[hEddy]

  What do you guys thin I can make an adapter like http://www.ebay.com/itm/Etymotic-ER4P-ER4S-3-5MM-plug-resistor-adaptor-/281657676624?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41941b1350
easy enough just wondering how much resistance to add. Guessing 50-75 ohms ... well I have a bread board at home maybe ill make up a circuit and pop in resistor see how it sounds.

 
The concept is quite new for me, @Solduios and I got reading a bit. You might find this thread on the forum worth reading. The idea mentioned there, of first checking with a potentiometer/inline attenuator seems worth considering, as it would give you values you find agreeable with different sources/amps.

Some comments here about change in sound noticed (though with a totally different environment) too seemed worth reading.

 

[mrmoses]

I'm in love with the mt220's. That is all.

 

[hEddy]

  a new headphone sounds loud but theres " little " sound there, just air pressure , so you are tempted to go louder to get sound " closer" to your ears...
after 300+ hours of burn in , sound settles down, headphone won't sound  as loud ( sound won't push/pressure with air your eardrums)  at same volume levels , but it will sound more intim with more clarity , and even at medium volumes you get " closer" to the sound.
 
Its an effect i notise with all headphones , specialy with t5p and hd800 , as new they screamed so loud , treble and bass , was exploding , but sound was distant  , there was no energy no atmosphere of the music...
After burn in sound was what i wanted at low volumes , and before burn in sound wasn't what i was seeking so i tried to compensate with more volume but it wasn't it , sound was still distant and ears were tired...
 
Its like fire, when you throw wood into a fire , flames are big and bright but theres no warmth , once wood burns down , and theres almost no flames , thats when real warmth comes.
Who have fire place at home or use to grill a lot , will understand what i mean...
 
 
Don't listen to headphones on high volumes  , take care of your ears!

 
Even though I don't use a fireplace (too hot for that out here), I get what you mean, @Arttt Thanks for your concern. It was a few moments of artistic euphoria which got out of control which got me to this stupid situation.
 
Back to the H'phones. My limited understanding of burn-in has been that the diaphragm/membrane of the driver gets more supple with use and would move more freely with lesser current (faint sounds/signals). This in turn would allow the transitions and subtler sounds to be reproduced better. The first one hour or so of playing of this phone, it was like one could almost feel the "stiffness" of the diaphragm.
 
Totally agree with your description.
 
What seems to happen (at least with me) is that one is looking for that subtle detail while listening to music. With a HP yet to be burnt in, that is lacking, and to hear it one ends up increasing the volume. So often, I end up doing so sub-consciously. The estimates for burn in time seem to be increasing From 100 to now 300 hours! I am losing patience. Maybe I'll start playing it when I sleep after all.
 
I'm looking forward to enjoying these babies on low volume with enough air. Really looking forward to that.
 
PS: Any experience with FiiO, @Arttt ?

 

[Arttt]

leaving headphones with some music on over nights is a good idea, i do so myself.
 
i haven't tried fiio, i am using beyerdynamic A1  amp and hegel hd20 dac with hiface evo  usb to spdif converter. i was in high end area from the start and couldn't be satisfied with low -mid end gear, even the best of mid end gear sound artificial with digital glare to the sound , theres no energy , music doesn't get me emotional involved if its artificial , cold and soulless...
 
so right from the start i had to come to peace with a fact that this hobby will get expansive...
if i wouldn't want to spend lot of money on expensive gear i would go with macbook pro or air , with SSD flash drive and PureMusic or audirvana +  as media player .  low impedance headphones sound fine  straight out of the headphone output on macbook pro/air as long as it has SSD flash drive .
 
but once you get into amps dacs, you won't get a real improvement in the sound by getting 100€ dac/amp combo...
 
the only dac/amp combo that sounds good (for a portable amp/dac) was HEGEL SUPER, it was cheap and had lot of sound comparing to its rivals , dragonfly , meridian explorer and such ... but still, portable gear can't compare to a main system you have at home...

 

[hEddy]

@Arttt : I wasn't aware of an SSD being helpful in a computer for improving sound quality. Would it help to play music from a USB 3 stick (of course via a USB 3 port), or an SSD based External drive, on a system with a traditional spinning Hard Disk?

Have noticed that with each laptop change, though I have gone for a more premium offering, while the battery backup has improved, the sound quality has diminished significantly.

When you say home systems, are you referring to large format speakers or home headphone gear?


 

 

[Solduios]

  @Arttt : I wasn't aware of an SSD being helpful in a computer for improving sound quality. Would it help to play music from a USB 3 stick (of course via a USB 3 port), or an SSD based External drive, on a system with a traditional spinning Hard Disk?

Have noticed that with each laptop change, though I have gone for a more premium offering, while the battery backup has improved, the sound quality has diminished significantly.

When you say home systems, are you referring to large format speakers or home headphone gear?


 

Once you go SSD you never go back get spoiled with boot times in less then a minute give or take and of course accessing large files with ease. I don't know if it helps much for music but since it is a digital copy with no mechanical error/lag ect.. it might. It will handle large flac files much faster that is for sure.
 
USB memory stick works in a similar fashion to a SSD drive so should be fine.
 
On a side note the electronic store in my area does not carry flush mount 3.5mm jacks. So I will go to plan B and get ghetto using a 3.5mm extension cable and putting the resistors inline  .^^.

 

[Lorspeaker]

Fire....fire..... A Phoenix will arise from it

Heard about the ssd being better sounding, haven't tried it.

Ifu can pick up a 2nd hand fiio e18... I think it sounds more spacious than the e17.


* have u guys who are new to this thread ...tried the 4 cotton balls stuffed to the 4corners of the pads yet?
Very very simple mod without opening up anything on the can....Definitely improves the imaging IMHO.

 

[Arttt]

SSD is faster and have no noise, music playback improves a lot! It's not the same to play files from usb memory stick and have good quality ssd build in a laptop.

Operative system is very very important, windows sound bad! Even with foobar or jriver, sound is shallow, no depth to it, muddy at low end, no body to it...

OS X is great! Once you hear how MacBook or iMac sound you won't believe how much you was missing out ...
I hear people who use windows based pc or laptops and get simple dacs like dragonfly or meridian explorer say they get lot of improvement, those who use MacBook/iMac don't notice a difference with simple dacs, it's too little of improvement...

I tried many windows based laptops, and all sound bad comparing to MacBook Pro / air
I had Lenovo yoga pro 2 with ssd, foobar 2000 and lossless music, and it sound bad.

I send it back to the store and bought MacBook Pro retina with ssd, now it sounds awesome! I never going back to windows!!!

I was referring to a home system headphone gear.

 

[NuckinFutz]

Sorry, SSD makes zero difference to sound quality.

The ONLY ways hard drives could effect the sound in any way is if the HD is so old it cannot output the stream fast enough, it's right next to either the DAC or Amp so they pick up EMI, or it's a Raptor drive and REALLY loud so you can actually hear it over the music!

I work in electronics and there is a lot of misinformation on this site, unfortunately. A hard drive will make as much difference to the SQ as listening to music on Thursday's or wearing a pink shirt.

What will make a difference is the location of the DAC/AMP and the quality of the power supply (the 5V from USB is really bad, it's noisy). To give an idea of what I mean by location; I changed to an external DAC/Amp as my soundcard was picking up EMI from my graphics card as it was located right next to it. If, however, I'd decided to take a digital line out from that card that would also have fixed the problem....it's only when the signal is being converted to analogue or is analogue that you need to worry.

 

[hEddy]

@Solduios
I had gone in for a machine with a hybrid drive 1 TB HDD with a some SSD in-built for quick starting (I usually hibernate) and it works quite well for my purposes.

Why I was surprised at SSD making a difference was that even with regular HDD the data transfer times even in "slow" drives is many fold of what audio playback needs. Nowadays even data transfer over the internet is faster than what audio playback needs. A source here. With modern machines decompressing huge video files without jitter, data transfer should be the least of the worries.

My thoughts were on other aspects which were brought forward by @NuckinFutz
- with interference and power supply.


I could be wrong here, but with recent versions of Windows now transferring the data by WASAPI, the operating system Windows of OS X should have little bearing on the sound quality (though the Audacity vs other's test a page or two back, still leaves a question in mind).

@Arttt
could it be that your experience with Macs being better be to with better DACs in Macs than with SSD (you mentioned that Yoga too had an SSD) and also with better placement within the machine leading to lesser interference? Incidentally, while browsing for information about a DAC-Amp, I came across quite a few comments with people claiming significant improvement even on their Macs. Some reported little improvement. It could have a lot to do with the headphones they were checking with (Impedance, sensitivity etc), which is why my DAC-Amp question was on this thread rather than a DAC/Amp thread.

@NuckinFutz
Your comment about the power supply from a USB being really bad and noisy gets me a bit concerned. Do you think that units which have an inbuilt battery (e.g. FiiO E07K or FiiO E17K would have a significant advantage over ones being powered directly by the USB (e.g. Fiio E10K ) as far as noise due to power is concerned?


 

 

[hEddy]

Ifu can pick up a 2nd hand fiio e18... I think it sounds more spacious than the e17.
 

 
Oh 'Lor'd, where were you?

You were the one I was looking for!! You do seem to be using a Fiio E18 !!
 
Could you please compare the sound when routed through your E18 on the MT220, as compared to other "direct" sources (say your Note 1 or something else)? It would help a lot.
 
I am not sure if you meant the E17 or E17K. The E17 has been replaced by the E17K, which is supposed to be relatively neutral, airy and spacious as per some reports. Have you, by any chance, compared the E07K, E17K and E18? My eyes were on the E07K, but now on the E17K (partly due to a special price for E17K).

 

[NuckinFutz]

hEddy

In theory yes I would, there are ways to deal with it but battery is a very clean source and I would suspect have less noise.

 

[hEddy]

@hEddy

In theory yes I would, there are ways to deal with it but battery is a very clean source and I would suspect have less noise.

Thanks! I had thoughts popping up for simply going in for the USB powered battery-less E10K many times, at a lesser price when it is known to have good quality (very good for the price) and forgo portability. But with your comments, I'll simply skip the E10K and focus on the ones with an inbuilt battery (E07K or E17K).

 

[Lorspeaker]

think what i heard should be the older E17 vs E18...that was like a year ago. ?
Hardly use my E18 actually..LOL. My Note1 cant sync with the E18, until i upgrade my fone..sigh.
When i am home, the audiogd dac +amp is Onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. So E18 is zleepinggg.
 
 
 
 
But one thing i know for a certainty....the YAMMIE is so versatile a can, stock or modified.
So, NEVER sell it.

 

[hEddy]

  think what i heard should be the older E17 vs E18...that was like a year ago. ?
Hardly use my E18 actually..LOL. My Note1 cant sync with the E18, until i upgrade my fone..sigh.
When i am home, the audiogd dac +amp is Onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. So E18 is zleepinggg.
 
But one thing i know for a certainty....the YAMMIE is so versatile a can, stock or modified.
So, NEVER sell it.

 
If it isn't too much of a bother, @Lorspeaker, could you spend a few minutes comparing to your stock output from Mac Air to it being routed via the E18, on the MT220?

I don't see myself selling these Yammies. I get a bit attached to some gear. Still have an old amp from over 2 decades ago, even though it has not really been in use for about a decade! The Yammie seems to be building that bond with me.