Meier OPERA Owners - Page 9

In general that has been my experience, yes.

I can honestly say, I didn't note any decernable increase in bass, you see there is also a volume matching dificulty when switching between jacks also. However the bass on both my AKGs, low z driven was full and articulated, pleanty of bass energy!!!

Now, you also must acknowledge these theoritical differances transpose to be very slight in application! However, I defer to Skys opinion, as well as tech specs saying that is the law of ohm matching, but I stand by what it is i'm hearing that there is hardly any difference to be acknowedged going A/B checking for same...

The low Z outputs have better defined bass, IMO, but the high Z has more of it. This is true with my Beyer cans anyway, at least to my ears. I also find the high Z to have a more laid-back midrange.

O.K. just tested looking at this frequency range specificly with the 990s; Skylab is correct in terms of quantity and quality of the bass between the two jacks. Also, because i do enjoy louder listening, in high Z the bass becomes too rounded in its slightly greater quantity and is not at all preferable to me vs the more defined and higher quality bass thru the low z jack...

Ahh, I see.

I have some 595's that have large amounts of bass when on my friend's Marantz Hi Fi amp, when usually they do not. From what I have read people have put it down to the higher output impedence of the Marantz. Does anyone have some 595's they are willing to test on an Opera? I would love to know if they react the same way.

The reason I ask is that I am hoping to aquire an Opera, but I feel that having two "z" Jacks would be more beneficial and want to know if the "Z" jack would really affect me.

Just skip back a couple of pages and read this
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showpo...2&postcount=89

Cheers Andrew, I have already looked into this idea and have received some mixed responses over it. I probably should not be discussing that in the Opera Forum though.

Jester,
The Opera is a very balanced freq. responced DAC/Amp which allows the phones freq responce to dictate the presentation of the material played. I could barely define the differance between the two jacks effect upon bass presentation with the 990s until Sky articulated it so well and then I listened and only then could I agree. THIS is on the 990s! The differance is slight but true on the 990s.

I'm sure in the case of the 595s on the Marantz its DAC and/or Amp dictates the 595 presenting with "large amounts of bass", and the ohm rating only then augments the effect to a slight degree.

This is similar to the HEED CanAmp augmenting the bass responce of the k701 when used in conjunction with my MHDT Labs DAC, I found there were times I described the bass as able to "Growl" as I never heard it before. Of course only on certain tracks and this effect was wholely unsatisfying with the 990s, for instance.
The MHDT DAC proved to also have a bias tiped to its bass response while for the most part was on par with the Operas DAC section in all other respects, with a noted further extended treble responce. I concluded I prefered the Operas balanced presentation with a slight roll off(if true) to the treble sounding best with the widest choice of material played.

The CanAmp/MHDT was shown to have a relatively glazed brightness over the remaining freq spectrum lacking in the dynamic swings and details afforded by the Opera and/or with MHDT DAC.

I point this out as an example of how the Heed /DAC could WOW but is also so very colored as to be unsatisfactory with the 990s for instance, when compared to a balanced amp/dac, which better controls the drivers while presenting finer details while maintaing the signature of the phone used.

In the case of the 595 we also have totally different ends of the efficientcy spectrum when compared to my 701s; So there are other factors of course, in trying to draw conclusions as to the effect the two jacks might offer you. I can add only if the difference was difficult to detect with the 990s for me, with the k701s it is nearly impossible to detect, again due to volume matching issues when switching between the two jacks. However, I'm willing to conclude the science hold true in absolute terms, but in practice it is a very slim difference when applied to a balanced phone!

As was previously stated, for some perhaps maintaining both low and high Z jacks might be the best choice for variety and nearly a tone adjustment. However, rest assured the difference between the two jacks with 595s, would not act as a bass boost (as reportedly the cause with the Marantz) because to do so that would presupposed a highly colored DAC/Amp, which isn't the case here.

Hope this is helpful~

What a great post! Many thanks for this very concise but detailed explanation -- clears up a lot of my questions/concerns about the Z vs. z discussion and makes me very keen to try this A/B with my soon-to-arrive DT-880s (600)!

best,

o

DAAmn! I think Hi-finthen just won the "response of the month" award.

Thanks for the input guys, the whole reason I want an opera is because it let's the headphones speak for themselves. Looks like i'll be gettin' the two "z" option so I can share the love.

now.... where did that wallet go?

Received my Opera (stock) last week but a neighbor had it until I returned from Disney World.

I unpacked it and was very impressed with the build quality. My history includes 10 years of home theater experience which has included many years of beta testing for local boutiques selling home theater/house audio equipment. I enjoy an upgraded Denon 5800 behemoth (over 70 lbs) integrated receiver as well as a mid-fi Energy Veritas 7 speaker set up with a unique SVS Subwoofer.

I like hair-standing bass in movies but listen for goosebump prompting mids and highs in music. Bass needs to be timely and not over-bloated with a level of comfort, not implosion.

My opera is only burned in about 24 hours now and my Beyer DT 880s (2005 250 Ohm--with 350 hours burned) sound quite nice and even a bit warmer than I expected. I only store lossless music files and am connected via USB.

The sound separation and clarity is rewarding. I feel strings articulate themselves very nicely in the opera/880 environment. What is disturbing is that there are several songs where non-traditional percussion and synth is quite prominent but it sounds a bit too honest and even bright to me. My gut says this is an issue with music production not necessarily tweaking these tracks into proper submission but still, I am finding songs that I love like Porcupine Tree's Halo from Deadwing almost too distracting at times.

My biggest issue is the clicking sound I get in between tracks. I can replicate this sound whenever I grab the track movement dot in iTunes to move forward or backwards within a track. It sounds like a tiny click or painless speaker prick sound. It is not horrible but I am definitely distracted by it. I wonder if my Mac mini or iTunes is the cause of if it is an issue with the USB port on the Opera. I will continue to troubleshoot. Also, I have been listening with the balance switch in the "UP" position using the z headphone port on low gain.

Hi,

Congrats, I would look towards the 100hr burn-in mark then to revisit these PPT tracks for settling, hopefully...

I tunes, you do have it set gapless, is the only thought there I might suggest...

Thanks for the insights!

Edit; listening now to Halo / Porcupine Tree /Opera / k701s (my referance phone) which are ,from my understanding, a bit warmer than the 880s slightly matalic sonics (similar to my 990s there), though both similarly neutral, and I don't sense anything other than creepy, like it is, out of the ordinary to note Perhaps the nature of the 880s and the unburned in Opera coupled to the nature of the track is the triple play you're experiencing...Hopefully burn-in will be helpful there....

Good luck~

Ugh

Got into my office this morning and I hear nothing coming out of the Opera. The DP LED is blinking slowly which is indicating no digital feed coming through.I have no idea what has caused this problem between my Mac Mini and the Opera.

In the Windows tradition I rebooted to see if that would fix things but no luck. I went into the Mac preferences and everything is set as it was before and I also tried to listen directly out of the Mac mini which had no problems.I then switched USB ports on the Mac mini and reset the system tools to choose USB DAC. This also did not solve the problem.

Any suggestions?