Dusty Chalk

Carl has. I'm getting a pair, for no other reason than to try them. Stax markets them as one of their top two headphones (the other being the Omega II's), and that alone was enough to entice me, but Carl's review made me drool even more. It's over on that other H**d-F* site, but he's also a member here.

The W2002's were great headphones, I kind of regret selling mine, but I just never listened to them. I never heard wrong with them what everyone else didn't like about theirs. They're also easily the most gorgeous headphones ever, anywhere.

Because we're not allowed to, at least, not through Head-Fi.

I haven't been following -- what's a 595? I mean, I know it's a pair of headphones, but where does it rate in Sennheiser's lineup? Do they even qualify as decent headphones? Closed, open, somewhere in the middlin'? Do they have that family sound? Do they "scale like bastards"? In other words, HOW DO THEY SOUND? I'd write to them. Tell them you really wanted your HD580's back, and if they don't have another headband, could they please just give you a headband from the HD600, you don't care if they don't match (it'd be a collector's item on Head-Fi -- just like MacDEF's one MDR-7506 driver/one MDR-V6 driver headphones). That is, if you really don't prefer the 595's. If you do, then I'd write them and say, "thanks for replacing my HD580's with 595's, they are an adequate substitute, your customer service is the best". Or some such.

Because there's something wrong with you. Well...not wrong with you in a way that isn't wrong with many other people -- I suspect the allure is this feeling of "getting away from the world", which, now that I phrase it that way, can be very appealing. But yeah, the whole point in having headphones (to me, anyway) is that one doesn't have to worry about all the things one has to worry about with speakers -- including room treatments. Just MHO. If you do do it, I won't think any less of you (in fact, I rather admire people that know what they want and go after it with a gusto). I'd be curious as to your results, too.

Were they competitive with the Ety ER-6i? I like the gunmetal ones (or rather, black chrome, is what they look like). And no, Mark and Billy, I'm just confident enough with my sexuality to pull that look off. So fuck off, fuckoffs.

linky I'd look like I was wearing earrings, though.

Yeah: switch to closed phones.

No, you're fucking queer.

You could just buy an isolation booth.

No, the sweet spot on the Sennheisers is just a bit too loud for my tastes -- that's why I don't like them. Supposedly the GS1000 sound good low, but I don't like them. You may want to just try a few different phones.

Yes, I used to be able to enjoy music without even thinking about the veil. But the bell cannot be unrung. And I have to admit to feeling a certain thrill when I hear something reproduced particularly well. I remember two such incidents -- one was at Hirsch's place, he played me that Weavers Live at Carnegie Hall, and that was the first time I heard "you are there" imaging. The second was prior to that, when I thought they had a live musician playing in the next room at Deja Vu Audio (in their old location). It was a recording. Every time I break through a wall, I get a similar kind of thrill. So no, not entirely do I wish that.

Although this isn't exactly wrong, it takes a trained ear to be able to imagine what's wrong with a system and be able to imagine what cables it would take to fix it. For example, I've seen Hirsch be completely unhappy with the Meridian source until he used a very specific pair of interconnects and power cord (and headphone amp and headphones). It's really hard not to be able to determine what a source (for example) is capable of without a lot of trial and error, when it comes to cables. So although I fundamentally agree with this suggestion, I would amend it as follows: try a lot of different cables, expect a lot of trial and error.

I've heard good things about White Zombie Audio, but I haven't tried them myself yet. Me, personally, I use Pure Silver Sound and may have to get more from them.

The amp is enough.

Thanks, got it this time.

WTL, dude, I just saw all of these messages. Give us a couple of hours. Jeez. Days even maybe.

The entirety of what follows is MHO: There's balanced, and there's balanced. Personally, I think the bigger leap is to just separate the channels. I never understood why so many headphones share the return (3 wires instead of 4) -- it's probably the main reason that electrostatics and the K1000's are so clearly superior, they have separated channels from the get-go. So doing that alone (recabling dynamic headphones with separate returns and amplifying them that way) would be A Good Thing. But in today's market, it's almost the same as going all the way and doing fully balanced, in which case I'd highly recommend going the full balanced route (source -> amp -> headphones [with admittedly faux-balanced cabling]).

The random talking. Save it for the extended edition. It didn't work for Meat Beat Manifesto, it won't work for you.

Agreed, I forgot about budget when I wrote that. And since both the Orpheus and Baby Orpheus are both "out of print", I'd second the Omega II or 4070 (depending whether or not you want open or closed), or the Koss ESP950 (with a new amp), which at least one person here likened to the Baby O as being on the order of as good ("...as long as you replace the amp"). I haven't heard it myself, but most of these things are the sort of thing you'll have to hear for yourself anyway, I'm just suggesting things to put on your short list.

Low Batteries is probably my favourite track of the ones I've auditioned -- it has that punky vibe on acoustic thing going on. Wombats from Hell is also surprisingly good, what with its Bauhaus tinged production. You guys could use an editor, though. And it's fairly painful to listen to on headphones, the guitar primarily in one earpiece and the voice primarily in the other. It'd probably be a lot less painful to listen to on speakers, so I'll do that later. And a producer. And some synthesizers. And some beats. And a better microphone (the one you used makes you sound congested).

I'm a big believer in a one-box source for redbook, especially starting from the ground up -- an external DAC can be a good cost-effective upgrade, but if I were starting over, I'd buy a one-box unit. I don't think headphone amps come in pre/power -- they're basically integrated amps. Many also perform preamp duties, in which case if you're eventually getting a speaker rig, I'd get a separate power amp for that. Some that would be on my personal short list: Rega Saturn Ayre CX-7e or C-5xe dCS P8i Meridian G08 or 808 EMM Labs CDSA A modded something (modded by RAM, SACDmods, modwright, vacuumstate.com, et al) Esoteric something Musical Fidelity something -- A308 CD player A5 Cd player kW SACD player, whatever

Well, I originally suggested it based on the incorrect presumption that he'd have a solid-state source (CD player) and a solid-state amp (Headroom Balanced). So yeah, I concur, buy a tube amp, then you won't need the tube buffer.

I realized after I posted that I answered a different question than was originally asked. You are happy with your Balanced/HD650 setup, and you want to get another setup for a different location, namely your bedroom. Correct? I agree with the advice of doing it in stages, because you actually increase your possibilities of getting the synergy exactly right in both systems if you have the ability to move stuff around. Oh, and definitely get a Singlepower SDS XLR if you're going to stick with dynamic headphones, that's just a killer amp. It adds tube magic. No, seriously, its intent is to do impedance matching. You can actually have a solid-state buffer as well. I won't make up numbers, since I'm not qualified to, but let's say that your source has too low an output impedance, and your amp is too sensitive to variations on its input impedance. That's when you'd want a buffer.

Sounds like fun: first of all, be prepared to stick with what you got. I've heard the Balanced/HD650 combo, and it's in my top 10 list of best headphone setups ever, anywhere. The only thing it's missing is that tube magic, but if you have the diamond buffers, you'll be compromising in other areas to get that tube magic. You might want to try other of the balanced headphones -- I am partial to the Beyer DT880 on that setup, others are partial to Grados. So I'd concentrate on the source. Get the best source you can afford. dCS recently came out with a single-box player, as did EMM Labs, at that price point, I would check out both of those. And then get some pretty damn decent cables -- I recommend silver, but let them burn in for a couple weeks. If you want to really slay, put a tube buffer between your source and your amp. I'm not really fond of the MF X10, but something like that. You may also want to go electrostatic. The Orpheus headphones with something like a KGSS or a Blue Hawaii (as built by Justin) should be pretty good.