[raybone0566]

Got my carbon today. Won't have my balanced cable until next week, but pretty impressed with what I'm hearing in se. Very smooth sounding amp

 

[whirlwind]

Got my carbon today. Won't have my balanced cable until next week, but pretty impressed with what I'm hearing in se. Very smooth sounding amp

Congrats...heard great stuff about the carbon.

 

[raybone0566]

Congrats...heard great stuff about the carbon.

Thanks joe, I've got the edition X loaner here now. Another one the 650 trumps imo.

 

[coastal1]

Got my carbon today. Won't have my balanced cable until next week, but pretty impressed with what I'm hearing in se. Very smooth sounding amp

 
I'm loving the HD650 with the LC using a balanced cable.  Out of curiosity, I briefly tried the using the SE output and was likewise impressed and the difference wasn't as big as I expected (the volume was expectedly lower, but the LC has plenty of power to drive the HD650).  That said, I got the balanced cable for a reason so only tried the SE briefly and lots of people who spent more time comparing say the HD650 balanced is a huge improvement.

 

[Youth]

   
I'm loving the HD650 with the LC using a balanced cable.  Out of curiosity, I briefly tried the using the SE output and was likewise impressed and the difference wasn't as big as I expected (the volume was expectedly lower, but the LC has plenty of power to drive the HD650).  That said, I got the balanced cable for a reason so only tried the SE briefly and lots of people who spent more time comparing say the HD650 balanced is a huge improvement.

 
I'll share my thoughts once I get my balanced cable

 

[CanadianMaestro]

Balanced cabling and amping isn't that much dramatically improved vs. SE for 650. Louder certainly, but I hear just as much with either mode. Out of a BHA-1 amp. CMR is good to have if your gear is plugged into an electrical environment that's noisy (e.g. non-dedicated wall outlet in a hi-rise bldg) or if you need long cabling beyond the usual 3m . Otherwise, my advice is to shop around or chop and reterm the SE cable, much cheaper.
 
650's a great HP either way, with a decent amp behind it. 

cheers

 

[i luvmusic 2]

 

Google Sonarworks. It makes the headphone flat.

 
This also make the headphone flat...
 

 
Pair that with this cable and you have a perfectly FLAT headphones
 
I really like this cable i posted this a few times already.

 

 

[olor1n]

 
That said, I preferred my HD650s as transparent as possible so I stuck with SS. Different strokes.

 
Transparency isn't confined to solid state amps. I've owned a top shelf SS amp, well regarded for transparency amongst other things. The modest tube amp I now own is almost as transparent. That's with the right tubes, but even with that additional expense, it's still considerably cheaper than my previous SS amp. Really impressive.
 
Not all tube amps have that dense midrange character that some gravitate to and which negates the resolution of components upstream. I prefer to have the HD650 tilted to a more neutral signature, where mid-bass bumps aren't accentuated and the transition from the upper midrange to treble is smooth. An amp that allows the quality of my dac to shine through.
 
It's stated elsewhere that the Valhalla 2 has a hint of the Eddie Current signature. I can only imagine what the HD650 must be like from a top tier Eddie Current tube amp, with beautiful glass all aglow.

 

[cuiter23]

Transparency isn't confined to solid state amps. I've owned a top shelf SS amp, well regarded for transparency amongst other things. The modest tube amp I now own is almost as transparent. That's with the right tubes, but even with that additional expense, it's still considerably cheaper than my previous SS amp. Really impressive.

Not all tube amps have that dense midrange character that some gravitate to and which negates the resolution of components upstream. I prefer to have the HD650 tilted to a more neutral signature, where mid-bass bumps aren't accentuated and the transition from the upper midrange to treble is smooth. An amp that allows the quality of my dac to shine through.

It's stated elsewhere that the Valhalla 2 has a hint of the Eddie Current signature. I can only imagine what the HD650 must be like from a top tier Eddie Current tube amp, with beautiful glass all aglow.

My argument is derived from an objective standpoint. SS measure much less distortion than tubes generally. How tubes get their exotic sound is through distortion which makes it theoretically less transparent. This is the normative argument.

Im sure to our ears some tubes can even sound more transparent than SS. But thats another argument.

 

[coastal1]

Balanced cabling and amping isn't that much dramatically improved vs. SE for 650. Louder certainly, but I hear just as much with either mode. Out of a BHA-1 amp. CMR is good to have if your gear is plugged into an electrical environment that's noisy (e.g. non-dedicated wall outlet in a hi-rise bldg) or if you need long cabling beyond the usual 3m . Otherwise, my advice is to shop around or chop and reterm the SE cable, much cheaper.

650's a great HP either way, with a decent amp behind it. 
cheers

Dr. Cavallli was very present in the LC thread. He highly recommended the balanced out on the LC and was much more indifferent to the balanced input. So he didn't have any skin in the game either way.

I love the LC so will take his word for it. That said, he also strongly recommended 150 hours of continuous burn-in and didn't do anything for me (it was great out of the box) and many others, though it did weed out some defective amps

 

[JK-47]

My argument is derived from an objective standpoint. SS measure much less distortion than tubes generally. How tubes get their exotic sound is through distortion which makes it theoretically less transparent. This is the normative argument.

Im sure to our ears some tubes can even sound more transparent than SS. But thats another argument.

Tube amps generally produce even order distortion, SS amps generally produce odd order distortion. It's like comparing apples to oranges.

 

[DavidA]

   
Transparency isn't confined to solid state amps. I've owned a top shelf SS amp, well regarded for transparency amongst other things. The modest tube amp I now own is almost as transparent. That's with the right tubes, but even with that additional expense, it's still considerably cheaper than my previous SS amp. Really impressive.
 
Not all tube amps have that dense midrange character that some gravitate to and which negates the resolution of components upstream. I prefer to have the HD650 tilted to a more neutral signature, where mid-bass bumps aren't accentuated and the transition from the upper midrange to treble is smooth. An amp that allows the quality of my dac to shine through.
 
It's stated elsewhere that the Valhalla 2 has a hint of the Eddie Current signature. I can only imagine what the HD650 must be like from a top tier Eddie Current tube amp, with beautiful glass all aglow.

On a Balancing Act or Liquid Glass its breathtaking, lucky enough to hear the HD-650 on these two amps at a friends house a few months ago.

 

[milosingh]

Really nice!

Did you try Sonarworks?

 

[milosingh]

What's your setup?  I'm using the Cavalli Liquid Carbon amp with a balanced cable to the HD650 that really opened up the HD650 to my ears, perhaps the difference is more noticeable on a SE connection?

I think the Sonarworks plug in installed correctly as the standard Sonarworks setting had clip protection that was very noticeable instantly (lower volume) and the "Simulate" and "tone control" functions produced a vastly different sounds instantly.  

Did not hear much if any difference calibrating to flat, though I didn't have time to listen very long.

Well. Once you listen to Flat for a few hrs, you can't go back to Regular.

But this difference for some reason isn't noticeable on directly AB switching.

But listening for say 10 minutes at a time makes it very evident.

I repeat with direct AB I don't hear much/any difference either. But if you keep listening on a given setting for 5-15 minutes, it becomes clear.

I no longer listen without SW now.

 

[milosingh]

I think the difference is huge to be honest. Switching back to the stock sound after a couple of hours EQ'ed is horrible to my mind. Each to their own though.

With extended listening it is huge. With direct AB from the dashboard it is small.