Any open-cans that sounds like the ATH-M50 and HD650 got married and had a kid? - Page 3

I'll tell you a little story. When I took the Denon AH-D7000 on a trip with me when I visited various headphone specialty shops in Hong Kong and Taiwan, I tested boutique headphone amps like the Corda Symphony.2 and SPL Phonitor. I did the most laughable test, which was to simply compare how the D7000 sounded out of those amps to the headphone out of my Creative Zen player. The D7000 isn't even high impedance, but it still required me to crank the Zen player's audio to the max. You'd think there would be a dramatic difference--I mean, we're talking about headphone amps that cost more than a thousand dollars. The truth is, upon initial swapping, it might seem like the amps sounded a little bit more refined, but it's such a vague impression that I couldn't even put my finger on exactly how and where the refinements are. Is it the transients? Is it the frequency response? Is it stereo imaging? Is it distortion? Noise? Coloration? After swapping several time times between the amps and the Zen player, I wasn't even sure there were differences anymore--sometimes I think I hear differences, and sometimes I don't. That's how subtle or inconsequential the difference are. To me, if it requires immense concentrated focus to hear any kind of subtle differences, and you are actually contemplating spending big money to get something that requires you to strain that hard to hear your fast dwindling diminishing returns, then you are deluding yourself. There are much, much better uses for that money. Take a step back and reassess your priorities in life, because at that point, you've lost all objectivity. Think about what else you can do with that money you're about to throw away on improvements you can barely hear.

Lunatique, I agree totally with your sentiments. In fact I've expressed the same in many threads, often to a less than friendly reaction. Just to be clear, I didn't mean to suggest that the 650 can be easily driven by the HP output on any old portable CD player; I was thinking more of integrated amps that can often be got used on Ebay, making a cheap system. I've never felt a need to go beyond that level, and when I've listened to dedicted HP amps (not Cmoys) I've heard no difference to my integrated at home. This I think is the advice that should be offered to cash-strapped newbies.

The objection is often raised that the high output impedance of generic HP jacks may cause FR aberrations. If that's true of some phones (I've never actually heard it in practice) it's certainly not true of the 650 or, I presume, other high impedance phones, which seem to be quite immune. That being the case, I'd like to take a look at a specific example of matching that I have at home: the 650 driven by a Marantz PM5003 integrated.

The 5003 has had at least one rave review (in Stereophile). I think it's not stretching things too far to say that, with a relatively easy, non-reactive load like the 650, it should be quite close to a straight-wire-with-gain, certainly if we accept the assumption above about immunity to output loading. That being the case, in what area is this amp inferior to an expensive dedicated amp? Current delivery? Like most quality integrateds the 5003 has a decent power supply with large transformer, certainly sufficient for a headphone. It also has vanishingly low measured distortion and the ability to bypass tone and balance controls for purists. So...where's the problem? Maybe I've missed a vital area of consideration, but in the absence of someone pointing it out, I'm content to listen to this combination without feeling I'm missing anything.

What I'm trying to say is, I keep reading about Bursons and Darkvoices with an overlaid assumption that anything less than these is an insult to a quality phone like a 650, and frankly, I don't get it. I've started threads about using non-dedicated amps and received quite a hostile reaction. S P Wild, if I may take his name in vain, recently started a thread whose premise was that he could hear no difference between amps, and found it quite difficult to make any headway through the flack. This happens all the time; it's as if some anti-heresy movement is afoot. Sorry if I sound over-dramatic, but it can get quite frustrating.

Enough ranting. Loved your posts in this thread; at least one should be made a sticky for newbies to check out before posting.