Random IEM / Headphone Rants

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#edge111hussain,

As far as I can tell, the "end" is always a temporary and brief stop in this hobby. Most times, you are simply moving from one set of options to the next in a higher price bracket
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That said, I am more satisfied with my IEM rig than my headphone rig at this point. Getting a custom is the only thing I want to try there - it's straight forward and less confusing as long as I can save up enough money and have the mindset to go through with it.

But, headphone setup might require more money to finalize as there's source (DAC + Amp) and a headphone involved. Not sure if the current setup of DacMini CX -> Burson HA-160 should suffice for T1 / HD800 / HE-500 / LCD-2 or I should consider other options like Anedio D2 or even take a different route (For e.g., this may be nice for an amp too ). There's also the choice between getting the right headphone and building a rig around it and finding an immensely satisfying DAC-Amp combo and then try out headphones in hopes of finding "THE" one. Being new to the headphone world (and considering the higher costs involved), I'd need more time to take decisions.
 
#esanthosh

Never heard the t1 or he-500 but can surely comment on the hd-800 and lcd2.

800's sound gr8, it does everything right, till u hear the lcd2. The lcd2 sounds very very natural to my ear. Its almost like ur in a studio and everything is being performed right in front of you.

I would have bought one but, but dont quiet understand dac's and amps. The guy whose rig i heard, had a $2000 dac amp setup(his quote to me). Now spending that kind of money on a dac amp is something that i cant quiet digest. I heard the hd-800 with a woo audio something amp and it sounded gr8.

How would these high end cans sound on a asus essence ST? If not the 800's, maybe a hd-650 or a dt-880 600 ohms. I remember titana mentioning on one of the threads that a dt-880 does a fine job with a asus Essence st/stx..

BTW, the hm5's are growing on me. Ive started to enjoy the sound. The Bass impact keeps me interested, i hope the mids improve a bit more. Though this is all thanks to the BBE mach3bass and BBE viva on the S9.
 
The STX does an adequate job as an amp, nothing great but not bad either. And since it has a rather nice DAC section as well, one can keep it in chain even while upgrading to a better amp.

The EHHA is in another league though.
 
I recently got T50RP and modded it (basic modding). It sounds much better after that. Darkish sound signature.

Anyone knows how headphone frequency charts are generated? I mean, what sort of measuring equipments are required for this? Are they expensive?
 
Upgraded my dedicated music PC from XP to Win7 last week. It's much better in terms of both UI and SQ (I've been on Win 7 in the rest of the PCs, but was lazy to upgrade the music PC for the last several months). I've been sampling various tracks - lot of it from my age old 128kbps collection with DacMini CX and IEMs (FX700 a couple of nights ago and EX1000 today). It's been lot of fun to go through old collections, especially those "Top x tracks" ones, interest for which seem to have stopped sometime back in the early 2005 for me. I also seem to have made collection CDs for various others (friends and family) a lot during that period. The quick sampling sessions (a couple of mins max of each song, but each session lasted 4-5 hours) made me dug up some forgotten gems as well as lot of "why the hell did I like this" songs (lots of rock/metal bands I don't dig anymore). It also made me swear that the one way I do not want to die is by (forced) listening to Michael Bolton on loop (was part of a Top X collection). It would take months for me to re-organize that old collection, but luckily I may not need vast majority of the tracks any more except a few for nostalgic purpose.

Also, Dynamic Range VST plugin on foobar has been lot of fun. "Jeremy" on the old 128kbps rip has a dynamic range of 12, whereas the one on my recent "Rearviewmirror" CD has a DR of 6. I always thought Gojira is pretty compressed, but 4 is better than zero. Opeth seems to vary between 10-12 and 5.5-6 for their melodious and heavy passages. Thing is even mediocre old tracks have better dynamic range than most of the recent ones. The loudness wars
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gooood........now you can finally help me setup a fairly neutral setup. I could never get myself used to foobar, hence i've always been stuck to ye ol winamp!!

What kinda setup do you recommend? foobar + ASIO4all or no??
 
foobar + wasapi, it is.

I finally bought an IEM after four months of hiatus and it's not a top-tier, just Fischer Tandem. But it turned out to have channel imbalance. So, sent it back to Musica Acoustics. There's DBA-02 mkII coming soon. I've not been to head-fi in days, so yet to read up on them. I am a bit tempted, but also hesitant about shelling out $200 for it.
 
Will try out foobar + wasapi. I hope there is a difference.

I've have almost stopped going to headfi since a few weeks. I can spend hours on that website and still feel clueless. I would rather just buy something, try it and then sell it off if I don't like it.

bought a hd600 last night. any cable upgrade suggestions since I also have the hd25?
 
That sounds like a great idea. Although my audition results might not be as thorough as the TF10's since I had two TF10's to audition and I kept A/Bing in parallel. Also since the HD600 are open cans and jaben isn't the most quietest place on earth to test open cans.

But what the heck. I'll give it a try. I'll just have to take my HD600 and the HD25 along one of these days. There is a local guy here in Singapore who does custom cabling. His name is also Chris and he will arrange any cable for any headphone with any connector you want. I remember getting a quote from him for the Grado Sr225 and the Senn hd25, both balanced dual xlr terminated and he had quoted me around 350-400SGD for both after some haggling. This was with a really good cable (I can't remember the details).

PM me if you want his details.
 
bennysachdev said:
That sounds like a great idea. Although my audition results might not be as thorough as the TF10's since I had two TF10's to audition and I kept A/Bing in parallel. Also since the HD600 are open cans and jaben isn't the most quietest place on earth to test open cans. But what the heck. I'll give it a try. I'll just have to take my HD600 and the HD25 along one of these days. There is a local guy here in Singapore who does custom cabling. His name is also Chris and he will arrange any cable for any headphone with any connector you want. I remember getting a quote from him for the Grado Sr225 and the Senn hd25, both balanced dual xlr terminated and he had quoted me around 350-400SGD for both after some haggling. This was with a really good cable (I can't remember the details). PM me if you want his details.
Click to expand...

Benny could you PM me his details! Will need some stuff for the upcoming upgrades
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I stopped to linger on head-fi. Just go to dac & portable player section for 5-10 mins.

Thinking of getting a D7 and a good portable player.

Done with IEMS. Highly satisfied with ex1k. Rest of my iems are collecting dust.
 
My IEM free world crumbled again today. For 18 days, I was sober without sticking anything insider my ears, but with scheduled power cut extending to 8 hours per day (apart from random, unscheduled ones that is), it seems like I have no other option left, but to get back to business.

This post may seem to belong in the DAC/Amp thread, but it is more about the IEM than the amp, so here it goes....

I struck one more thing off my wish list with the arrival of Meier Corda 2StepDance today. It was sent by Regd parcel and not EMS, so it took a little while to arrive (~ 3 weeks). Since Joker and clieOS have mentioned that RE272 gets much better when used in balanced configuration, I was very curious about it. I used it with iPod 5G -> awwan LOD -> 2SD stock IC -> 2SD.

Be warned that these are first impressions without any A:B or running test tracks. So, take them with a pinch of salt.

In unbalanced configuration, I liked RE272 somewhat, but not to the point of wanting to own it. With the 2SD, RE272 gets a little better bass texture though I did not feel the extension was any greater than in the unbalanced mode. RE272 still has that very quick decay and hence it does not greatly improve in the lower registers all of a sudden. But, this was still a good improvement to my ears. To characterize, if bass was "missing" in unbalanced mode, here it is present though still in the bass light region - a bit more fuller than HF5, but not too far in quantity from CK10. I still need to A:B with the same chain to be sure.

Mids felt a bit more forward, but very clear and very good with details.The treble is much more in line with mids than before. I thought the best improvement was with the presentation where layering and even separation and placement were much better than I remember with unbalanced mode. While these improvements may not sound that great in my words, I will say that the major difference between unbalanced mode and 'balanced' mode through 2SD is that RE272 (balanced) sounds more effortless and more likeable. I still don't know if I will put it over EX-1000, but it may pip CK10 (except in the imaging and precise placement?).

Sometime later, I'd need to A:B and see how much of these improvements are with RE272 alone and how much is purely due to 2SD. But right now, I got to preserve the battery, so signing off soon...
 
I don't think i have come across any iem that could beat the ck10 in terms of imaging and precision. The UM3x does instrument separation better than the ck10. Otherwise it would be imaging, precise placement and instrument separation for the CK10. But to be honest, no matter how good something is technically, the ck10 could not translate as my favorite pick in iems. Maybe analytical isn't my sound signature at all.

As Gautam from pristinenote always tells me, something which sounds good may not really be the way it sounds. The sound of a male singer might not sound as good in person as it does on a top tier dac/amp/headphone. Coloration gets added to sound at every level, all one needs to do is figure out a synergy that works well for his/her taste. The Ck10 doesn't synergize with my sflo2(bright sounding) pmp. It just gets too analytical and gives me a headache after 20-30mins.

@Ritvik, if the rates for chris does not work out for you, let me know, I'll give you fonebone's number. He's another local DIY cable guy. I recently bought an interconnect through a guy from vrzone and got fonebone's number. Its a silver cabled with 2 x right angled neutrik connectors and fonebone sells it for 70$. If that gives you an idea of pricing.
 
No IEM / Headphone (at least from what I've heard) mimics natural sound to the "T". Timbre requires lot of things to be done right - producing the whole frequency range of the instrument (try that with Piano), getting the tone right, the attack and decay of the note, frequency balance and other things I don't know about. So, within the IEM realm, some IEMs get a few things right or nice, but they do not get everything right (FX700 with strings, HJE900 with guitars). "Neutral" IEMs, compared to real instruments, may actually be colored as they don't often get the tone/coloration right. That is why I do not bother too much about accuracy with IEMs, rather try to enjoy what IEM uniquely offers. It's a 'version' of the recording and that's about it.

Coming to CK10, I don't think it suits everybody either. For me, it's technical prowess - a combination of speed, separation, imaging, precise placement - all make it a dearer IEM than most. I think it would take a custom to really have the CK10 beat technically. But, I must admit that of all the IEMs I have currently, I reach out to EX-1000 and FX700 80% of the time leaving SM3 and CK10 to be the least used among my 'favorites'. If I had unlimited money, I'd have tried CK100Pro by now. Any chance you can audition it at Jaben?

Going off topic, is iMod / diyMod a significant upgrade to the iPod in terms of SQ? fonebone offered to do mine, but I'd need to spend for the Mod + LOD and find a way to send my iPod to him. But, all that effort makes sense only if the pay off is great in terms of SQ!

Update: CK10 still remains one of my favorites. Listening to it now via iPod -> 2SD. I feel that 2SD is neutral with better presence at both ends compared to UHA-6S, but UHA-6S is more revealing of the source. Would confirm it after a few days / weeks.
 
The imod is great for me because I can just drag and drop all my FLAC files on there. SQ is better, noticeable differences back in the day when I had some decent equipment included much better imaging and improved bass with less bloat. How much is all this working out to?

ipod 5.5G 30GB + DiY mod + black gate capped copper LOD sells for about 230 odd USD shipped I understand. Bought one recenlty, waiting to find a good deal on a protector, they sell fast!
 
Yamaha YHE-50A

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The YHE-50A is a small over ear headphone with a 38mm isoplanar driver.

I had a quick listen with my mobile phone X5 (which is in fact better than all my mp3 players). These yamahas are so much more clear & have a bit more resolution than the HP-50A. The treble extension is similar nut YHE-50a has MUCH clearer lower treble.

The mids are forward but a little HP1 like & do not have the warmth, body & sweetness of HP-50a but then what else has.
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Bass has really great texture & while may be a little tighter it doesn't have as much slam & depth of HP50A

But overall YHE-50a clearly is technically better than HP50A. Its easily better resolving & clearer sounding while avoiding any peaks.

Soundstage is on par with HP-50A but for imaging it beats HP-50A hands down.

While all the above differences are not that wide , the one aspect YHE-50A looses to HP-50A is the scale of music rendering.

The 38mm driver does not sound as big as the 46mm driver of HP-50a. There is just no substitute for a larger driver. Even if a driver has lots of technical skills the scale can be achieved only with a large surface area

The YHE-50A can be driven from a portable source. But in that sense its only loud enough to be listenable. Do not expect to be driven at full potential out of the portables. Decent but far from satisfactory.

I do not have HP-50A with me right now , so the above comparison is based on memory & are just very initial impressions.

I'll do a full comparison when i pair both of them with Xonar STX next weekend.

Happy Listening! Cheers.
 
^Pleased to know that these reached you safely, I think you got a great deal on these uber-rare yammies.

If you have some time, drop by this weekend or may be sooner!
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Even though the driver is smaller than HP50, it is technologically much more advanced. It has a 6 micron thin diaphragm as opposed to the usual 12 microns.

There are couple other differences with which I won't bore you but suffice it to say that there is no reason why they should not better HP50 in almost every way.

Remember these are still stock!
 
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