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Sennheiser HD 800 Redux


The Monkey

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All of Doug's current amps are balanced, except for a couple of prototypes.  The HD800 sounds great with either the L-2 or DSHA-1.  Try to get a prototype or look for a used unit.  Todd's asking price for his L-2 was down to $1300 or $1400 before he auctioned it off.  I doubt that you would be able to find a better production amp for the HD800 than the L-2 at any price.

Edited by guzziguy
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I'm not a fan of Donald North Audio stuff -- nice guy but nothing special imho and a lot of money for what you get.  Doug's ECP amps, a TTVJ/Apex Peak, a Zana Deux or a Luxman P-1 are all amps that I think can match well with the HD800.  I would think the Dac1 combined with the Squarewave is likely too much solid stateness for them, but I have never heard that particular combo.

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when this combo is right, it's so, so right.  the opposite is also true.    the SquareWave is actually a bit warm, but it's ruthlessly revealing.  This reminds me of the Dynahi->HP-2 combo,  in a lot of ways.

 

It wasn't too ruthless with the stock PSU, and never ran for long with the S22 I had built for it when the stock one died, so I haven't heard this side of the Sq Wave XL before.  It always seemed to smooth out the sound and make bright phones more tolerable with it's smooth and buttery warmth.

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Thanks everyone for the comments regarding the B22. All my headphones have been on the lush side for a while, but now when I want lush/fun I just listen to the Rega RS1s (speakers not grados) which sound awesome just sitting on my desk. The ESL63s are not in use at the moment, so I want something that gets at the heart of the recording, for better or worse, as Reks describes it.

 

I'm loathe to give up my beta22 after all naaman did to build it, and Fitz did to fix it, so I'll probably give the HD800 a whirl with it for a while. Owning a Headamp GS-X/GS-1 has always been a dream of mine though.

 

start my new gig in august, and will be making more money than I've ever made (still not a lot!) so hopefully I can save up for a while for the cans.

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There is always the option to mess with the electrical damping.  I could always appreciate the HD800's ability but it was never a headphone I'd use unless I was too lazy to fire up any of the electrostatic amps.  Just too bright and edgy with less than stellar material.  Add some resistors and they loose almost all of the weak points yet retain the positive aspects. 

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As much as I'd love one of his amps, seems unlikely that he'll have a balanced one in that price range.  who knows what'll happen, though.

Hey Reks, is there any particular reason why you require balanced connections?  Are you recabling your HD800, or just putting XLRs or TRSs at the end of a single ended cable (in which case, wouldn't that just make it a single ended cable with an adaptor?  If I remember right, those DNA amps are single ended designs, not truly balanced.  Is there a line of ECP amps that are "truly" balanced all the way through?  I've never completely understood the difference between truly balanced and single ended.  Perhaps someone could explain the appeal and the differences.  

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The HD-800 cable is 4 conductor.  

So it can be balanced very easily, I gues?  Just by reterminating in the correct way?  Looking into balanced drive, I see that impedance matching is very important...  It's interesting.  Seems like there are a lot of benefits.  Ground loop prevention, less interference, better dynamic range... 

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Hey Reks, is there any particular reason why you require balanced connections?  Are you recabling your HD800, or just putting XLRs or TRSs at the end of a single ended cable (in which case, wouldn't that just make it a single ended cable with an adaptor?  If I remember right, those DNA amps are single ended designs, not truly balanced.  Is there a line of ECP amps that are "truly" balanced all the way through?  I've never completely understood the difference between truly balanced and single ended.  Perhaps someone could explain the appeal and the differences.  

I'm probably not the best person to have this discussion, but truly balanced as I was taught is +/-/ground, I.E. you have two sides of opposite polarity, both amplifying relative to ground. 

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I'm probably not the best person to have this discussion, but truly balanced as I was taught is +/-/ground, I.E. you have two sides of opposite polarity, both amplifying relative to ground. 

Yes.  This was my limited understanding as well.  That would mean double the amplification.  Or, at least, two signals plus ground.

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For balanced signal transmission you don't need ground, it's just the difference between the "+" and the "-" (remember this is AC so not actually + and -) that matters.  The ground is there as a shield but that's it. 

 

For balanced transducers this is more complicated or rather, the signal transmission is mixed in so that pretty much anything with a XLR socket is balanced.  Take something like a spud amp for instance.  It has one triode per channel so only one phase could be amplified but with input and output transformers that are center tapped it can have balanced input and output.  Now the question, is it really balanced and do you get the same benefits as with something like the SuSy Dynahi?  I'd like to see some better separation of this but I doubt it could be done and I doubt the noobs would understand even a tiny bit of it. 

 

This is also why I want to make an electrostatic spud amp as they have to be balanced to function...  :)

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For balanced signal transmission you don't need ground, it's just the difference between the "+" and the "-" (remember this is AC so not actually + and -) that matters.  The ground is there as a shield but that's it. 

What about common-mode rejection?  The strict definition requires that the two channels have the same impedance to ground, so even if there's only two channels in transmission, there's still an implied 3rd channel by having both channels of both sides relative to ground.

 

EDIT:  Or in the case of typical dynamic headphones, where there's no ground on the non-amplifying end, you still need to balance the amplifier end to be able to call the transmission balanced and receive the benefit of common-mode rejection.

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