna care. Fish.

They're quite small though, relative to the Nautilus. Love to hear one (the original that is) some day - wonder if they are all they were cracked up to be.

Ok, but it's a bit misleading for people to say that particularly a 6 channel b22 was one of the best amps they've heard when its 6 channel-ness had nothing to do with it. They were either listening to 3 or 4 of the channels, unless they strapped two pairs of SE headphones to their head to get all 6 channels .

What is the point of a 6 channel b22? What are the 3rd and 6th channels connected to?

It's such a shame they stopped selling the B stock on ebay - perhaps they ran out. Their pricing on the 12L actives was a steal. When they arrived I looked at the shipping label and though it didn't say anywhere on the advert, they came factory direct from IAG. Though at that time they didn't officially exist. If you do get through to your dealer, consider the 11L instead. A bit less bass, but otherwise I think it's a slightly better speaker with that smaller, lighter driver.

Now now, don't forget those chunky machined front and rear panels on the Max! They must add about 1/2" front to back vs. the home, though I suppose if you included the urethane bezel on the home they'd even out. Eesh, headroom geekdom.

If you have evened out the electronics, it boils down to the power supply, and the option to have Max Electronics in the Home (which I strongly recommend over the home, but that's your call). With the Desktop line the best you can do PSU wise is the DPS ($399 extra - stock it comes with a decent but cheap wall wart type), which will still only be 1 power supply channel for all the electronics, externally housed. In the Home you have a dual mono supply on board. Also, with the Home, you have preamp I/O on the rear (2 SE inputs and 1 balanced, switchable), and a totally clean single ended signal path for your SE inputs. With the balanced Desktop, you have the line driver on the single ended inputs to 'balance' them - some might prefer this feature, but it is less 'high end'. So, if you want simple preamp functionality, want to run single ended inputs 'single endedly', are anal about PSU's or want to have the option to upgrade to Max Modules, you need the Home Balanced. Otherwise, it's the Desktop Balanced - if you're after a headphone with it, see if any of their package specials suit you.

Remember that preamps are designed to drive much nicer, easier loads than headphone amps, so your SDS should do marvellously. 33k is nothing compared to even 600ohm headphones.

Though, I've never heard a UNI-Q array (kef) that sounded quite right to me. First speakers I had were Q15's, then Q35's - then went to the best concentric arrangement of them all, current gen QUAD's (IMO, IIRC etc. blah. fish.). Maybe the current gen, but they always had to sacrifice a bit of tonal balance for the concentric arrangement (the outer driver acts as something of an odd horn for the inner driver, making tonal balance a bitch to get right with such designs). Nice idea if you can master it though. Oh, and mulveling, what did you think of your Ascend acoustics stuff? The Sierra 1 looks like an impressive speaker. Are those GIK panels in the corners?

Sounds like we do hear the 404's the same way. Though, I had the 303/313 combo but the differences are supposedly very small. Very interesting about the 4070 - my apartment is just never that quiet, but I never found closed phones I could live with. The 4070 might just be worth a shot - I suppose they shouldn't be that difficult to sell if not.

Did you ever compare them to any of the lambdas by any chance, or even just by memory. I could never live with the peaky upper midrange of the lamdas (somewhere around 1k), and was wondering if the 4070 retained that signature?

That jack I believe gives and output impedance of 120 ohms. The damping factor is effected by the ratio of output impedance to input impedance of the headphone. The 120 ohm jack is for a time when I believe there was a standard output impedance of 120 ohms in professional equipment, and some headphones were therefore designed with characteristics to work optimally with this. I don't know of any current headphones that are designed this way, and in general, you are looking for the lowest possible output impedance to give the highest damping factor - the bigger the difference between the output impedance and the input impedance is, the more control the amp has over the headphones. If the the output impedance is higher than the headphone impedance, the headphones are actually in a way controlling the amp - i.e. not good, unless somehow by a luck of synergy that makes them sound wonderful!

A very good point. You will be pushing the volume up a little because of the ambient noise - I've had that experience, and indeed it's far more comfortable listening at a lower level in a more silent room. If you can afford to quiet your surroundings, you will be doing your ears a great favour.

The idea of 'volume' is very misleading. Sennheisers have a relatively benign frequency response curve, and due to the different level of sensitivity to both sound and damage as a result of such sound at different frequencies, you technically can listen to Senns louder (overally average dB) than other headphones such as Grado's or 880's for example which have large spikes in very dangerous hearing regions. Those spikes are not broad enough to make you think the can is 'louder' and therefore listen more quietly - they are somewhat stealthy in that they simply come across as a part of the sound signature - look at the 880 for example which has 8-10dB excess peaking at 8khz. A 10dB excess at 8k is far more damaging than an 8dB excess at 30hz for example. Just something to consider... Of course, if you are hearing ringing, your ears are telling you it is too loud, but remember that a different headphone at a seemingly quieter volume setting could be even more damaging. It may of course make you want to listen more quietly due to 'coming alive' at a lower output level, but that doesn't mean you are any safer.

Right, but look at what you've been willing to spend. It's an example of someone who wouldn't necessarily spend that on speakers etc because it probably wouldn't even be worthwhile, but who might be willing to spend more on a truly great pair of headphones.

I think the current headphone and amp market is filling up with its own kind of audiophile. I'm not sure that the hard core megabuck speaker guys are going to flock to headphones, but the headphone market is getting people to spend a lot of money in audio in situations where they wouldn't if great headphone setups weren't an option.

Well even if you subscribe to that, the fact that we have settled to a point where we have merely caught up with past greats is a bit sad, to me at least, when the market and technology would allow so much more...

The problem with headphones is that there is basically nothing made on a 'cost no object' basis. The cans themselves are all there to hit a price point, even if it's a relatively 'high' one. So all the money is going into the ancillary equipment, which, as important as it is, could leave you at the end feeling a bit unsatisfied. With hedphone systems you are inevitably limited to the relatively small and fixed choice in transducers. Are the big manufacturers listening? There is a market for much higher end headphones. It seems that even now the average headphone user (head-fi type that is) is spending more on each piece of ancillary equipment than they do on their headphones in the first place, so why on earth haven't the manufacturers stepped up to provide equally high-end headphones? But then I look at posts where we see people laud the 'expensive' headphones of the past like the K1000 (which was admittedly a unique achievement) and the R-10 (rather less of one), which have developed a mythology surrounding them simply because they were expensive and rare (relatively). I've yet to find anything that makes these headphones that are supposedly in another 'league' 'better' than the current top of the line production headphones, save the fact that some people prefer them (and again that is hardly universal).

That particular recording is an absolute reference. Well suggested.

I've never heard 3k's but I thought they were among the better closed headphones in general? Probably not for the price Sov. wants for them, but in general?

Ok, so I apparently have more spare change than sense and ordered a pair of these. Couldn't resist the curiosity. These aren't really burned in yet (only a few hours on them), but they really are surprisingly good. They look and feel like earbus, and sound something akin to a real pair of headphones. Unlike earbuds they seem to do extended bass. At the moment they sound a bit 'plasticky' and nasal in the midrange (as if you took an open headphone and then covered the backs), and I wonder how they will relax with proper burn-in. They are extremely hard to drive - I find myself using a similar volume setting on my amp to my 650's, which makes them even harder to drive than 650's s they are half the impedance. Anyone else tried these?

That's a lot! I'm really going for the most neutral set of tubes. Neutral seems to be more and more subjective these days, but to me that means there shouldn't be any traces of harshness, which is achieved without roll off somewhere. I was looking through some options for output tubes here: http://www.dougstubes.com/el34.htm?gclid=CK_p0_nspIwCFQhaZQod7w365w. I'm trying to understand what the variations in specs, temperatures and voltages etc. would or wouldn't mean for my amp? In general, do the variations mean that some will and won't work, or just that some might be a better match sonically?