[Pacha]

I do found my pair bright during until about 400 hours of burn-in. I went to slim.a's place when they had aroud 200 hours of burn-in and he thought the same without me having told him that I found it bright also.
 
Now they're not bright any more. But I think it has to do with DAC/amp, and interconnects. I think that if you're using Toslink and tube amp as they'll show less treble presence, you may not be hurt by brightness, while if you use silver wires with some SS DACs and amps it will be clearly more audible and possibly annoying like it was for me. Now my pair has no brightness issue while my DT880 are having some since I have them (5 or 6 years).
Anyway, with ALO recaling on the T1 at around 100 of burn-in only, while mine sounded bright on my setup and slim.a's setup, ALO pair weren't bright at all on his, I must admit I didn't expected that.
 
slim.a was using a HD650 since a while, and he tried many recabling on his pair, and it wasn't hard for him to upgrade to a T1

. You don't necessary need to come from a sound like K701 or DT 880 to go with a T1.

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

I do found my pair bright during until about 400 hours of burn-in. I went to slim.a's place when they had aroud 200 hours of burn-in and he thought the same without me having told him that I found it bright also.
 
Now they're not bright any more. But I think it has to do with DAC/amp, and interconnects. I think that if you're using Toslink and tube amp as they'll show less treble presence, you may not be hurt by brightness, while if you use silver wires with some SS DACs and amps it will be clearly more audible and possibly annoying like it was for me. Now my pair has no brightness issue while my DT880 are having some since I have them (5 or 6 years).
Anyway, with ALO recaling on the T1 at around 100 of burn-in only, while mine sounded bright on my setup and slim.a's setup, ALO pair weren't bright at all on his, I must admit I didn't expected that.
 
slim.a was using a HD650 since a while, and he tried many recabling on his pair, and it wasn't hard for him to upgrade to a T1

. You don't necessary need to come from a sound like K701 or DT 880 to go with a T1.

Mine were never bright right out of the box. At the time, I was using a Kimber digital coax to connect my CD transport to my DacMagic (now sold). I am now using toslink to connect my SACD player to my PS Audio DLIII and they are no warmer to my ears.
 
My interconnects between my DACs (DacMagic and DLIII) and my MAD amp have always been 0.5M Kimber Heros. I tend to shy away from silver as I find the balance skews too much towards the treble for my likes.

 

[musicman59]

Quote:

 
Hi SP
 
My impression is that the T-1 sounds more like an 880, than a 701. 
 
It's curious that Sennheiser felt it necessary to move away from their 650 house sound.
 
I had a few concerns about the LCD series which is why I bought the T-1s instead.
 
 

I agree with you. 
 
I'm just using the descriptions of the stock T-1s, given by the recablers, to illustrate that many people also reported that the T-1s were bright.

 

I'm only concerned with your appraisal of the stock T-1s.
 
I make no claim about the effect of recabling nor do I suggest that you have. 
 
I'm just citing the recablers initial impressions of the T-1 as examples of people who thought the T-1 was bright ........
 

I'm not calling your recabling impressions into question.  I believe that you reported what you heard.

 
What I would like to do is use your and slim.a's initial descriptions of the stock T-1 as being bright, to support what pataburd, myself (and many others) have reported.

 
USG
 

 
You are correct. To my taste I originally thought the stock T1 was a little bit bright with the soundstage a little bit diffused and compressed in the hight.
When SteveM and I compared my stock T1 against his Black Dragon recbaled T1 we both agreed the Black Dragon was smoother than the stock. That was what sold me in the recable job.
As I have said before I was close to give up on the T1 until I recabled them and now they are great and at a par of my recabled HD800.

 

 

[Pacha]

 
Quote:

Mine were never bright right out of the box. At the time, I was using a Kimber digital coax to connect my CD transport to my DacMagic (now sold). I am now using toslink to connect my SACD player to my PS Audio DLIII and they are no warmer to my ears.
 
My interconnects between my DACs (DacMagic and DLIII) and my MAD amp have always been 0.5M Kimber Heros. I tend to shy away from silver as I find the balance skews too much towards the treble for my likes.

Using silver digital cable for me and HiFace with Audio-gd FUN showed brightness at first. I don't know what Kimber interconnects you are using but I tried Kimber PBJ and treble were missing details and rolled off compared to the Oyaide I was using, hence producing treble issue for me in the beginning with the T1.
I think your MAD tube amp may help reducing any brightness issue that could be seen with some SS gear.

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

 


Using silver digital cable for me and HiFace with Audio-gd FUN showed brightness at first. I don't know what Kimber interconnects you are using but I tried Kimber PBJ and treble were missing details and rolled off compared to the Oyaide I was using, hence producing treble issue for me in the beginning with the T1.
I think your MAD tube amp may help reducing any brightness issue that could be seen with some SS gear.

The Kimber Heros (the ones currently in my system) do not reduce treble in any way to my ears. I do agree that the PBJs did have a very slight roll off (which is why I spent the extra $$$ for the Heros). I do have some really nice pure silver RCA's coming in next week. I will definitely give them a try and report back.
 
FYI...I did try the T1s with my iBasso D10 (not ideal), but it's the only SS amp that I have (used it USB from my laptop) and still zero brightness to report. With regards to my tube amp, I do find the Sylvania 5751 Grey Triple Mica's to be the most clean and least warm tube that I've heard and I did pop it in...and still zero brightness.

 

[Shahrose]

Quote:

 


Using silver digital cable for me and HiFace with Audio-gd FUN showed brightness at first. I don't know what Kimber interconnects you are using but I tried Kimber PBJ and treble were missing details and rolled off compared to the Oyaide I was using, hence producing treble issue for me in the beginning with the T1.
I think your MAD tube amp may help reducing any brightness issue that could be seen with some SS gear.

Are you seriously using a $200 Oyaide digital cable with your Audio-GD FUN? Jeez man, get your priorities straight...there's a lot more to be had from a DAC/amp upgrade.

 
Quote:

The Kimber Heros (the ones currently in my system) do not reduce treble in any way to my ears. I do agree that the PBJs did have a very slight roll off (which is why I spent the extra $$$ for the Heros). I do have some really nice pure silver RCA's coming in next week. I will definitely give them a try and report back.

Silver ICs sound nice (assuming their built properly)...let us know what you think of yours.

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

The Kimber Heros (the ones currently in my system) do not reduce treble in any way to my ears. I do agree that the PBJs did have a very slight roll off (which is why I spent the extra $$$ for the Heros). I do have some really nice pure silver RCA's coming in next week. I will definitely give them a try and report back.
 
FYI...I did try the T1s with my iBasso D10 (not ideal), but it's the only SS amp that I have (used it USB from my laptop) and still zero brightness to report. With regards to my tube amp, I do find the Sylvania 5751 Grey Triple Mica's to be the most clean and least warm tube that I've heard and I did pop it in...and still zero brightness.

I forgot to mention that my current setup still gives really good treble extension with all of my cans (like the Grado RS1i

). As well, the K701s (now sold) were too bright for me to keep in the long run. So I don't think the slightly warm sound signature of my T1s is due to my set up (I've also tried them on a coworker's B22 and my D10).

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

Silver ICs sound nice (assuming their built properly)...let us know what you think of yours.

They do appear to be very well built and come highly recommended. I got them for a steal (retail for $399...I got them for less than $100). I will definitely report back on how they sound (and in particular with my T1s).

 

[Pacha]

 
Quote:

Are you seriously using a $200 Oyaide digital cable with your Audio-GD FUN? Jeez man, get your priorities straight...there's a lot more to be had from a DAC/amp upgrade.
 

 
I wanted to make my opinion over average quality and full crap digital interconnects by trying the Oyaide. It's done now, and even if it is a good cable that was a good upgrade, don't worry, I've bought an RCA/RCA male adapter which gives me enough satisfaction to sell the Oyaide cable and buy a DAC19DSP/C2 setup asap.

 

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

They do appear to be very well built and come highly recommended. I got them for a steal (retail for $399...I got them for less than $100). I will definitely report back on how they sound (and in particular with my T1s).

 
So I'm reporting back now with the Silver Interconnects in house. They are 28 gauge 99.999% silver with Neutrik RCA terminations. See Aural Audio Thrills:
 
http://www.auralthrillsaudio.com/
 
Right off the bat, yes the treble is more live (but not bright like the AKG K701s or my RS1s, or even the DT880/600s). The mids also seem a little clearer and the sound stage seems a little wider (when compared to my Kimber Hero 0.5M RCA interconnects w/ WBT connections). The bass is slightly less impactful. I'm not sure if I like them as much, but I can confirm that even with these new silver interconnects, the T1s while closer to neutral (and less lush as before) are still not bright to my ears (and still are slightly warmer than the HD800s...though not as much now).
 
My RS1s and D7000s where both certainly brighter with the new interconnects. But the mids did seem more pronounced (especially on the D7000s and for me, that's a good thing).
 
Now on to the HD800s.
 

 

 

[Shahrose]

Quote:

So I'm reporting back now with the Silver Interconnects in house. They are 28 gauge 99.999% silver with Neutrik RCA terminations. See Aural Audio Thrills:
 
http://www.auralthrillsaudio.com/
 
Right off the bat, yes the treble is more live (but not bright like the AKG K701s or my RS1s, or even the DT880/600s). The mids also seem a little clearer and the sound stage seems a little wider (when compared to my Kimber Hero 0.5M RCA interconnects w/ WBT connections). The bass is slightly less impactful. I'm not sure if I like them as much, but I can confirm that even with these new silver interconnects, the T1s while closer to neutral (and less lush as before) are still not bright to my ears (and still are slightly warmer than the HD800s...though not as much now).
 
My RS1s and D7000s where both certainly brighter with the new interconnects. But the mids did seem more pronounced (especially on the D7000s and for me, that's a good thing).
 
Now on to the HD800s.
 

Hey Peter. I'm perplexed as to why you're against aftermarket headphone cables when you can clearly hear the difference with ICs. Changing the HD800 cable made a larger difference than changing the ICs in my system. You should try it out.

 
BTW, WRT to the silver ICs, my experience parallels yours. I'll add that switching to silver improved transients, made the tone more realistic and improved the soundstage by making low-level details more apparent. This is all in comparison to Blue Jeans cables of the same length.

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

Hey Peter. I'm perplexed as to why you're against aftermarket headphone cables when you can clearly hear the difference with ICs. Changing the HD800 cable made a larger difference than changing the ICs in my system. You should try it out.

 
BTW, WRT to the silver ICs, my experience parallels yours. I'll add that switching to silver improved transients, made the tone more realistic and improved the soundstage by making low-level details more apparent. This is all in comparison to Blue Jeans cables of the same length.

I'm not against it, not in any way. But at the price, I think the money be spent on other areas first. My interconnects (both Kimber Heros and Aura Audio Thrills Silver Braid) cost less than $50 per set. To upgrade my HD800 cable, it would likely be north of $300 + shipping.
 
Not to mention, changing from a copper to silver interconnect is quite drastic. Most of my previous experience was just changing copper headphone cables (HD650 stock to the Cardas and SAA Equinox cables).

 

[Shahrose]

Quote:

I'm not against it, not in any way. But at the price, I think the money be spent on other areas first. My interconnects (both Kimber Heros and Aura Audio Thrills Silver Braid) cost less than $50 per set. To upgrade my HD800 cable, it would likely be north of $300 + shipping.
 
Not to mention, changing from a copper to silver interconnect is quite drastic. Most of my previous experience was just changing copper headphone cables (HD650 stock to the Cardas and SAA Equinox cables).

Gotcha. IME, changing wire material does produce a larger difference than switching to a better quality wire of the same material.
 

 

[Drumonron]

Interesting specimen, this T1...I'll have to check it out but until then, the HD800s rest comfortably on my head.
 
Also, I'm listening to my new friend....the STAX 4040II signature series setup....almost as good as the hd800....but yet how could I possibly compare them...the STAX have their own unique presentation....I like!

 

[MacedonianHero]

So with my silver experiment going so well, I've recently picked up the Kimber Silver Streak RCA cables (with WBT-0147 terminations) and the T1s are still not bright. Are they less warm? Yes, but actually they are more balanced now.
 
Just amazing how the interconnect can have such a subtle, but still profound change to the sound. The mids on all my cans (especially the D7000s) are more forward (a good thing) and the sound stage has opened up even more.
 
So if anyone wants some really good interconnects, you might want to refer to my sale on the F/S cable forum.