Just getting started into this headphone "thing" and wanted to share my discovery.
After reading the many reviews on amps, cans and rip standards I found questions to some of my answers but still was left fairly confused as each of our listening preferences differ.
Was looking for a synergetic combo that would provide extended punchy bottom end, lush mids and airy highs...all well balanced in a seamless transition.
I ended up buying a set of SR60's from Ken (ALO) which he rewired in silver and bought the Millett Hybrid from Todd (TTVJ) along with a ALO Jumbo Cryo dock.
My initial thinking was silver is ruthless in revealing bad recording (or compressed files
) and the Millett's softer nature would compensate for the brightness of the silver cabling.
All my music is ripped at 320kps and I typically listen to iGrado's thru the line-out amp. With little burn-in time (< 40hrs) the combo was more or less exposing grainy highs, smearing the low to mid bass freqs and basically acting as a gain boost. It was loud but not as smooth and engaging as the iGrado thru the ipod line-out.
With approx another 20 hrs on each I began to notice the bass tighten up and perhaps extend deeper as well as some gain in soundstage depth (naturally varying with recording). The grainy highs were begining to smooth but the bass still was tending to smear (veil?) the lower mid freq range to my ear.
The other night I started re-ripping files WMA lossless and letting iTunes convert them over to Apple Lossless.
I downloaded the lossless files and went home to have a listen and.... HOLY ISHT!!!
The bass "seemed" more extended and just as punchy, the smear gone and the high freq graininess is history. Excellent seperation and spatial ques, all the little nuances noises are now present and the soundstage depth is unbelieveable...I must have played ELP's "Still, you turn me on" about a dozen times. Absolutely stunning!!! Just the right balance between warm, silky, lush tubey characteristics and "IN YOUR FACE" involving slam and detailed nuance retrieval of quality SS.
I know it probably doesn't compete with highend imod rigs or multi-thousand $$$ home based amp/headphones but
for reference...my little portable rig sounds "equivalent" (to my ears) to a demo rig playing Chris Rea's "Road to Hell" (pts. 1 & 2).running B&W 800 Silver Sigs thru a old-school 600W (2600???) McIntosh SS Amp and Proceed CD/DVD player.
I'm hooked
Initial review of ALO SR60's and TTVJ Millett Hybrid Amp
