Will RSA Shadow power HD650 ?

If you have never heard something of reference that is better, it will be the best you've ever heard.

For the time being, I've been using a 15 year old dac for three years in my headphone rig. I think we can live with what we have until we can do better until we get to a point that what we have is good enough. Only you can determine that point.

If you are happy with it, stay away from meets. Some of these audio rigs are not for the squeamish.

Here's the crux of the matter: if it sounds OK it is OK. The phones won't blow up. If you like the sound, keep listening, but while you're listening don't read Head-Fi or you'll stop listening and start wanting. (There's a terrible disease rampant here that you'll find mentioned in the Bible: Lust. If you catch it, you'll miss the great thing you've got and want something greater, which probably isn't). Despite what some here say about the 650 needing to be powered by the national grid, it sounds remarkable well out of the most modest equipment. Let your ears decide.

It probably works ok but I'd just spend the coin on a similarly priced desktop amp.

A room temperature beer might taste pretty good if you've never had a cold one.

Do yourself a favor and stay away from meets, though. Once you hear what the HD-650 is capable of you'll be upgrading.

If better than nothing is what you're going for, then it's fine.

Yeah.. The only thing new is my amp. Headphones 50's-80's. My DAC, 01. DVD player, 03. Still sounds great for being old.

The Shadow will do a fantastic job driving a lot of full sized headphones, even though that's not what is was designed to do. Yet, I'd suspect it would struggle a bit with the very inefficient and power hungry HD650. It would likely be able to drive them, but it would probably sound strained. So wrong amp for this particular application, although an excellent amp for IEMs and such.

*pukes*. Warm beer...

It would work. You may find it lackluster because you know theres better available. Just trust your ears though, they'll sound good even out of a cheap integrated sound card ..just.. they can sound better :P

... 'cos there you'll hear electrostatics and you wouldn't care about HD-650 anymore. Been there, done that...

I think you just queered the deal. If he wasn't on his way to a meet, he is now. Chicago, huh? I wonder if Value Jet is still flying.

Your post made me think about that jaw-dropper moment, the one each of us has when the world gets a couple of sizes larger in the fraction of an eye.

When I was growing up in the 70s, we didn't even have a stereo in the broadest sense. We had a radio. My father, in a fit of religious zeal, bought a cassette recorder from Kmart so he could listen to sermons he'd ordered as "gift item #12765." I was figuring out how to wire the speaker on a clock radio to the auxiliary mic on the recorder to be the Napster of my trailer park.

I'd just discovered the joy of headphones. I had a plastic pair I'd bought at Kmart or Woolworths. I'd cut the big 1/4 " connector off and spliced it to an earphone connector to fit the jack on the tape recorder. It wasn't even in stereo, and the tapes I was using were pure crap, but I was still stunned by the difference.

And then I was taking music lessons at the home of my violin instructor, and his stereo just blew my mind. It was my first venture into a bigger world. I didn't know anything about electronics but I was going to order a stereo tape head and use two recorders (the second to amp the other track) but chickened out at the last minute. The $40 it would cost for that tape head just seemed like a lot of money. It was for a junior-high kid in the 70s.

I can remember, a few years later - after a portable record player, a console stereo (furniture with tubes), an 8-track player and my first component system (a flashing phony SoundDesign) - how the optometrist next door had a system that totally blew mine to bits. I couldn't understand why his speakers sounded so much better (real woofers will do that). I specifically remember how his headphones - on something as light as Al Stewart singing "Year of the Cat," just raped my latest plastic headphone acquisition. Somehow, there was just so much more music there - and turning up the volume didn't fix it.

I wonder how long this guy has before the headfi termites make a run for his wallet. Better find Al Gore's "lock box." Run, Forrest, run.

that was a joy to read, i love vintage gear, ive got an old zenith radio with mono input for an old mono turntable circa 1960? not sure, and a yamahaa p350 turntable i htink i had what u call a console stereo for a minute, it was a gigantic stereo / turntable on top slash 8 track player, and i really like it but it was enormous and had to go.

my eyes were first opened when i heard some car audio and i still prefer my cars system to any of my headphones or iems or home speakers( but i live in an aprtment building so icant be bumping,, it sucks, when i had my old house i would turn it up to 11.

now i stick to triplefi denon 7000 and jvc dx1000, im also liking fx500 and ue5 eb. i would love to try the ue11 or jh13, or the wm2, and for phone maybe some stax, german masetro