Quote:

cytosis said:

...  I was reading up on the reviews that are at the start of this thread and it looks like the Astro mixamp is the better of the amps but I can't find a place that sells it by itself (404 error on the Astro store).
 

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Astro's twitter account is telling people that the mixamp will be available again in mid-November:  https://twitter.com/ASTROGaming/status/263685810723889152

Quote:

ronswanson said:

 
how annoying is this hiss?  I was planning on getting the 2013 mixamp next month.  It's not as noticable as the steady hum that the 720+ decoder box has, right?

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Like the trittons, it isn't noticeable when there is action. But if you are on the dashboard and have the volume cranked on the Mixamp and your headphones (if they have an adjustment), it is noticeable. I would suggest getting a used mixamp unless you REALLY want the stream feature, and even then you could just get a headphone splitter and run that to your computer. Once again, I can't comment on the 2011 version.
 
-Erik

cytosis said:

Which amp is the best to pair up with the AD700's?  I was reading up on the reviews that are at the start of this thread and it looks like the Astro mixamp is the better of the amps but I can't find a place that sells it by itself (404 error on the Astro store).  Are there any amps that compare to the mixamp or are the Astros the best and should I just wait until they fix their webpage?

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Just FYI, the AD700 are very easy to amp, so I'd recommend just finding a clean one. Until just a few months ago, I always played games and movies in stereo (w/headphones or speakers), and the FiiO E5 was plenty of amp. Any of the processors should have an amp powerful enough for the AD700.

If you want a solution before the Mixamps are available again, I recommend trying a Creative Recon3D USB processor from a store with a return policy. It's a bit cheaper, works really well with my AD700 for Xbox or PC, and if you don't like it you could always return it once the next Mixamp becomes available. I'm happy with mine. NamelessPFG (head-fi poster on this thread) might sell you his for a good price, if you would be okay selling it yourself if you don't like it.

I get the feeling people might be blowing this whole new mixamp hissing thing out of proportion.  If it's anything like the wireless mixamp, the hiss is a non-issue 95% of the time.  It's one of those things you have to go out of your way to listen for, like sitting at the dashboard with the volume cranked up above normal listening level.
 
The same thing happened when people found out they could hear hiss on the mixamp 5.8.   People would start ruling it out, saying "I WAS going to get the wireless mixamp, but then I read about 'the hiss'.  I guess I need to get the wired one instead..."
 
If you have really sensitive headphones like the AD700, then hiss might be a concern.  Otherwise most headphones above 60 ohms will usually bury any hiss anyways. 

2x that the new Mixamp hiss is not yet a fact, and probably won't be an issue once it's adopted by more people and we get more reports.

-----
Had another test with Yamaha's Silent Cinema, since I had the house to myself.

First of all, the Q701's are clearly being amped much better, and everything has a much more tactile and rich feel. Very nice. Maybe my tests with this before are why I felt that amping with the Recon3D may be volume-adequate, but the greater headroom of my receiver's power is a clear upgrade. Treble sounds were more defined, yet less harsh. Mids and bass also became more distinct, with rumble and grit that is pleasingly dynamic yet tighter. Sounds like the "tink" of lock picking in Oblivion still were annoying, especially with Silent Cinema enabled, but overall less annoying with a bit of negative Treble compensation thanks to receiver options.

Silent Cinema, itself, was kind of a mixed bag. The directionality was good, with sounds seeming to come from sides and front/back instead of above/below. I also discovered that virtual surround was enabled even with the DSP programs off and set to "straight," so no echo, but directionality seemed to be distinctly limited to "5.1." If I had someone in Oblivion talking to me or a fireplace crackling, I could pan in a circle and hear the direction distinctly switch between the standard 5 positions of "speakers," which was especially noticeable during a full-speed twirl between FL, C, and FR channels, or in reverse. The effect isn't that noticeable during regular play, just when continuous sounds pan around. Imaging between the "speaker channels" is improved with a DSP program enabled, because SC seems to put a little crosstalk between the "channels." This makes that echo sound described in other virtual surround processors (Mad & Nameless, it sounds basically just like DH in the Crysis video), but I found you can actually go into the DSP settings and adjust the strength of the effect... I found that -3 "Db" on the "Action Game" DSP is a compromise I can live with. Others may prefer more attenuation, the DSP off altogether, or boosted... Yay adjustability!
Still, if I could put Creative's THX TruStudio Pro in there instead of Silent Cinema, I would prefer that, but I'll test out double-amping with the Recon3D USB sometime this week.

Playing a music CD (Andrew Bird's "Armchair Apocrypha") through the Xbox, with the Yamaha set to "Straight," was wonderful... The best I've ever heard this album.

Quote:

cytosis said:

Which amp is the best to pair up with the AD700's?  I was reading up on the reviews that are at the start of this thread and it looks like the Astro mix-amp is the better of the amps but I can't find a place that sells it by itself (404 error on the Astro store).  Are there any amps that compare to the mix-amp or are the Astros the best and should I just wait until they fix their webpage?

Click to expand...

The ATH-AD700 are every easy to drive, even for an unamped headphone jack.
I'm assuming your getting the Astro Mix-amp for a gaming console?
Because you need headphone surround sound for gaming?
 
You could just plug the ATH-AD700 into the line-out/Headphone jack (2-channel audio) on the gaming console until you get the Astro Mix-amp.
If you really want to use a headphone amplifier for now, get the Fiio E6 ($26), it come with a headphone jack with a very low impedance,
which might help with audio quality over some line-out jack (high impedance).
 
Fiio E6, $26
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=819633&Q=&is=REG&A=details
 
You might need a long 3.5mm male to male cable.
(You can also order extra optical and USB cables (different lengths) for the Astro mix-Amp)
http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218#1021802

purpleangel said:

The ATH-AD700 are every easy to drive, even for an unamped headphone jack.
I'm assuming your getting the Astro Mix-amp for a gaming console?
Because you need headphone surround sound for gaming?

You could just plug the ATH-AD700 into the line-out/Headphone jack (2-channel audio) on the gaming console until you get the Astro Mix-amp.
If you really want to use a headphone amplifier for now, get the Fiio E6 ($26), it come with a headphone jack with a very low impedance,
which might help with audio quality over some line-out jack (high impedance).

Fiio E6, $26
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=819633&Q=&is=REG&A=details

You might need a long 3.5mm male to male cable.
(You can also order extra optical and USB cables (different lengths) for the Astro mix-Amp)
http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218#1021802

Click to expand...

^ This is basically what I did for three years with my AD700, until I got my Q701 and Recon3D recently. I used an RCA-to-3.5mm mini headphone adapter, plugged that into my FiiO E5 (predecessor to the upgraded E6), and my AD700 plugged in to that. It worked quite well, if I heard an enemy creaking the floorboards in my left ear, I turned that way to look for them (map knowledge helped too). $25 for the FiiO, like a dollar for the adapter. I even got pretty far by using a female-to-female adapter, no amp, and turning down the in-game volume through the game options menu, though the FiiO amp certainly was more convenient and had other uses as well.

PurpleAngel,
I was actually wondering, how do you have your receiver set up for SC? I've found the manual somewhat brief when it comes to headphone surround :/

Quote:

evshrug said:

^ This is basically what I did for three years with my AD700, until I got my Q701 and Recon3D recently. I used an RCA-to-3.5mm mini headphone adapter, plugged that into my FiiO E5 (predecessor to the upgraded E6), and my AD700 plugged in to that. It worked quite well, if I heard an enemy creaking the floorboards in my left ear, I turned that way to look for them (map knowledge helped too). $25 for the FiiO, like a dollar for the adapter. I even got pretty far by using a female-to-female adapter, no amp, and turning down the in-game volume through the game options menu, though the FiiO amp certainly was more convenient and had other uses as well.
PurpleAngel,
I was actually wondering, how do you have your receiver set up for SC? I've found the manual somewhat brief when it comes to headphone surround :/

Click to expand...

I just plug in the headphone and click on the"Movie' button until I find a setting that looks close enough to what I'm watching.

Ok, that's basically what I ended up doing, though I liked turning down the strength of whatever movie "scene mode" I found for less echo. I'm not sure I understand what the "5ch stereo" mode does, though it seems everything is majorly recessed so much that I can't tell if it's 5channel surround or just a funny stereo setting!

Quote:

evshrug said:

Ok, that's basically what I ended up doing, though I liked turning down the strength of whatever movie "scene mode" I found for less echo. I'm not sure I understand what the "5ch stereo" mode does, though it seems everything is majorly recessed so much that I can't tell if it's 5channel surround or just a funny stereo setting!

Click to expand...

 
5ch Stereo plays the left channel in the front and rear left, and the right channel in the front and rear right, then it mixes the 2 for the center channel.
 
-Erik

chicolom said:

I get the feeling people might be blowing this whole new mixamp hissing thing out of proportion.  If it's anything like the wireless mixamp, the hiss is a non-issue 95% of the time.  It's one of those things you have to go out of your way to listen for, like sitting at the dashboard with the volume cranked up above normal listening level.

The same thing happened when people found out they could hear hiss on the mixamp 5.8.   People would start ruling it out, saying "I WAS going to get the wireless mixamp, but then I read about 'the hiss'.  I guess I need to get the wired one instead..."

If you have really sensitive headphones like the AD700, then hiss might be a concern.  Otherwise most headphones above 60 ohms will usually bury any hiss anyways. 

Click to expand...

Agree 100%... I just tested the 2011 Mixamp for hiss, and I really don't believe that the Xbox dashboard is the way to do this, as the menu system itself is pretty noisy. There's a intermittent electronic noise which sounds like harddrive access... Regardless this is only noticeable at very loud, and to me, unreasonable volumes. Of course if you're looking for it all of these devices are going to have a higher floor noise than say a truly audiophile source/amp. We need to remember that we're dealing with sub $200 audio processors with built in amps. If it doesn't effect you during gameplay, then why should you let it bother you at all?

Quote:

ruuku said:

Agree 100%... I just tested the 2011 Mixamp for hiss, and I really don't believe that the Xbox dashboard is the way to do this, as the menu system itself is pretty noisy. There's a intermittent electronic noise which sounds like harddrive access... Regardless this is only noticeable at very loud, and to me, unreasonable volumes. Of course if you're looking for it all of these devices are going to have a higher floor noise than say a truly audiophile source/amp. We need to remember that we're dealing with sub $200 audio processors with built in amps. If it doesn't effect you during gameplay, then why should you let it bother you at all?

Click to expand...

 
The fact I was making regarding the newer mixamp is that it has a higher floor noise than the 2009 version. When I cranked them both to max volumes, the 2009 version didn't display the hiss present in the 2013 version. I agree with the fact we are using extremely cheap audio processors in the grand scheme of things.
 
-Erik

Got the tracking number for my amp today! :O
It's taken so long that it's almost hard to believe, if you get my meaning. Only problem is, I don't know what mail service the tracking number is for, so I can't actually track it :/ if it's not one thing... I tried just pasting it into USPS, no joy, I don't know what service the amp builder used out of Latvia. UPS or FedEx seem doubtful, too.

The tracking number is 13 digits long and starts with RS, anyone have any ideas?
RS*********LV

Quote:

evshrug said:

Got the tracking number for my amp today! :O
It's taken so long that it's almost hard to believe, if you get my meaning. Only problem is, I don't know what mail service the tracking number is for, so I can't actually track it :/ if it's not one thing... I tried just pasting it into USPS, no joy, I don't know what service the amp builder used out of Latvia. UPS or FedEx seem doubtful, too.
The tracking number is 13 digits long and starts with RS, anyone have any ideas?
RS*********LV

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Try pasting it into google. If that doesn't work, try www.packagetrackr.com/
 
Also, looks like the Monoprice headset got pushed back to 12/1 Can't wait to see how it stacks up to the mixamp.
 
-Erik

burritoboy9984 said:

Try pasting it into google. If that doesn't work, try www.packagetrackr.com/

Also, looks like the Monoprice headset got pushed back to 12/1 Can't wait to see how it stacks up to the mixamp.

-Erik

Click to expand...

Google = no results
Packagetrackr.com says the service is Parcelforce, but has no shipping status. Jumping directly to the Parcelforce page and pasting in the tracking number, the site says they can't confirm the status of that number. I guess that's reasonable considering the builder sent me an email with the number at just 8:45pm (my time) last night, and it's only been 15 hours since then. Not sure why it's going through a UK service... but at least the site is in English!

Thanks for the link to packagetrackr.com