K701 and Total Airhead Combo

I decided to purchase my second Total Airhead (I sold my first one) because I was unimpressed with my Corda Move driving my new K701's (it could only power the K701's to moderate volumes without distortion). To be honest, I wasn't expecting much of a difference with the Total Airhead, but since I was on a limited budget, I decided to give the Total Airhead another try. To put it bluntly I'm actually quite impressed with the Total Airhead K701 combo. The Move is a bit more refined at lower volumes, but doesn't hold a candle to the dynamic range that the Total Airhead can produce with the K701 (especially while using the optional wall-wart adaptor, and the Airhead produces enough volume via battery power to provide for a satisfying listening experience. Not that the Move was quiet by any means, but it lacked the extra oomph that the K701's need to produce good bass tones. Best of all, even though the Airhead out of the box is a bit less refined in the mids than the Move, the Move costs 1.5 times as much and the Airhead has a better volume control IMO. It doesn't suffer the so-so tracking that my move has when changing volumes. The Total Airhead offers a good taste of HeadRoom's amps at a price most people can afford and it actually does a decent job of powering the K701's (which is hard to do for a portable amplifier). Good job HeadRoom!

I wanted to update my original post by saying that even though I have three portable headphone amps now, that for the K701's, the Total Airhead is the cleanest, most dynamic of them, and my collection of portable headphone amps consists of the Corda Move, Shek H1 and the Total Airhead. While the Move has a bit beefier bass, the Airhead is punchy and goes just as deep, especially with the Crossfeed turned on and is more vivid in its soundstaging. The Airhead is consistently cleaner than the Shek, and maintains the lower level clarity of the Shek, while adding a bit of warmth. The Airhead is cleaner to louder volumes than the Shek,yet at the loudest volume the Airhead can reproduce, is as clean as the Shek at lower volume levels. In terms of neutrality, it is a bit warmer than what I would call neutral, but not as warm as the Move, and in terms of overall transparency and resolution of fine detail, it is the best of the three. I have found that the Move is overrated in the transparency category, and isn't as good as the Porta Corda III in terms of transparency. The Airhead comes very close to what I remember of the Porta Corda III, but adds a bit of warmth that the Porta Corda III didn't have. I am still highly impressed that HeadRoom could produce such a high quality amp for $99.

hey pirate6955,
Sorry it took me so long to respond to your post, but I haven't been in this particular forum for a while, and I lost track of this thread as well. I'm actually using a Cardas HPI Mini-to-Mini now, with my new Denon AH-D1001's and the Total Airhead. I have found that the Cardas, while not as open as the Panorama, has better midrange when listening to the Denons, and has much more reliable connectors. The connectors on my Panorama oxidized and I can no longer use the cable without having the cable reterminated. Also, the Panoramas connectors were somewhat incompatible with the recessed jacks on my Airhead, so I needed to switch to the Cardas for that reason as well. I had this problem with the Denon's plug as well, so I ended up buying a Cardas mini-to-1/4" adaptor, and plugging the Denon's via a 1/4" to mini plug adaptor. The cardas mini-to-1/4" adaptor is made with the HPI interconnect cable, and it didn't degrade the sound a bit on the Denons. In fact, I think it may sound a smidgeon better with the Cardas adaptor plugged in to the Airhead vs. directly plugging the Denon in to the Airhead. So, in response to your original question, the money I spent on the Panorama wasn't worth it with the Airhead and denons. But when I originally got the Panorama, I was using it with my HD580's with a cardas headphone cable and a Corda Move. It made a big difference there. (That was before the connectors became horribly oxidized though.) In my opinion, as long as one has a GOOD cable, like the Cardas HPI, the person should use any extra money invested in the system to upgrade the source and amp (provided they have headphones they're happy with), then make final tweaks with cable upgrades as a final step. As an example, I am probably going to upgrade to a Portable Micro Amp w/DAC as my next step as I am thrilled with the sound of my Denon AH-D1001's (Thrilled enough that I sold my K701's to get a better amplifier for my speakers.)

Regards,
Eric