[donlin]

I have a friend who buys new and used gear all the time, fits your description of enjoying different gear.  When I visited him a few months ago he had a few headphones, amps and DACs in un-open boxes, so I was the lucky one to open them up and try them out.  He is wealthy enough that spending $5-10K a month on this hobby does not faze him but as he said, he doesn't get to spend all the time he wants so he buys a lot of stuff to have on hand when he does get some free time.  I lucked out as one of the boxes had a used SR-009 and SRM-007 in them that he gave to me, said he got a great deal so he couldn't pass them up, in return I'm going to build him a BH Crack for when he comes to Hawaii on his next golf trip.

So, what do you think of the stax phones?

 

[castleofargh]

David vs stax box, the first thing I thought was "but the box will be too small"

 

 

[Sal1950]

I can't comment on the dac portion of the hdvd800 but as an amp, it's up there with the best, not just for Sennheisers. There's a strange phenomenon on head fi concerning amps. Anything made by a mainstream company such as sennheiser, bryston, musical fidelity, oppo etc gets zero interest. Only certain small, garage type companies are widely discussed. It almost seems like the longer the wait time for delivery the better. I've read posts by guys waiting months. My personal experience with quite a few of the head fi darling companies has been pretty bad with regard to the amps working properly. That's one reason I tend to focus more on mainstream high-end companies. They just seem to have things more figured out when it comes to a finished product.

Yep from exalting of the garage companies to the DIY geniuses, they all know more and can build better sounding gear than the best engineers in business. Those in the employ at good salaries by the industries majors have everyone fooled.  Just read thru the posts at CA to meet the best unemployed minds in the business.  LOL

 

[Sal1950]

Guilty as charged. I go through a lot of gear and really have a lot of fun doing it. But I will say I've had an HD 650 almost contiuously since the first day it hit the street.

Been there, done that, only with motorcycles. Back in my younger days of the 70-80s I used to tear my Harley completely apart and rebuild it every winter. I was never satisfied and always had a different idea of what would be the coolest look or better performing package for next season. I loved it..
 
I'm a lot less anal with my Hi Fi. My last High End system remained almost completely stable for near 20 years. SOTA speakers and amps have been relatively mature in that time frame. Didn't have any headphones at all in those days.
Happy Thanksgiving All, God Bless.

 

[Music Path]

 
I see that as another hobby. I can be the happiest little kitten, listening to one single song for a week straight at times, but I have a few buddies who will try to listen to 2 or 3 new albums every day. a little like one would do with movies, you see it once and move on.
I suspect it's the same with gears, some get a real pleasure out of trying many different gears and getting new experiences all the time. it's not my thing, but I'm sure it's mighty fun for some.
as long as it's not the casual lost lamb with too much expectations, jumping from one disappointment to the next. I wish that one to nobody(ok maybe a very short list of people I don't like. and that's it!) ^_^

Your statement is good, its like a hobby inside a hobby. And your previous coment was quite good too.

Want to add to your previous coment that i think that things get over hyped or over critisized because of unecessary adjectives. IMO Which can make things unclear for undecided or new people starting this hobby. On those cases i ask for clearify, which i did previously, thinking about them too. Though i happy with my gear, it is just that i have some dificulty understanding some objective conclusions. 
For me all hi-fi HPs are adequate for certain likes and people, and all of them have quality.  Overpriced or underpriced is more on how one sees it, and budget of course IMO 
All very subjective as you said.
And yes sometimes one forgets to listen to the music, and have fun, which i think is the most important.  
I came here intialy because i thought it would be easy to chill and i wouldn´t see any discussions or harder terms  I mean the users of this forum have quite a bit in comon, so i guess it is easier to relate to each other. IMHO
I do chill, but sometimes i get a bit suprised when reading.  Maybie trough text things are a bit harder to express and to understand sometimes, at least i feel it that way I personally i´m trying to improve that skill too and practise a foreign language.
But yeah, basically is what you said on that coment and this one, make a more fixed goal. 
My setup is mostly done now, there is always space for improvement but its ok for me. 


I´m like you too, listen more to songs then whole albums.

Cheers

 

[Sal1950]

I´m like you too, listen more to songs then whole albums.
Cheers

I guess I'm too old school. I feel that mostly an album was written like a book. You're supposed to read it cover to cover, not just a chapter here and a chapter there.  LOL
Cheers

 

[castleofargh]

 

I´m like you too, listen more to songs then whole albums.
Cheers

I guess I'm too old school. I feel that mostly an album was written like a book. You're supposed to read it cover to cover, not just a chapter here and a chapter there.  LOL
Cheers

 on that subject, I try to listen to one single song or one single album in repeat mode, anytime I'm reading a book. next book, another song or another album.  etc.
that way they get linked in my head and I just love it. hear the song, remember the book, or the other way around. works better with classical or calm genres so that I don't get too distracted from reading.
can't recommend it enough.

 

[Sal1950]

 
 on that subject, I try to listen to one single song or one single album in repeat mode, anytime I'm reading a book. next book, another song or another album.  etc.
that way they get linked in my head and I just love it. hear the song, remember the book, or the other way around. works better with classical or calm genres so that I don't get too distracted from reading.
can't recommend it enough.

It's Thanksgiving, not April Fools Day, I'm not gonna fall for that one castleofargh.   LOL

 

[painted klown]

   
Burn in time is extremely overrated. I didn't notice much at all, if any. I put them on my head brand new and enjoyed them the same as I am hundreds of hours later.
 
Yes, they scale extremely well. Every time I've upgraded my amp and DAC, they sound better.  Other headphones, especially planars, do not scale much at all, if any.

Thanks for your input. For me, burn in has been a hit & miss type of thing. Most of my headphones, I couldn't hear much/any difference. With my Grado SR80i (one of the first HPs I bought) I just happened to be listening to them when the "burn in happened". I had never had that happen before or since, but the differences were dramatic and very sudden, as if I had put on different headphones. I was listening to Dave Matthews Band at low volume when it happened, oddly enough....LOL!
 

   
Okay, listening to the HD650 from the Big Ego right now.
 
They sound surprisingly good from this little beast.
 
It's even powering them enough with classical music in JRiver (with leveling reducing the playback volume even).
 
Pretty surprised.

Thanks Luckbad. I am a huge Emotiva fan, and have heard great things about the Ego DAC/Amp on their forum, but not much outside of there. I have said it before, and I'll say it again that I feel Emotiva gear is super under-appreciated on this forum. Most people seem to skip over Emo without giving their gear a second thought, opting for a more popular product.
 
I visit a lot of different audio forums (some more than others) and it's seemingly a bit of an internet phenomena. Usually a handful of brands will dominate the forum (or section of a forum) and they seem to vary from forum to forum. I suppose people are going to buy what they read about the most, so it makes sense (in that context) but I have not seen any company that is extremely prominent across multiple forums (save Sennheiser and Grado when headphones are mentioned). I do feel, however, that "group-think" permeates a lot of forums online. Not bashing on any forums, mind you. I LOVE that they exist!

 

[Krutsch]

  The Schiit Modi+Vali stack that I have does not sound as good as my iMac -> Sony CMT-BX20i bookshelf system. Possible reason can be that the DAC inside a Mac might be quite good (as lots of people mentioned it), and the T-amp inside the Sony bookshelf system might also be a high performance/price amp. Anyway when I plug my HD650 directly into the phone jack on my Sony bookshelf, it sounds better than Modi+Vali. 

 
I haven't listened to the Vali, and I've read good things about it, but I was hugely disappointed in the Modi 2 Uber - worse sounding DAC I've ever heard; mids were just missing.
 
And, yes, I realize it's a $149.00 US, so my expectations were appropriate. I bought it on impulse to use in my speaker system, so I could move something else back to my desk rig. After my initial impressions were unfavorable, I setup three other DACs along side that I could quickly switch between to understand what I was hearing. The other DACs sounded reasonably close to one another, with the Modi 2U sounding as an obvious outlier.

 

[DavidA]

 

•  
•  
•  

So, what do you think of the stax phones?

Compared to the HD-650 its amazing, highs are more like the HD-800, crystal clear, mids are smoother than the HD-650 and full of details, bass is about the only thing I wish it had a tad more, but it goes deep and is always controlled.  I also have an old Stax SRD-34 headphone set and the SR-009/SRM-007 are just a very refined version of it.  I would never buy the SR-009/SRM-007, way past diminishing returns area but for the price my friend got them ($1800) I would also break the piggy bank to buy them.  The only issue I have is that I need to use a power converter from 120/60 to 100/50 since the SRM-007 was in Japan, using the converter I have for my Nakamichi ZX-9 tape deck

 

[cddc]

   
I haven't listened to the Vali, and I've read good things about it, but I was hugely disappointed in the Modi 2 Uber - worse sounding DAC I've ever heard; mids were just missing.
 
And, yes, I realize it's a $149.00 US, so my expectations were appropriate. I bought it on impulse to use in my speaker system, so I could move something else back to my desk rig. After my initial impressions were unfavorable, I setup three other DACs along side that I could quickly switch between to understand what I was hearing. The other DACs sounded reasonably close to one another, with the Modi 2U sounding as an obvious outlier.

 
Cool, thank you very much for your input, @Krutsch!
 
I will try to figure out if Modi is the source of underperformance next time when I have other DACs to compare with.

 

[mysticstryk]

I find my 650 to perform really well with my modi, but we all have different ears. I'm running a magni uber though, not a vali.

I'm also coming from a fiio e10k so almost anything would probably be an upgrade.

 

[olor1n]

My personal experience with the small companies thus far is also not very good. The Schiit Modi+Vali stack that I have does not sound as good as my iMac -> Sony CMT-BX20i bookshelf system. Possible reason can be that the DAC inside a Mac might be quite good (as lots of people mentioned it), and the T-amp inside the Sony bookshelf system might also be a high performance/price amp. Anyway when I plug my HD650 directly into the phone jack on my Sony bookshelf, it sounds better than Modi+Vali. 

I had the Vali alongside higher end amps and found that it held its own very well. Pretty impressive actually, given the $119USD price. I had it connected to my NAD 51 though, not a $99 dac.

 

[whirlwind]

With all of the talk here lately about which amps sound good for the HD650, I thought I would post some pictures of a wonderful amp for the HD6XX series of phones.
 
It is the MADEar +HD amp and it was made by the good Dr. Peppard from Canada and he made it for the HD6xx series of headphones.
 
It is a real workhorse of an amp and it is a pure tube amp....if you can find one used for a good price, you wont be disappointed with this kit.
 

 

 

 

 
If you can find a good deal on one....do not sleep on it  

 
Happy Thanksgiving everybody.