Pretty much - but I think the LCD-2's still a great headphone, and I'm selling to simplify my head-fi setup. I've had a few offers in the past couple of hours, so I don't know how long the LCD-2 ad. will be up. Feel free to message me if you have any questions.
No headphone has as wide or expansive a soundstage as the HD800s.
What I like about the LCD-3s is their soundstaging is more in line with the HE-6s or T1s...this alone was a huge improvement for me over the LCD-2s. As well, finding an amp to power both sufficiently is a bit tricky. I can confirm that the WA22 (with the right tube setup) or even better the LF do great jobs with both.
Yeah, but people that enjoy improvements with expensive gear , believing it's "closer to original" sound, are just tricking themselves. You might as well experiment with dsp.
I was tweaking yesterday some reverb (valhalaroom) , and found it helped to make the sound more involving especially on psytrance.
Also I must admit that the hd800 put emphasis on the 5k-10k treble area. So the hd800 is perhaps "bright", but no edgy ear piercing peaks. An eq help.
Yeah, but people that enjoy improvements with expensive gear , believing it's "closer to original" sound, are just tricking themselves. You might as well experiment with dsp.
Please don't recommend equipment you don't ownor otherwise don't have a reasonable amount of familiarity with. You wouldn't recommend someone a car you've never driven or suggest someone live in a country you haven't been to, so recommending headphones and equipment you haven't owned or used is unhelpful. Even if you've seen the same comments about something from a dozen members, save discussion of that if you're intending to buy it yourself.
As hard as it is to believe, the above also goes for NOT recommending gear you don't own or have a reasonable amount of familiarity with. In other words, restrict your comments to things you have heard, like the STX and HD800. It helps the community because otherwise, someone might mistake you for someone who knew what they were talking about. Thanks in advance for adhering to the posting guidelines.
Now I understand your confusion, the word "equipment" can be used in both singular and plural forms. So whether you specify one or more units, or don't specify one or more, it's all the same. The guidelines still apply. What may be obvious to some is not always obvious to all, so I'm happy to explain the finer points of the posting guidelines to you or anyone else.
I agree with you. The HD 800 isn't that difficult to drive. Even powered by the headphone plug of my Technics CDP it keeps its sound signature and technical capabilities.
I'll take a shot on the new HDVD 800 sooner or later. But I'm looking for the better build quality, better connectivity and its design, I don't really expect a huge improvement in sound quality. to be honest.
Transparency might not be all it's cracked up to be. And there's more to tube amps than the tubes. And the K1000 makes the HD800 sound closed in comparison. Just random thoughts.
It's interesting you mention this. I'll throw in my 2 cents because that claim was the reason I bought the K1000. I got them recabled, got several high-powered headphone amps, speaker amps, DACs, transports etc. to find their potential. What did I hear?
The K1000 are quite far behind technically, and because of that they fail to render the spatial cues that the Senns can. There's a special open, speaker-like quality to the K1000 but their soundstage is not larger than the HD800, and they certainly don't make the latter sound closed-in.
IMO, the HD800's soundstage is more recording-dependent. It can scale from relatively small to absolutely huge (quite a bit larger than the K1000). It also produces a more enveloping and layered stage, filled with more microdetail. What makes the K1000s special is the complete physical separation and distancing of their drivers from the listener. This gives them an airy speaker-like quality that I mentioned before. As a transducer reproducing the space of the recording, however, the K1000 is significantly behind the HD800.
As much as I loved the K1000s, I preferred the HD800 in almost every way. I feel it's clearly the superior headphone.
I got a new cable for my HD800, which is the famous cardas clear headphone
however, the plug came in bad condition where I need to replace it with a new Furutech plug ......very disapointed in cardas poor craftmanship and QC.
Talking about this new cable, it generaly sound very nice. It made the hd800 very smooth, a much extended bass and a extended soft treble. Soundstage is controlled well (reduced in a good way) and good sound positioning which is not far away from the sa5000. I will strongly recommand any HD800 owner to check it out, however I wont recommand you guys to buy it due to its poor build.
I was referring to headphones still in production and with replacement parts still available by the manufacturer.
I wouldn't risk owning such an old headphone where repair isn't really possible. A friend of mine had an R-10 and had a driver blow. I don't need that kind of stress in my life.
Dynamic range has nothing to do w/ dynamic contrasts and transients in fast complex passages at a given volume. Noise and distortion is not the definitive measure of transparency and resolution as evidenced by the O2's failure to resolve as good as three of the amps in my sig even though one is a noisier tube amp.
Dynamic range is directly related to dynamic contrast, I don't know why you would say otherwise. It's certainly not the only factor and it's certainly not a limiting factor with modern equipment. As for your statement regarding transparency, your opinion of the O2's resolving prowess is hardly definitive proof to discount noise and distortion measurements. Though, granted, they're not the only relevant factors when speaking of resolution.
What was the source/amp chain for the 'highest' level of performance you've heard the HD800 and at what dB w/ what tracks did you test to compare with the STX? Did you A/B this system directly?
The A/B test I referred to included various combinations of the following, conducted over the course of a few weeks with sessions every couple of days:
Aphex HeadPod 454
Asus Xonar Essence STX
Grado RA1
HT Omega Claro Halo
Lavry DA11 (also attempted to use the balanced outs from the back, which resulted in some odd "phasing" artifact)
Little Dot MKIII
Stello HP100
Stello DA100 Sig.
Woo Audio WA22 (balanced and TRS)
The only amps that lagged behind consistently in both sighted and blind testing were the LD MKIII and Grado RA1. Among other problems the LD had a high noise floor and the RA1 had terrible channel balance.
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