[GeoD]

Killer deal right there, esp. for 17ft Jena! Someone will be very happy with those cans.

 

[Bostonears]

$729 for a D5000 with 17 foot Jena Labs cable? As we say here in Boston, that's a bahgain.

 

[markl]

[size=small]Demo pair MD5000 DE is SOLD.[/size]

 

[nc8000]

Received mine today. Build quality is fantastic and the African Sapele mahogany cups are stunning. Comfort is fantastic as well. The cable is the stock cable form a L3000 reterminated for balanced. Sound impressions to come after some burn-in.

 

[smallcaps]

those are beautiful. absolutely stunning.

 

[mrarroyo]

nc8000 those are beautiful! I wonder how the african sapele compares w/ the bubinga. Mark, would you please advise? Thanks.

 

[nc8000]

I tried the phones straight out of the box and the sound was a HUGE dissapointment, they were literally thrased by my APS ER4 in all aspects other than viceral bottom end impact. The midrange and to some extent also the treble was deeply recessed/veiled and all in all the sound on anything othet than Metallica and Megadeath was awfull. I have then given them 20 hours of burnin using the IsoTek burnin cd and above average volume and now the story is completely different. The bottom end has tightened up and the midrange and treble have opened up a lot and com foreward. There is no hint of harshness to the treble. I will continue with the burnin during the day and listen at night to see if things improve even more but is is now shaping up nicely. Listening to church organ on these is an experience !!!

 

[K3cT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrarroyo /img/forum/go_quote.gif nc8000 those are beautiful! I wonder how the african sapele compares w/ the bubinga. Mark, would you please advise? Thanks.

Seconding this notion. The ideal wood for me is something that can make the midrange more lush and forward and smooth the treble a bit.

 

[Nazo]

You, like me, probably need to wait for the Bubinga. It sounds like it's the best possible choice for the Denons along those lines. (Though I may have to wait even longer yet at this rate due to financial issues.)

BTW, in the meantime, the right DAC helps a lot and of course the right cables (for me it was the Mogami that felt like it complemented the Denons best. That's of the cheaper options however. I can only imagine how much those Jena Labs cables help...) You may have heard of this before, but some people are convinced that the Sony Playstation of all things is a surprisingly good sounding CD player -- specifically, the first model (the SCPH-1000/1001/1002 depending on region) with its RCA connections as opposed to the combined A/V dongle in later revisions. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like this system gets along very well with the Denons. The cool thing about it is that it's really cheap to try (and many people even already have one.) You're supposed to leave it on all the time though. Perhaps not everyone will agree, but I just think it complements the Denons at least fairly well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nc8000 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I tried the phones straight out of the box and the sound was a HUGE dissapointment

Lol, surely you should know that headphones require burn-in. Out of the box, Denons are flat and weak at best. I'm not sure which ones the LA3000s are (the D2000s? Looks like the website needs to be updated) but you'll probably need as much as 250 to 300 hours to fully burn them in even if they are the D2000s or D5000s. He warned me on mine, so I wasn't surprised by the lengthy period. I think he's right too. I don't think mine completely settled down until close to 300 just as he warned.

 

[nc8000]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nazo /img/forum/go_quote.gif Lol, surely you should know that headphones require burn-in. Out of the box, Denons are flat and weak at best. I'm not sure which ones the LA3000s are (the D2000s? Looks like the website needs to be updated) but you'll probably need as much as 250 to 300 hours to fully burn them in even if they are the D2000s or D5000s. He warned me on mine, so I wasn't surprised by the lengthy period. I think he's right too. I don't think mine completely settled down until close to 300 just as he warned.

Sure I did, but I didn't expect them to be that awfull at first. There is no LA3000, these are LA2000 (based on a D2000) but with an AudioTechnica L3000 stock cable in balanced configuration in place of the Jena cable to keep cost manageable. Using the IsoTek cd Mark estimates about 100 hours of burn-in is needed.

 

[K3cT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nazo /img/forum/go_quote.gif You, like me, probably need to wait for the Bubinga. It sounds like it's the best possible choice for the Denons along those lines. (Though I may have to wait even longer yet at this rate due to financial issues.) BTW, in the meantime, the right DAC helps a lot and of course the right cables (for me it was the Mogami that felt like it complemented the Denons best. That's of the cheaper options however. I can only imagine how much those Jena Labs cables help...) You may have heard of this before, but some people are convinced that the Sony Playstation of all things is a surprisingly good sounding CD player -- specifically, the first model (the SCPH-1000/1001/1002 depending on region) with its RCA connections as opposed to the combined A/V dongle in later revisions. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like this system gets along very well with the Denons. The cool thing about it is that it's really cheap to try (and many people even already have one.) You're supposed to leave it on all the time though. Perhaps not everyone will agree, but I just think it complements the Denons at least fairly well.

Hmm... I have recabled mine with Kimber 4TC and I thought it complements the midrange very well. It's more forward and detailed now. As always, I'm just wondering how this little piece of gem can be improved further.

The Bubinga is an interesting choice as well since it doesn't need to be damped as damping with Dynamat does contribute to a brighter sound in my experience which doesn't translate well in the big picture.

 

[mrarroyo]

In my experience just using music the D2000/5000 need about 250 hours of burn in. The D2000 I recently sent to Mark already have about 300 hours of burn in, so did the D5000 I sent Mark a few months ago.

 

[Nazo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by K3cT /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hmm... I have recabled mine with Kimber 4TC and I thought it complements the midrange very well. It's more forward and detailed now. As always, I'm just wondering how this little piece of gem can be improved further. The Bubinga is an interesting choice as well since it doesn't need to be damped as damping with Dynamat does contribute to a brighter sound in my experience which doesn't translate well in the big picture.

Yeah, I've heard the same thing and am inclined to agree as I even saw this a bit with the far lower end D1001s even. I could only guess why the highs seem to increase with the mod, but they do really seem to (at least to me and I have seen no small number of people agreeing.) Of course, the stock bass sound is so awful that I'll take the highs that can get almost shrill under the worst circumstances (but then I'm no bass-head.)

I'm kind of curious how that Kimber 4TC sounds, but I must say that the reason I like the Mogami cable is that it seems to focus on the mid-range with slightly reduced lows and highs (which I think complements the slightly recessed mids of the Denons) and I'm not sure that I'd be changing it at this point. I really want those Bubinga cups though and since I may have to wait a while (thanks to a general reduction of hours decreasing my pay quite a bit -- got to love how friendly this economy is to those who want to listen to their music properly) I'm still thinking in terms of what I can do in the meantime while I wait.

Oh, btw, to those like myself who like bass a bit more reduced, remember that MarkL, by default, does not add any stuffing to the inside of the cans. As per his original thread discussing the mod, he likes the sound of them better that way. I would imagine most people do in fact, but I found the bass to be a bit too much still until I added some to the inside. Just something to bear in mind given that so many people have such different tastes. (Personally, I ended up probably putting in even less than what he discussed in the mod thread. Just a tiny bit and the bass was perfect for me.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by nc8000 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sure I did, but I didn't expect them to be that awfull at first.

Yeah, that's the funny thing about the Denons. Those drivers are as stiff as a board right out of the box. They just sound so flat and weak right out of the box that you may as well have $20 cans. Luckily, as you've discovered, they very quickly at least start to improve. IMO they still are a bit dark and weak in general for a good while though. Just wait until you hear them fully burned in... I felt like every single penny that I spent (and I got a great price from Lawton Audio I must say) -- and I don't have many to spare as you may have guessed -- was well spent. Lol, I'd buy a second backup if I could. d-:

Quote:

Using the IsoTek cd Mark estimates about 100 hours of burn-in is needed.

All I can tell you on that is that among my host of questions to him (that's one of my favorite things about buying from Lawton Audio instead of some faceless person on Amazon or whatever) he told me the D2000s need 250-300 hours of burn-in. What's more, I would swear that he was right from my own listening. I will admit that I'm not very good at comparing except with more extremes (like the horrible out of the box sound) and, to make it harder still, I really didn't listen to them much until they reached about 250 hours (I still had the modded D1001s to tide me over at that time) but in the tiny bit of comparing I did do they had a weaker soundstage and were darker than the D1001s by a fairly noticeable amount and just in general a not very good sound until they reached a pretty good number of hours. Actually, I'd almost swear that they ended up needing a bit more than 300 hours, but I'm definitely not sure of that. (Once they hit 250, they were definitely better than the D1001s by a wide enough margin that I completely switched over and really started doing some serious music listening. That made any sort of comparison basically impossible.) Bear in mind that I am anything but an expert in these things, but I would still suggest not letting up on that burn-in until you're sure.

 

[markl]

Howdy guys, been away for a bit, and then supposed to be bed-ridden (good ol' walkin' pneumonia yikes). Working hard nevertheless to meet my commitments, I deeply appreciate the business.

nc8000, very glad you have given them a chance to bloom. The Denons (stock or mod-ed) are one of those audio devices that undergo a major change with burn-in. You're lucky to have the Isotek disc, it's a little miracle that thing. It takes the Denons that require 250 hrs burn-in and cuts it down to about 100hrs. I highly recommend this $30 disc to anyone.

Quote:

nc8000 those are beautiful! I wonder how the african sapele compares w/ the bubinga. Mark, would you please advise? Thanks.

Howdy Miguel. These are close to the bubinga, but a bit more low-density than what you would want. Unfortunately, we are probably going to be unable to obtain more Sepele Mahogany. The blanks we need are not standard size. They are not readily available to either of my wood-workers. It's a gorgeous wood, very middle-of-the-road in terms of tone/timbre, great all-around wood. There is one last set left that are being made to fit a D7000.

We have many lower-density woods to choose from such as Australian Sheoak, Tasmanian Blackwood, and Red Cedar. These are each gorgeous wood with unique characteristics, we can help you choose.

Quote:

Seconding this notion. The ideal wood for me is something that can make the midrange more lush and forward and smooth the treble a bit.

K3cT, based on this one statement, you might want to consider Red Cedar. A low-density wood, yet vs. something like Australian Sheoak which has very crisp and defined highs, is slightly more mellow up top (but not rolled at all).

 

[K3cT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by markl /img/forum/go_quote.gif Howdy guys, been away for a bit, and then supposed to be bed-ridden (good ol' walkin' pneumonia yikes). Working hard nevertheless to meet my commitments, I deeply appreciate the business. K3cT, based on this one statement, you might want to consider Red Cedar. A low-density wood, yet vs. something like Australian Sheoak which has very crisp and defined highs, is slightly more mellow up top (but not rolled at all).

I hope all is well over there, markl.

The Red Cedar is certainly very intriguing and I honestly think that low density wood suits Denon the best and that's even better all things considered. Would you consider damping this wood for the best performance in your mind? How light is this particular wood, is it even less dense than the standard mahogany fare of the D5000 and D7000 stock cups?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nazo /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah, I've heard the same thing and am inclined to agree as I even saw this a bit with the far lower end D1001s even. I could only guess why the highs seem to increase with the mod, but they do really seem to (at least to me and I have seen no small number of people agreeing.) Of course, the stock bass sound is so awful that I'll take the highs that can get almost shrill under the worst circumstances (but then I'm no bass-head.) I'm kind of curious how that Kimber 4TC sounds, but I must say that the reason I like the Mogami cable is that it seems to focus on the mid-range with slightly reduced lows and highs (which I think complements the slightly recessed mids of the Denons) and I'm not sure that I'd be changing it at this point. I really want those Bubinga cups though and since I may have to wait a while (thanks to a general reduction of hours decreasing my pay quite a bit -- got to love how friendly this economy is to those who want to listen to their music properly) I'm still thinking in terms of what I can do in the meantime while I wait. Oh, btw, to those like myself who like bass a bit more reduced, remember that MarkL, by default, does not add any stuffing to the inside of the cans. As per his original thread discussing the mod, he likes the sound of them better that way. I would imagine most people do in fact, but I found the bass to be a bit too much still until I added some to the inside. Just something to bear in mind given that so many people have such different tastes. (Personally, I ended up probably putting in even less than what he discussed in the mod thread. Just a tiny bit and the bass was perfect for me.)

Yeah. When I had first completed the mod, the sound became unbelievably bright and I had to adjust the mod and play around with other damping material to achieve something between stock and fully modded presentation.

As for cable choice, I did consider the Mogami Starquad once but after talking with fellow audiophiles, most reckoned that it might be too dark for my Denon. Then someone recommended the Kimber 4TC as it has a good value/performance ratio although it was an usual choice considering its nature as a speaker cable first and foremost. It's warm cable no doubt but I'm really happy that the 4TC improved the midrange by quite a bit and made the bass punchier while not skewing overall presentation too much to the dark side. What kind of Mogami cable did you choose for your Denon anyway, Nazo?

Too bad it seems that this D2000 has a very narrow treble spike that I can't get rid of no matter how much modification I've done. This contributed to sibilance that rears its ugly head now although curiously, it doesn't occur all the time and only occasionally. If switching to wooden cups can fix this, I'm going to be one hell of a happy camper.

As for the stuffing, I did try it but I found that it sucked out too much bass on top of making things very bright so I removed those polyester pronto.