[Magick Man]

Out of all of my headphones, the TH900s are my favorites, tied with SR-009, O2, and 4070. Bold statement, but that's how I feel. Are they the most technically superior? Nah, the upper Stax hold serve there. But the balance of musicality, detail, and comfort puts them at the top, for me. After these months with them, they're on my head right now, my review of them is short and sweet: Joy.

Oh, and I put my J$ Denon pads on them and they're different; not better, maybe a little worse, but definitely different. There's a broader soundstage, a slight loss in resolution, and a loosening of the mid bass. Still nice, but I went back to the original pads.

 

[dukeskd]

Quote:

Updated Impressions 12/26:
 
I've also developed a distaste for the TH900's imaging since my initial impressions report - it's a bit too divergent towards the left and right, with not that much fill directly in the center. The left-right span has actually sort of become distracting.
 

 
Time for a good crossfeed, Asr (Phonitor)! However, I for one enjoy the imaging and soundstage of the TH900s, especially useful for audio mixing. In that regard, I find them even better than HD800s, but the separation/air is larger or better in the HD800s, and that's not surprising since they are open-back.

 

[Ahzari]

Quote:

Out of all of my headphones, the TH900s are my favorites, tied with SR-009, O2, and 4070. Bold statement, but that's how I feel. Are they the most technically superior? Nah, the upper Stax hold serve there. But the balance of musicality, detail, and comfort puts them at the top, for me. After these months with them, they're on my head right now, my review of them is short and sweet: Joy.
Oh, and I put my J$ Denon pads on them and they're different; not better, maybe a little worse, but definitely different. There's a broader soundstage, a slight loss in resolution, and a loosening of the mid bass. Still nice, but I went back to the original pads.

Thanks for the J$ pads comparison - was something I was wondering about..

 

[AppleheadMay]

Quote:

Thanks for the J$ pads comparison - was something I was wondering about..

 
x2, thanks! I'm thinking messing with the TH900 might not be a good idea, be it pads, dampening, cable or -God forbid- cups.
 
Quote:

 
Time for a good crossfeed, Asr (Phonitor)! However, I for one enjoy the imaging and soundstage of the TH900s, especially useful for audio mixing. In that regard, I find them even better than HD800s, but the separation/air is larger or better in the HD800s, and that's not surprising since they are open-back.

 
The Phonitor is known to be noisy with low impedance cans so it might not be a good match.

 

[hekeli]

Quote:

 
Time for a good crossfeed, Asr (Phonitor)!

Or better yet, Realiser. 

 

[dukeskd]

Quote:

The Phonitor is known to be noisy with low impedance cans so it might not be a good match.

 
The people that had noise issues with the Phonitor/Auditor had ground loop problems. I never, ever, experienced any noisy signals even with the Denon D7000 or TH900 25 ohm impedance.

 

[AppleheadMay]

Quote:

 
The people that had noise issues with the Phonitor/Auditor had ground loop problems. I never, ever, experienced any noisy signals even with the Denon D7000 or TH900 25 ohm impedance.

 
I did with the D7000, didn't have any AT's back then so haven't tried those with the Phonitor.
I had no ground loops.

 

[dukeskd]

Quote:

 
I did with the D7000, didn't have any AT's back then so haven't tried those with the Phonitor.
I had no ground loops.

You had to have a problem somewhere in your rig because it is completely non-existent for me and I tried the Phonitor with many, many low impedance cans. Anyhow, for me the pairing of HA-160 and TH900 is sweet music to my ears however, I do miss the crossfeed and functionality of the Phonitor.

 

[AppleheadMay]

Switching between the Phonitor, GCHA, LDIII and P-1u I all had at the same time only revealed noise in the Phonitor, using the same dac and cables, just replacing the amp.
I tried RCA to XLR cables instead of XLR to XLR to no avail. What I had was background noise, audible when there was no music playing and when playing at low volume. I didn't get what we call a black background.
 
It was a fine amp with my other cans at the time though, mainly the HD650, HD800 and K701. It even drove the K1000 pretty well but not as good as the SQ-N100 did via it's speaker outputs but better than a standard speaker amp (via speaker outputs) like the Marantz PM7200KI. I always called the Phonitor (and even more so the Auditor due to its price) a bargain high-end amp. 
I think it has one of the best (read: most subtle) crossfeed implementations IMO. I'm just not much of a fan of crossfeed, I like the more intimate soundstage phones provide. I seem to always want the sound to be as pure as possible, what comes in needs to come out for me.

 

[bmichels]

LAWTON AUDIO LA-900
 
I see that many people are septical about the value added by the LAWTON mods to the TH-900.  But... has someone here effectively own or heard a LA-900 and can therefore really tell us if it improve over  the TH-900 ?
 
Mostly I will be interested to know if it improve isolation.  Indeed, the TH-900 leak a little bit too much for me : I am not able to use it at home when people are around me. They complain that they hear my listening !
 
thanks in advance for your comments

 

[dukeskd]

Quote:

Switching between the Phonitor, GCHA, LDIII and P-1u I all had at the same time only revealed noise in the Phonitor, using the same dac and cables, just replacing the amp.
I tried RCA to XLR cables instead of XLR to XLR to no avail. What I had was background noise, audible when there was no music playing and when playing at low volume. I didn't get what we call a black background.
 
It was a fine amp with my other cans at the time though, mainly the HD650, HD800 and K701. It even drove the K1000 pretty well but not as good as the SQ-N100 did via it's speaker outputs but better than a standard speaker amp (via speaker outputs) like the Marantz PM7200KI. I always called the Phonitor (and even more so the Auditor due to its price) a bargain high-end amp. 
I think it has one of the best (read: most subtle) crossfeed implementations IMO. I'm just not much of a fan of crossfeed, I like the more intimate soundstage phones provide. I seem to always want the sound to be as pure as possible, what comes in needs to come out for me.

I definitely know where you're coming from, in my earlier setups (HA-160D, Lyr, ancient E9/E7), I always had a noisy background but when I got the Phonitor that stopped. I absolutely hate hissing noises instead of black background, it would always drive me crazy. I also upgraded my DAC and that helped a lot in creating hiss-free signals to my amplifiers (both RCA and XLR outs balanced are available with my Mytek). I agree with the subtle crossfeed implementation comment, it is one of the best I've heard to date (time to try out Smyth Realizer).

 

[songmic]

Quote:

LAWTON AUDIO LA-900
 
I see that many people are septical about the value added by the LAWTON mods to the TH-900.  But... has someone here effectively own or heard a LA-900 and can therefore really tell us if it improve over  the TH-900 ?
 
Mostly I will be interested to know if it improve isolation.  Indeed, the TH-900 leak a little bit too much for me : I am not able to use it at home when people are around me. They complain that they hear my listening !
 
thanks in advance for your comments

 
+1. I hope someone here has enough guts to send their TH900 to be transformed in LA900 and report in their findings.

 

[Magick Man]

+1. I hope someone here has enough guts to send their TH900 to be transformed in LA900 and report in their findings.

Not me, no way. :eek:

 

[dukeskd]

Quote:

Not me, no way.

+1

 

[driver 8]

^ what they said