MKIII + HD650 = No Improvement?

Was the amp "Warmed up"? I don't know if it makes a big difference or not. 

I know my tube amp takes a little while to fully warm up. At first, I A/B'ed headphones by first turning off the amp (which you shouldn't do, because the on/off cycles shorten the life of tubes), then swapping headphones. This caused me to think that my Grado SR80's sounded worse than my portapros. However, the next day, when I turned my tube amp on and came back after a little while, I realized that my headphones sounded terrible because the tubes weren't warmed up properly. I let my tube amp warm up before listening from then on.

I also find that solid state components do slightly better with warm up as well (though whether this is legitimate or in my head I don't know). I find that my uDac2 does better after an hour or so of playing.

Maybe it's your source-are you hooking your amp directly to your cd player or through a receiver?

Probably that.  I experienced the same thing when I tried LDMKIII + HD650.  The only amps I really liked were the ones who made their presence obvious by coloring the sound.  Otherwise it can be pretty hard to tell.  LDMKIII I don't think really colors the sound much at all so it's really just more power that it's providing.  There's an interesting AMP COMPARISONS A/B thread here where a guy compares the Beta22 (held to be the best SS amp ever) and CKIII/M^3 (two solid budget amps) on a LCD2 and he didn't report hearing much difference between them; probably the same thing you're experiencing here.
 

You will probably have to listen for a while before you start hearing the differences. From my experience, differences between amps or sources are not always obvious when listening only for a short time.

You should also try to roll some tubes. This can significantly change the sound, and perhaps you find a tube which sounds good with the HD650.

Anyway, I used to own the LD MKIII as well, and never liked it very much with the HD600. It sounded rather dull and lifeless. I thought about selling the HD600 - but it really got to life when I used it with more powerful amps, and improved even more with a balanced amp. Supposedly the HD650 isn't much different.

yes, i have had this problem as well. When i am on a demo no matter what i plug the phones to, the sound is very similar. but i can easily hear diffrent from my mp3 players and soundcard's i got home they all make their signature, but in demo's trying out a pair of phones with diffrent amp's i kinda get the same sound. mabye cuz they all are connected to the same source? (cdplayer). this kinda make me confuse- Is my soundcard my source or is it my amp? or should i say my flac,mp3 and spotify is my source ? really confused...

The LDMkIII isn't that great an amp IMO. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrGreen 

The LDMkIII isn't that great an amp IMO. 

I agree, but there should still be a noticeable improvement over the headphone out of a CD player.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katun 

That's what I suspected. But unfortunately, I have found no such improvement, and now my entire headphone future has been altered.

FWIW I didn't really find much of a difference with the LD MKIII. I don't think you need to worry too much about amping until you decide to get a fairly high res headphone or one that is especially needy. IMO the HD650 is neither of those (unless you fork out for a very good amp).

Share with you my experience. When I had the mad tube amp and hd600 , a guy went to my house for an audition. He was pretty interested in getting the mad amp so he tried the amp with his ipod and lod and without it. He told me its not much of a difference. Then when he listened to the arcam cd192 with the amp , he was amazed by the difference he heard.  So it was obvious that its the source that made the most difference.

You've just come to the same conclusion I came to years ago: that amps make very little difference. The fact is, amps are supposed to merely amplify, and unless they're adding gross colouration, either through bad design or running out of steam, you shouldn't hear them at all. There may be slight--read slight--differences in terms of one being a little warmer or brighter than another, and this can be useful for matching, but you will never turn a veiled headphone into an incisive one, or tone down "hot" treble, unless the amp has tone controls--and that's another story.

Incidentally, there have been plenty of comments here over the years (never gathered together unfortunately) from people--even people with $500+ amps--saying they wish they'd never invested so much in their amps as it hasn't paid off. But of course that won't stop people here from posting to say I'm talking through my hat.   

I'm inclined to think a dac will provide a more significant and therefore noticeable change. Having said that, even on my modest setup I can perceive a difference between amps in the same chain. When using my Audio-GD Fun (Earth) as a dac and its integrated hp amp I get what I can only describe as a more neutral presentation, with great clarity and clear separation of instruments. When I feed the signal via line level out of the Fun's dac into an RA-1 clone (24V power plug) I  get a faster, punchier response with a slightly bigger soundstage, although minor details are lost and instrument separation is not as distinct. To me these differences aren't subtle and clearly highlight the effect of each amp when fed from the same source (maybe more to do with an amp coloring sq in the chain as previously stated).

I have an HD650 on the way and will certainly be putting this to the test.