[Kepic]

I'm currently running my HD800 with V800+V200 dac
 
someday I saw a member's reply that he had his T1 recabled and connect it directly to V800 and found the sound good.
 
I found a cable maker that are willing to do a cardas 6ft cable for $250 shipped
 
the spec is: 
 
HD800 connectors ---> mini 4 xlr
 
mini 4 xlr ---> Female Dual 3 pin XLRs 
 
the rationale is that I'll definitely going full balanced some day in the future and it's easier to just buy another mini 4 xlr --> Male Dual 3 Pin XLRs
 
my question is, will the $250 be well spent?
 
I also heard someone say that connecting directly from DAC to Headphone would only degrade the sound.
 
But according to Fried, CEO of the Violectric, he said running this setup I'll be "astonished"
 
so...I'm not sure if I should spend the money here. 
 
and reply is appreciated.
 
 
 
Wade
 
 

 

[scootermafia]

It's not going to sound terrible.  But DACs are not set up to drive headphones, ideally.  

 

[Head Injury]

The balanced outputs of the V800 appear to have an output impedance of 110 ohms. That's going to decrease electrical damping down to about 3, which could introduce extra driver ringing and distortion. The HD800 also has a wide impedance peak centered at 100 Hz. The output impedance will increase volume there by about 1 dB, and since the peak stretches out pretty far the wideband increase in bass should be pretty audible. That's probably why people will say it "synergizes" well. The HD800 is a trebly headphone, and the extra bass (and distortion) will warm it up.
 
So basically it gives you a number of unwanted things, and one potentially preferable thing that could be easily mimicked with a equalizer for free and tailored to your specific tastes.

 

[65535]

It's unlikely that a line level signal will sound good piped straight into headphones, the gain structure and impedance match is all sorts of wrong.

 

[Kepic]

Thanks, HJ, for your input
 
According to the manual of V800, the output impedance of all analog output is lower than 1 ohm, 
 
so I don't know the technical result of this compared to the 110 ohm you mentioned
 
 
And I totally agree with you, maybe it's the distortion that made other think it sounded "good".
 
But who cares it's distortion or what, the sound preference is most important IMO
 
Although V200 handles HD800 pretty well, I think I'm going to give this uncommon setup a try
 
And see what it would sound compare to the V200
 
Thanks again for your reply
 
Quote:

The balanced outputs of the V800 appear to have an output impedance of 110 ohms. That's going to decrease electrical damping down to about 3, which could introduce extra driver ringing and distortion. The HD800 also has a wide impedance peak centered at 100 Hz. The output impedance will increase volume there by about 1 dB, and since the peak stretches out pretty far the wideband increase in bass should be pretty audible. That's probably why people will say it "synergizes" well. The HD800 is a trebly headphone, and the extra bass (and distortion) will warm it up.
 
So basically it gives you a number of unwanted things, and one potentially preferable thing that could be easily mimicked with a equalizer for free and tailored to your specific tastes.

 

 

[Kepic]

There are jumper that can adjust the output level from +6 dBu to +24 dBu
 
I think it might help the match.
 
Quote:

It's unlikely that a line level signal will sound good piped straight into headphones, the gain structure and impedance match is all sorts of wrong.

 

 

[65535]

I'm interested how it turns out, most line level devices just won't have the power to drive such a low impedance load off the line out, if the DAC800 has some more oomph by adjusting jumper settings it would be very interesting.