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mhoe said:

 
I would say if you use neutral and powerful enough amp (current, volts) you should always achieve the same results as a properly working amp is only strenghtening the signal, nothing more (no added distortion, no coloration). 

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uumm...  If this were true all my amps should sound the same - correct???  All my amps are powerful enough and properly working..  Powerful enough for what anyway??  Are all my amps neutral?  I don't think so, although I could be wrong.  At the moment I have in house 3 balanced headphone amps with one more on the way.  
 
All have a different sound. I would label them like this from neutral to some what colored.  All balanced, working properly and powerful enough  GSX v2 (incoming), CK²III, βeta-22, M^3.  However, some may say they're all neutral.
 
One amp specifically (M^3) I'm currently working with a builder to find a good sound sig that I like by changing opamps.  So all powerful and properly working amps does not always yield the same results. 

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davidmahler said:

Thank you for this.  I wouldn't say I "prefer" classical music.
 
I just checked my iPod for arists who have been in rotation the most recently, this is what I found (Top 10)

Keith Jarrett
Haydn
Genesis
Duke Ellington
Mahler
Bruckner
Yes
Elliott Smith
Donald Fagen
Animal Collective
 

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Great. But, where the girls at?

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silent one said:

 
Great. But, where the girls at?

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Speaking of girls.  Who is that on your avatar????

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davidmahler said:

Sounds like you and I have a lot in common because like you I've played mostly in rock (and i session mostly in rock settings) but I have a great fondness for classical and jazz.  BTW, Schumann and Schubert are among my favorites (so is Bach and Beethoven but they usually get all the love)

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Them two wrote the greatest piano music of the 19th century imo. I appreciate Chopin but he was sometimes guilty of art for art's sake.. And Liszt was just a damn show off haha!
 
(anyways I've derailed enough, back to the headphones!) 
 
HE500's are a wonderful piano headphone, nice balance and "zing" in the treble.

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silent one said:

 
Great. But, where the girls at?

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hahah, I consider Joni Mitchell to be my favorite living artist.... guess I haven't been listening much to her lately.  But also, a lot of the great musicians in classical are women... Martha Argerich, Mitsuko Uchida, Anne Sophie Mutter, Marin Alsop to name just a few.

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silent one said:

 
Great. But, where the girls at?

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In the kitchen, where they belong. 
 
(sorry, just a little jokey! )

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gzone3lement said:

Please do a review for Sony MDR-CD3000 in the near future. I will have a brand new pair soon. I would like to read your opinion in how this discontinued pair of headphones stack up with the newest headphones.

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Where did you get a new pair of CD3000 ???

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mhoe said:

 
I would say if you use neutral and powerful enough amp (current, volts) you should always achieve the same results as a properly working amp is only strenghtening the signal, nothing more (no added distortion, no coloration). From different frequency response graphs, HD800 seem to be rather bright because of not completely flat bass to the lowest regions and because of certain boosts in some treble frequencies. But still, they are neutral in comparison with many many other phones...

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My answer's summed up in the responses below. Different amps rarely sound the same, even if they're touted to be absolutely neutral and transparent. It's too simplistic a view to think otherwise...far too many variables involved that must be considered.
 
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davidmahler said:

I wouldn't say that a properly working amp is not going to color or add harmonic distortion.  If this were true, one would have to discredit all tubes to some extent.  I think it would be fair to  change the phrase in your sentence from "properly working" to a "perfectly neutral"
 
A lot of amp builders will say that their amp is the best because it acts as nothing more than a transparent window between the source and the headphone, but this is rarely if ever the case that the amp would be transparent, yet provide no harmonic distortion (especially if a tube amp).  An amp can be transparent and still colored.  In fact that is usually the case in my experience.  One of the things I appreciate about tube amps (especially transformer coupled) is the added roundness and even sometimes slowness that adds a sense of wetness and life to the sound if the amp is built well.  All my amps are presently working properly
 

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preproman said:

 
uumm...  If this were true all my amps should sound the same - correct???  All my amps are powerful enough and properly working..  Powerful enough for what anyway??  Are all my amps neutral?  I don't think so, although I could be wrong.  At the moment I have in house 3 balanced headphone amps with one more on the way.  
 
All have a different sound. I would label them like this from neutral to some what colored.  All balanced, working properly and powerful enough  GSX v2 (incoming), CK²III, βeta-22, M^3.  However, some may say they're all neutral.
 
One amp specifically (M^3) I'm currently working with a builder to find a good sound sig that I like by changing opamps.  So all powerful and properly working amps does not always yield the same results. 

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davidmahler said:

Quote:

silent one said:

 
Great. But, where the girls at?

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hahah, I consider Joni Mitchell to be my favorite living artist.... guess I haven't been listening much to her lately.  But also, a lot of the great musicians in classical are women... Martha Argerich, Mitsuko Uchida, Anne Sophie Mutter, Marin Alsop to name just a few.

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True. I'm diggin' Anne Akiko Meyers and Vanessa Mae in my library as well as the above. Just wanted to open up the dialogue a bit to what we consume when trying to feed our soul. 

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lugbug1 said:

Quote:

silent one said:

 
Great. But, where the girls at?

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In the kitchen, where they belong. 

 
(sorry, just a little jokey! )

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I like them where they can thrive...in a w-i-d-e variety of roles.  And we all end up winners.

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preproman said:

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silent one said:

 
Great. But, where the girls at?

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Speaking of girls.  Who is that on your avatar????

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To respect the thread's course, will send you a PM later...
 
Update: Didn't want to leave anyone hangin' - Samantha del Valle

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silent one said:

 
I like them where they can thrive...in a w-i-d-e variety of roles. 

 And we all end up winners.

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I've got you,  
 
.. Erm headphones, where were we...  Oh yes, LCD2.2 is the bestest.

First, whether or not I agree with your findings, I have to bend me knee in respect of the effort this review took.  Awesome job.  Second, and this is nitpicking (sorry if someone else mentioned this), I think you mean the Complete Sibelius with Osmo Vanska and the Lahti Symphony orchestra.

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arnaud said:

You mentionned about tinnitus, you don't suffer from hyperacousis? It's a condition that is the result of overexposure to loud sounds and thus may come along with tinnitus. Essentially, the threashold of discomfort and eventually pain is much lower than for healthy hearing, which will make one favor recessed phones in the most sensitive region of the hearing (e.g 1-4kHz range). Not saying you're deaf, but once you have any sign of hearing impairment (like tinnitus even if mild), it's worth to question its own hearing before claiming someone else prefers "brighter sound signatures".

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I doubt I have hyperacousis as my dislike of bright phones pre-dates my tinnitus. It's probably more that I've always listened to heavy orchestral music and wanted to capture the "concert hall" sound, which is usually far from bright unless you're sitting in the front seats. As for the 1--4khz region, I would say I am particularly sensitive to that region, but that it's more to do with this being the critical region for orchestral strings; any accentuation here can make them unbearably schreechy. (I also don't agree that bright phones suit classical. Quite the opposite in my view).
 
Regarding your last sentence, I was simply pointing out that no review is of any use until you first identify where the reviewer's taste differs from your own and adjust accordingly. This is true of every review. As for questioning my hearing, I question it frequently ("You still there, Hearing?'); nevertheless it remains that a couple of the phones to which David was especially kind--DT880, HD800--are widely regarded, rightly or wrongly, as being bright and even a little peaky, so it can't be just my personal claim, especially as it's been brought up a couple of times already in this thread. The question is, once you're aware of it with regard to your own taste, does it matter?

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moviedave said:

First, whether or not I agree with your findings, I have to bend me knee in respect of the effort this review took.  Awesome job.  Second, and this is nitpicking (sorry if someone else mentioned this), I think you mean the Complete Sibelius with Osmo Vanska and the Lahti Symphony orchestra.

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Thank you! You are absolutely correct.  I was thinking of his Beethoven cycle when I typed that in.  Thanks a lot! I changed it
 
btw, both cyles are absolutely astonishing with regard to the sound quality.  The performances are wonderful too, but in this case, the sound quality even outshines it. Just putting it out there for people who are looking for well-recorded classical music.