[HiFiRE]

I don't have much to say on this combo which I received a couple days ago other than WOW. How trite of me.

Anyway, I've listened to some nice gear over the years. My source until now was an emu0404. I've Tried a Gilmore Lite and a MisterX Millet Hybrid amp with Grado 325i, Senn 650, Senn 570, Senn 595, Senn px-100 and Senn cx-300. I had to leave all this gear behind when I travelled to where I live today, in Korea. I made enough money and the Audiophile Starter Package from headroom was too tempting to resist, even with 20% taxes and shipping serving as deterrants.

The day I got the headphones at work I couldn't use the amp since I needed a transformer to get 110 volts here, so I just used the k701 out of my iriver h10. With the volume maxed the volume level was comfortable and listening to dave matthews crash album had never sounded so good. I historically couldn't enjoy DMB because there are so many instruments and a wide soundstage is really needed to enjoy them all, and appreciate the harmony and melody. To be honest I was anxious to try them with the amp+dac since I thought it couldn't sound much better than it already did.

I finally got home and connected everything when my friend called me to go out for dinner so I had to again delay listening. After dinner we came back to my place and I think my friend spent more time with my new headphones than I did. The headroom amp has two headphone outs so my friend could listen to my k701 while I listened with my px-100. We listened to some dark classical, devin townsend band, joe stump and some others. My px-100 sounds amazing too! What a great dac+amp.

Another friend called and we agreed to go for chicken and beers. I went out again. Hours later I finally get home, but I'm drunk and want to go to bed. As I'm writing this I'm realising I haven't listened to the rig for an hour yet and here I am writing my impressions, that's a no-no. Let me just say that this combination is outstanding and blows everything else I've tried out of the water. I've never heard music like this before. I'm tempted to blow off a date tonight to stay home and listen.

I'll post some more impressions later on.

 

[warpdriver]

Nice story..

I was looking at that deal on the Headroom's audiophile starter package and it's too bad that I already bought the second K701 for the office since I would have liked to take advantage of this deal to get the Desktop Amp.

But yeah, it must be a nice sounding set. The K701 out of my Micro amp already sounds great, I can only imagine how good it sounds out of the Desktop amp.

 

[warrior05]

listened to that combo at the NYC Meet and absolutely fell in love with the K701s. i guess i shouldn't tell you that a balanced pair of K701s plugged into headroom's home balanced amp is noticeably better.

THAT's the combo i'm shooting for.

enjoy! i'm definitely jealous. the ol' wallet is a bit flat so i'm biding my time.

 

[ken36]

Nice. I always feel good when someone else is happy.

 

[HiFiRE]

I've had some more time to listen to my new k701 and I thought I'd share my thoughts to date.

What brought about my desire to share again is being reunited with my sennheiser 595. My mom is visiting me in Korea and I asked her to bring them along with her, and she did! Yay mom.

To preface my listening impressions I would like to write that I had been reading criticisms of the k701 as being souless, lifeless, dead and so on. The first song that really wow'ed me when listening to the k701 was DMB - Crash so I figured I'd give the same song a go with the 595, expecting to hear more life, soul or whatever the opposite of the k701 criticisms would be. That was a long sentence.

In comparison to the k701, the 595 playing DMB just doesn't quite have the same magical feeling. The instrument separation, detail and soundstage isn't in the same league. Cymbals shine and guitar strings ring so sweetly. There are a number of imperfections on the crash album and they aren't nearly as evident with the 595s as they were on the revealing k701. The 595 sounds like headphones and the k701 sounds like a beautiful sounding space I occupy.

About a year ago when I got the 595 I had compared them with the 580, 650 and Grado 325i; I preferred the 595 after listening to some rock tracks, in fact it was the track "Nile - Lashed to the Slave Stick" that really sold me. I thought I'd throw this track at the k701 and see how it fared. Meh. To be honest the k701 is very much too detailed and spacious sounding for distorted/compressed sounds. I'm very curious about how the rs-1 sounds, but skeptical because of my strong dislike for the 325i, both comfort and sound wise.

To sum things up: the k701 is wicked awesome with, lets say, organic music. Voice, acoustic guitars, drums, orchestra type stuff and so on. I also found it surprisingly impressive with electronic music.

I'm starting to think that rock just can't sound much better that it does on my px-100. Rock needs warmth. hmmm... rs-1... hmmm...

 

[Spareribs]

Congratulations.

I think that Headroom's audiophile starter package is a great way to sell their product and to get people really into the audiophile waters without spending too much. If you think about it, it's not a bad deal really and good bang for your buck since the k701 is already a good bargain and quality headphone and you also get a DAC with a well built amp. What I love about the package is that it's great for people to just simply buy and not go crazy trying to figure out what amp and headphone to buy. It came save a lot of web surfing time. If I had a busy schedule and I love music, I wouldn't have to do all this research on the Internet to find out what amp and headphone to buy. I would just simply pick the audiophile package on their website and subsequently, I get a nice rig which can give me years and years of sonic pleasure. I like how Headroom makes it easy for people in this regard. If this package deal became more mainstream, a lot of people will be happier and be more excited about music as they realise how sound can be impressive with a good rig. I would hope many music lovers out there will take advantage of this package which can then avoid themsleves the madness of the crazy decisions of the head-fi craze. This package deal can defintely make life easier for a lot of people and also an incredible Christmas or birthday gift which can overwhelm a music lover.

It's definitely money well spent on this package and a smart investment especially for those who don't want to go crazy and spend thousands and thousands of dollars. Enjoy your purchase.

 

[slwiser]

I have to agree that this is a real nice package. I can't say it is an intro package but an intermediate level introduction to the Head-Fi world. It is much better than an intro package like the TotalBitHead with a SR-80 or something on that level.

But for that price you can't miss getting something that can entertain you for hours and hours and have you rediscover your entire CD collelction. Discrete output with the ability to have new modules changed out to push the level beyond an intermediate level is really icing on the cake.

If I were only starting out again it would be no contest. Except that I have a place for a closed heaphone and not that open thing...

Go Audio-Technica AT-W5000. Now if they would only sell the W5000 packaged with that headamp for a song.