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Higher HD650 appreciation...
I've been running my HD650's for the last year with a Matrix Mini-i DAC/AMP combo and it's been pretty nice.. went through the FiiO E7/E9, sold it shortly thereafter, the E10 and the E17. While nice, I knew there was much more potential.
Well.. jut got the Schiit Lyr, loaded up some Amperex Holland tubes, took my PS Audio DLIII DAC from my main A/V system and all I can say is Holy Schiit! It's taken the HD650's to a brand new level. Loving them even more!!
Edit.. 5 hours later.. can't stop listening to the Lyr/DLIII/HD650 combo.. it's simply amazing!!!
Glad you got the setup you were hoping for for the HD650s...you guessed accurately that they'd really come to life with a proper setup after all! Now you just need to save up or sell relatives to servitude to get another DLIII.
Yeah, that combo with HD650 is an extremely addictive drug. It's often hard to remove them from your head and quit.
Have you decided if you think they're truly better than HE-400 yet, or still equal but different using the same gear?
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Well rendered warmth in a chain makes for a lively presentation with the HD650. It's a misconception that this type of coloration dulls them. Perhaps if a warm component in the chain lacked texture and dynamics, smeared the lower frequencies and masked details. With Amperex Orange Globes in the Lyr and with the neutral and detailed signature of the the Bifrost behind it, the HD650 had great body, dynamics and tone. Bass was deep but well defined. Guitars had crunch and bite. It had palpable drive and authority, dense but coherent. Reminded me of the Alessandro/Grado sound, smoother but on steroids and with a less constrained presentation.
Interesting description there, great visual cues in that description. For someone so fond of the HD800 sound, you sound like you still have a soft spot for HD650
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Oh..I had a Darkvoice 337 and upgrading to the DLIII DAC (which seems to be fairly energetic and musical) helped immensely but the 650s still sounded incredibly dull compared to my current setup, and my current amp is so much lesser in price than the DV337, and it even has an internal DAC to make it a combo (Audio-gd Compass). The soundstage is actually existent (but that's the dual volume knob style to blame, not the tubes), and highs actually come out clear rather than strangled and compressed down into oblivious warmth.
I recognize that it could have been my tubes, so I'd be up for trying another tube amp as to not be ignorant but I think SS is my direction if the rule of thumb is more accuracy, detail, and transparency with SS and desired coloration for tubes. I'd love to try a not-overly-warm, accurate, detailed, and well-staged (good soundstage) tube amp with the 650s some time. I'm looking at trying transparent/neutral though. I'm gonna start with an O2 and if I like it I'm looking into the SPL Auditor.
I tried my HD650 on my O2 the other day for giggles since I hadn't tried yet yet since I got my silver cable. I was impressed, it really did sound good. Though it's also possible it could be more fatiguing to me (I'm treble sensitive) than on my smooth tubes on Lyr. But I could see how someone could easily prefer that SS sound with it too. Especially if someone has a preference toward brigher analytical headphones like Beyers but wanted something more mid-centric. O2's a great place to start (or even finish...)
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Sounds interesting...I'm a bit intrigued. I've been neutral on the subject of cables since I've never tried it (but I don't believe an upgraded USB (or other digital) cable can make a difference beyond better insulation from the wire that provides electricity to charge stuff etc. since it's only digital 1s and 0s) but I'm in line to get a loaner from somebody in July or something.
Actually, the "it's just 1s and 0s" philosophy is sometimes bad myth. Bad cabling affects digital differently than analog cable issues, but it can affect sound, certainly. USB being the worst culprit. While analog cable issues (or attributes) can affect frequency response (tilts toward, or losses/attenuation of high frequency or low frequency, changing the sonic character, digital cable issues are more insidious. When you get sound, it's always perfect in character, it can't change the timbre. But it can stilt entire packets, drop packets, or send packets out of order (meaning the out of sequence packets are deleted before playback.) Remember, there's no such thing as a "digital cable", you're sending digital data over an analog cable via an analog means. What arrives at the receiving end is a stream of bits, yes. But it determines if the bit was "on" or "off" (1 or 0) based on whether the amplitude (SB/Coax) is over or below a certain predefined point. if the wave is deformed, shifted, degraded, you can get false data, or missed data. Same with Optical where most cheap optical cable (and jacks) causes all sorts of reflections that alter the data too.
A missed bit here or there, at a minimum of 16 bit samples sent 44,100 times a second (705,600 bits a second), or at best, 24 bit samples sent 192,000 times a second (4,608,00 bits a second) won't kill the sound quality. But a missed bit changes the data of that 16 or 24 bit sample. A slight shift in frequency. A late 16/24 bit sample gets deleted entirely. A sample arriving at the wrong time (jitter) if poorly clocked on the DAC wll play slightly off exacting tempo. A few here and there would be indistinguishable to a human. But if you get enough missing data, or altered data in your digital stream you end up with many slightly off sounding samples played at non-evenly spaced timings and some of those timings are just a gap in the data that could be perceived as lack of resolution.
USB cables also carry a +5V power lead. Unshielded usually. A cable that provides its own interferance leads to issues. I'm not saying a $300 USB cable is in order, but good quality cabling is an absolute must. Belden type stock is sufficient.
S/PDIF over Coax is a better bet, but the issues can stll apply. The S/PDIF transmitter quality also comes into play. Any good coax video cable is probably a good coax digital audio cable since digital video is far higher bandwidth and needs higher tolerances.
Optical/Toslink. Well glass is best, but it's also fragile and easily breakable. Optical grade plastics are usually the best compromise. Good Toslnk cables are harder to find. Thus why most recommend coax over optical when possible when going SPDIF. But optical over a good interface still has less issues than USB with the embedded power lead.
So it's a lot more complex than "it's just ones and zeros." Transmitting 1s and 0s over analog signal is like sending MP3's by signal lamp. Errors are bound to happen. Digital doesn't fix all problems of audio, it just introduces a new set of problems and a close assurance that you're not going to get real frequency shift out of it unlike analog.
FYI, the reason sending digital data in an analog electrical way in computer transmissions like MP3 file copies, ethernet, even locally on the system is different is error correction: It double checks every packet to be sure what arrived is right, and resends if it isn't. Audio is real-time. Without buffering that can't be done, so it's fire-and-forget with no chance to resend or check if it's in the right order once it arrives.
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I'm not ashamed to say love the outfits the women in this illustration are wearing, epsecially the black dress. Very elegant along with a slightly modern twist. On topic, my personal feelings on cable upgrades is they should be the last upgrade to an established rig, adding that last bit of sonic seasoning to push a headphone over the top based on the listener's preferences.
Exactly my thoughts as well.
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Hmmm well even if the differences with that cables are minimal then at least it definately looks nice!
One thing I love about Silver Dragon is that the cable jacket exactly matches the HD650's finish. It's a gloss "graphite" color. There's something pleasing about a headphone with a perfectly color-matched cable on it
Superficial yes...but very cool.
Coincidentally Drew's cable suggestion for HE-400 is the Blue Dragon. A blue cable on my blue headphone is too much to pass up since it happens to be the one sonically suggested as well
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i hear the 650 is generally known to be slightly warmer than the average set of phones, so i decided the lyr might be a better amp for it than the asgard, so i returned the asgard and ordered a lyr. (with all three sets of tubes they offer so i can see which i like best) very excited! anyone here run the 650's through a lyr? (and possibly through the bifrost?)
Well if the rest of us with that setup are any indication I'm sure you'll love it. I'm quite addicted to mine (Lyr + Bifrost.) The stock tubes are a great chance for tube rolling. The JJs will give you a taste of new production tubes, the Russian tubes are supposedly more tubey but are more love/hate. The GE's are kind of a neutral ground, very good detail, not as tubey sounding. It's a fun way to start and get an idea of what you like in a tube. Then you can join the dark side with the tube rolling thread
Tubes from $40-$1k discussed there regularly. My current set is some 1970's Mullards, I paid $75 for them used (not bad since the Schiit JJs and Russian tubes are $40.) I'd like to get some Telefunken to try too. I'd have been happy with the GE's forever had some periodic noise made me start looking for improvments. After hearing something better, I think I'm hooked on the upgrades. Like HD650, Lyr has a lot of stored potential waiting to be unlocked
Congrats on the Lyr purchase! It's an excellent HD650 pairing, and a fun ride for a great headphone!
