HeadphoneAddict
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Posts posted by HeadphoneAddict
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Thanks for the review.
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Well, Sherwood spent a few hours tonight listening to my Stax and the Pico did a very good job as a DAC/pre-amp feeding the Woo GES. There was nothing at all to complain about. It's very good.
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oh no, I sold my Pico for it
Look at the bright side - DACMagic doesn't sound bad it's just not the best, it's very versatile with many inputs and outputs, and it might improve with burn in or with the addition of a better power supply like a sigma 11 (wiatrob is building one for the DACMagic we tried)
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Look at the head-fi meets impressions forum for the 11/1/08 Colorado meet - we compared DACMagic to Stello DA100 to Apogee mini-DAC with sigma 11.
I ranked them as Apogee first, Stello a very close 2nd. The DACMagic came in third because it sounded a little too polite and smoothed out and less detailed and dynamic (using balanced with ALO SXC XLR interconnects, or silver RCA). I often use my Pico as a DAC/Pre-amp and it is better than the DACMagic and closer to the Stello and Apogee. As a headphone amp I have put the Pico closer to the HR Micro Stack in sound, but as a pre-amp it excels in driving other amps.
PS: Justin has told me he'll send me one to test for him, and they will be $349.
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It seems I'm getting one next week as well.
What amp should I get for it? I was thinking of Head-Direct EF-1 or Little Dot I+ or maybe iBasso D3 because it has a DAC as well.
Maybe I shouldn't have sold the Pico...
I'll be able to let you know how they sound with EF1, iBasso D3 and Pico next week - the only one I don't have is the Little Dot
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I'm wondering why blind tests are not done over at headfi. I've listened to a lot of portable amps and I dont understand the ratings and rave reviews some receive over other.
Between my ppa2, pimeta and mini3, I dont think I can reliably pick out which amp I'm listening to at any given moment.
It leads me to believe that the prettier the amp is, the better some folks think it sounds. On the other hand, maybe I have tin ears.
In a bling test I'm... Oh wait, I mean in a blind test I am not sure I can tell whether I am listening to my Pico, iBasso D3 or iBasso D2 viper with rolled opamps because the three sound so similar. I could recognize a 2MOVE sound signature apart from them, but I might even screw up trying to identify a D2 Boa or Predator from those. I rated them all as between 9.5 to 10, out of 10, because they were all so close.
(my 10 being based on the best I have heard instead of an imaginary 10; where if I invoke the imaginary "10 that we've never heard" then the highest I've heard is a 9.0)
At Blutarsky's house we could not identify whether we were listening to his Melos SHA Gold, Zana Deux or my Woo WA6 maxed with Sophia rectifier without looking.
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Project fact: The Project has more attenuation and better channel matching than an Alps RK50
So, this is what you were hinting at in that PM to me the other day. Cool
PS: I do get hiss on Livewires with a 5.5G iPOd video or 1G Touch headphone out, but not with LOD and Pico.
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I have been impressed with Blutarsky's Stello DA100 every time I listen to it, and the USB DAC sounds pretty good when the upsampling is left on. With upsampling bypassed the USB is a little thinner and less spacious sounding. The DA100 signature adds balanced output too.
At the Colorado head-fi meet last weekend, the DA100 was clearly better than the DACMagic which was a little too polite sounding. My Apogee mini-DAC was marginally better than the DA100, and it needs the sigma 11 PSU to smooth it out a bit and beat the Stello by a hair. Others agreed my Apogee was a little more detailed but they preferred the Stello more because they were concerned about possible fatigue with the Apogee. Fatigue really hasn't been a problem for me.
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The Shure volume attenuator turned 3-4mm down from full volume usually does a good job of taming the hiss with the Touch. It will also make less changes in the sound signature than the PtoS. My iPhone 3G is much quieter and I gave the Touch to my son, but that's another story.
Good luck!
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Maybe I should wait until after you get your ESP-950 issue resolved, but I have some questions. How forward is the midrange and how aggressive is the sound compared to a Lambda, and how much does different amplification affect this?
I think the first page of this thread has some good descriptions of the forwardness and soundstage. Here are my views to add to that.
I would say the ESP950 is like an Electrostatic Grado RS-2, and fairly forward and "right there". The SR-Lambda signature by comparison is still fairly aggressive like an Electrostatic Grado RS-1 with bowls, but the soundstage is instead a big wide nebulous sound-field that is reminiscent of an Ultrasone S-logic headphone sometimes. The SR-Lambda normal bias is less agressive than either of those, as is the HE60, but the SR-Lambda is more well balanced.
The Koss ESP950 probably have more in common with my O2 Mk2 than my Lambdas, in terms of strong bass and forward mids - but an important difference is that the Koss squishes the instruments and musicians closer together, while the O2 still manage to have a wide soundstage while being forward at the same time. In contrast, the HE60 seems to have this big wide soundstage, but it is easier to pinpoint position the instruments and musicians with them than with the Lambdas. The HE60 also tend to have a more airy etherial feel to the sound, which hurts the illusion of really being there, as if the instruments were a hologram instead of the real thing - the O2 and Koss ESP950 give the instruments more body and substance (as does the Lambda Sig over the normal Lambda).
However, I have not listened to my Koss with the stock amp yet. I bought the Koss from Spritzer with the APS recable using Stax PC-OCC cable and dampening removed, and have tried them with my SRM-1 Mk2 Pro, Woo GES prototype, Woo GES maxed, Sherwood's SRM-T1, and SRD-7 Pro with Nuforce Icon and Travagans Red speaker amps.
The amp does make a difference, especially in terms of whether the soundstage is entirely within the head, or if it can break those boundaries and move outside of the head. Bass presence is also affected by the amp. The Woo GES maxed does the best job of getting the soundstage to extend outside of the head now that it has over 250 hours on it, while Sherwood's SRM-T1 did the best job with what you might call "bass impact" (well, the SRD-7/Nuforce just about ties the SRM-T1 for bass, and the Travagans Red in place of the Nuforce does have a wider soundstage).
When I had my maxed GES built, I could not give up my SR-Lambda and SR-5NB gold edition but I planned to sell my SRM-1 Mk2 pro. So I had a 230v normal bias jack added to the pro-bias jack, when I could have had a Koss or Senn jack, or a 600-620v Pro jack installed instead. I don't think I will regret that, but possibly I could send it back to be modded in the future if I decide to run my normal bias stax off my SRD-X and SRD-7SB and want 620v bias on the second jack.
Hope this helps.
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I temporarily traded my SRM-1 MKII for an SRM-T1 with another Head-Fier at RMAF. So far I definitely prefer the SRM-T1, it seems to push the somewhat forward presentation of the SR-007 MKII back out a bit. There's also a greater ease & smoothness to the sound.
Cool. I listened to that same SRM-T1 at my house a couple of weeks ago (Sherwood) and we both liked it more than the SRM-1 Mk2 Pro with everything, especially the HE60. The 3yr old Woo GES prototype sounded almost identical in power and detail and tone, except we had to add about 1.5 db EQ in the prototype's bass to match the T1. I shipped out the prototype to the Texas head-fi meet this week, but I have my GES maxed in the house now (225 hours burn-in so far). Then I got my SR-007 Mk2 last night and need to spend some time with them now (gotta move my rig back to my bedroom after Sherwood comes by to listen again).
Are you going to do the ear-pad spring mod for the mids, or wait for your BHSE first?
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...oh, and I forgot to mention that SWMBO's retaliation for my SR-007/SRM-717 expenditure was to go out and book a family holiday costing exactly 2.5 times as much as the headphones! (And how could I possibly counter the argument that since I'd spent x on headphones which were just for me, why can't I spend 2.5x on all of us! Bummer!)
Happened to me too - SWMBO has us booked for Hawaii X-mas eve -> new years eve...
At least I got my O2 Mk2 and Woo GES Maxed, all within the past week or so.
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Hey, it will be great to have you back in town! Will you get to stay in Colorado Springs or will they be shipping you out somewhere else after this?
I look forward to inviting you over again to listen to stuff - since you were here last I got the HE60 drivers replaced, and added a Woo GES maxed and SR-007 Mk2. I think it's very nice of you to loan out stuff for others to hear.
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I forgot to ask, will you have enough power to run it all?
And what about getting a Widder electric heated vest and gloves, which would surely push you over the power limit. Good thing the iRiver and portable amp can run on battery - what about the Radar and GPS?
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That's the Shizznit!
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Wow. Some people would say all that matters is whether it sounds good or not, but... Based on the internals, why isn't it as small as a Xin Reference or Xin Super Micro?
E500 Cable Cracked
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So, what do you think of the mahogany wood cups (with dynamat) on my D2000 this past weekend, having heard the D2000 just 2 weeks earlier with the stock plastic cups? Seems we both thought the improvement is pretty apparent.
For those who weren't there, at the earlier Colorado meet on 11/1 most of us thought my APS V2 cabled D2000 with stock plastic cups beat the stock D7000 by a small margin (mostly in the treble detail), but otherwise they were pretty similar headphones. So yes, plastic can beat wood. But the markl wood cups beat the plastic cups, and to me they are a worthwhile upgrade to my D2000. I don't believe I would ever spend $1100-1200 on a new modded D5000 with JL cable though. I only have $600 invested in my D2000 (bought used already re-cabled, then added woodies), and they sound just as good or better to me.