[TyTB]

Hello everyone,

I might be purchasing a pair of Sennheiser HD800s soon, but, admittedly, I don't like the way they sound as much as some other headphones. With EQ, though, I'm able to get exactly the sound I want, and so I'm leaning towards buying the HD800s for some of its other strengths, like its comfort, build quality, and open-ness.

I had always intended to buy a tube amp to run these -- something like a Schitt Lyr or Vali 3, but then I started thinking: "wait.... if I'm going to be using an EQ to get exactly the type of sound signature I want in the first place.... then what are the tubes going to do for me?"

Like, lets simplify and say that what tubes do is they add a flat 5 dB boost to the 12 khz range and above.

Okay, but if I was going to be adding that 5 dB boost to that same range in EQ anyways.... then great, now I don't have to. But the corollary of that is, well, why bother buying the tube amp at all? I can just add that same 5 dB boost in, and get the same sound out.

Obviously, this is a simplification, and tubes change the frequency response across all frequencies, in ways that might not be perfectly smooth or parametric, but IN THEORY, you COULD EQ the same frequency response, could you not?

Is there something Tubes do that EQ simply can't? Is there still a reason to buy a tube amp when you KNOW you're going to be using EQ?

Bonus question -- For the HD800s, will there be any appreciable difference in sound between a Lyr+Modius stack from Schitt, and its smaller siblings, the Vali3+Modi?

 

[Monsterzero]

"wait.... if I'm going to be using an EQ to get exactly the type of sound signature I want in the first place.... then what are the tubes going to do for me?"

Read up on even order harmonics(distortion) specifically 2nd order. That's where the magic of tubes lives.

 

[spittis]

Equalization (EQ) is just decreasing or increasing the gain of certain frequency bands. Tube amps add distortion, as in it adds content to the signal that wasn't there before. You can't do that with EQ, but you can do it with DSP software. What software, and how well it works, I don't know, I haven't bothered with it myself. I think it's more common on the recording side with guitar amps and tube emulators, but that's not the same as emulating a "hifi-amplifiers" distortion.

With most modern tube amps, the sound difference is quite small compared to solid state. You can get quite big differences with rolling different tubes, but generally you're looking at quite small distortion levels. IIRC you wrote in another thread that you struggled to hear meaningful differences between many headphones you tested. The differences between amplifiers, tubes or not, is much smaller than that IMO.

 

[TyTB]

Read up on even order harmonics(distortion) specifically 2nd order. That's where the magic of tubes lives.

Actually, another user in a different forum spoke about exactly this:

No it shouldn't be a day-and-night difference, more like a subtle flavoring. But it really depends on the specific amp, its distortion characterstics, and how hard the headphones/listening volumes push it.

-40dB of second-harmonic dominated distortion is sky-high compared to a solid-state amp that aspires to transparency, and you should be able to pretty clearly hear it with a test tone - with music, the effect is quite subtle.

-60dB distortion products would be much harder to hear against music, and that's also a reasonable value for a tube amp operating in its most linear region.


And so the question I then asked him is the same that I ask you:

it sounds like it's another one of those things where all of the elements have to come together perfectly, and all of the stars have to align, AND you have to have the ears of an audiophile, just to maybe kinda hear a difference... In a test tone.

Meanwhile, on regular pop-40 music, with low production value, playing to a normal listener, they might not be able to hear any differences at all?

Cause I really couldn't hear ANY difference on the Cayin amp, but, admittedly, that was the only tube amp I've ever listened to.

 

[roderickvd]

Read up on even order harmonics(distortion) specifically 2nd order. That's where the magic of tubes lives.

This. Answer to your questions are no and yes.

 

[TyTB]

Equalization (EQ) is just decreasing or increasing the gain of certain frequency bands. Tube amps add distortion, as in it adds content to the signal that wasn't there before. You can't do that with EQ, but you can do it with DSP software. What software, and how well it works, I don't know, I haven't bothered with it myself. I think it's more common on the recording side with guitar amps and tube emulators, but that's not the same as emulating a "hifi-amplifiers" distortion.

With most modern tube amps, the sound difference is quite small compared to solid state. You can get quite big differences with rolling different tubes, but generally you're looking at quite small distortion levels. IIRC you wrote in another thread that you struggled to hear meaningful differences between many headphones you tested. The differences between amplifiers, tubes or not, is much smaller than that IMO.

Thank you for your comment. Your closing sentence is EXACTLY what I'm getting at.

That's EXACTLY what I'm concerned about. Is tube sound just another audiophile fantasy, thar only 0.1% of people will be able to hear, or is it a sizeable, obvious, noticeable difference that even I, with my apparently crappy, plebian ears, will not notice?

Because I wasn't able to hear any soundstage differences between the HD6XX and the HD800s, for example. So if I'm not even able to hear something that most people here feel should be a day-and-night difference, then do you think there's actually any chance I could hear the difference between solid state and tube sound? Because if not, it seems to make more sense to buy the Jotunheim 2, and get balanced output AND a multibit DAC, for less money.

I would go in and test things to answer that question myself, but none of the stores I have access to in my town have tube setups readily available for listening and rolling.

 

[Monsterzero]

Like all headphones, amps are all not created equally. Some tube amps sound more "tubey" than others. My old Woo Audio WA2 was quite warm and tubey, whereas my current OTL, the rare as hens teeth, Airmid is quite linear sounding, neutral and revealing.
As was alluded to above, the tubes used will also play a large part in what sound is being heard.

The trend in modern headphone amps is to have a THD of 0.0001
While an ultra low THD is all fine and well, in the process of removing odd order harmonics to achieve that ultra low thd, the even order harmonics are removed as well.....a case of the baby and the bathwater if there ever was one.

That being said, given the OP's difficulty in hearing huge differences between various headphones, I'm not sure the hassle and cost of tubes would be worth it in the end for him/her

 

[moneypit]

I'm a little confused about it all (and not just the reddit-style thread posting/titles that makes it difficult to keep track of the thoughts).

You started by saying you had $1000US to spend on upgraded DAC/Amp but you were convinced by folks on the webernets to buy new headphones instead. Now you're looking to spend money on HD800s (no longer on sale which was the cause of the fire drill in the first place) in addition to the DAC/Amp. You're also convinced you're going to rely on EQ even though you have no experience with it.

Your budget is creeping ever higher and you are now looking to buy stuff you have no ability to audition ahead of time, AFAIK (Schiit). The more money you throw at this, the more diminishing returns you will experience. Based on what you have already communicated, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

I know @Monsterzero said this was a bad idea in another thread but I really think you need to climb the audio(insanity) scale and audition TOTL stuff. If none of that is giving you what you want, you know that what you want isn't achievable by throwing money at it. If you do find 'the sound,' you know how many more loonies you need to save. It will be a long time if you discover the sound you are after comes from an AB1266 run off of a Woo Elite WA234-MONO and a Denafrips Terminus Plus 12th but at least you'll know. Worst case scenario, you listen to something in the 6-figure range which ruins you for everything else, your spirit is broken and you give up.

I still think, in that scenario, you will still be less disappointed than going down this road.

Put your money in an interest-bearing account or some growth fund while you continue to search for your unicorn. The search is the fun part anyway.

 

[ExTubeGamer]

I did not read much of this thread but I am listening to a tube amp right now while using EQ. The tubes gives the music some harmonic distortion and more authority + greater loudness.

 

[TyTB]

I'm a little confused about it all (and not just the reddit-style thread posting/titles that makes it difficult to keep track of the thoughts).

You started by saying you had $1000US to spend on upgraded DAC/Amp but you were convinced by folks on the webernets to buy new headphones instead. Now you're looking to spend money on HD800s (no longer on sale which was the cause of the fire drill in the first place) in addition to the DAC/Amp. You're also convinced you're going to rely on EQ even though you have no experience with it.

Your budget is creeping ever higher and you are now looking to buy stuff you have no ability to audition ahead of time, AFAIK (Schiit). The more money you throw at this, the more diminishing returns you will experience. Based on what you have already communicated, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

I know @Monsterzero said this was a bad idea in another thread but I really think you need to climb the audio(insanity) scale and audition TOTL stuff. If none of that is giving you what you want, you know that what you want isn't achievable by throwing money at it. If you do find 'the sound,' you know how many more loonies you need to save. It will be a long time if you discover the sound you are after comes from an AB1266 run off of a Woo Elite WA234-MONO and a Denafrips Terminus Plus 12th but at least you'll know. Worst case scenario, you listen to something in the 6-figure range which ruins you for everything else, your spirit is broken and you give up.

I still think, in that scenario, you will still be less disappointed than going down this road.

Put your money in an interest-bearing account or some growth fund while you continue to search for your unicorn. The search is the fun part anyway.

Haha yeah, I know this must all seem deranged from the outside...

Your order of events is correct. I started with a notion, six years ago, that I would get some better audio equipment, and that would finally allow me to re-experience what I heard those years ago at Bay Bloor Audio on some Denon AH-D2000.

The I made my posts here and on Reddit, and spent time going to stores and testing things. What followed was several days of un-learning all my mistakes, my erroneous preconceptions, and my naiive expectations.

It's this growth and un-learning of mistakes that makes my posting seem so schizophrenic. In the course of just three short threads, I seem to have completely reversed course, right? I'm now singing a completely different tune than before, asking for the exact opposite of what I was asking for earlier, right?

Well, yeah. That's because I learned, and I realized the errors in what I was wanting and expecting.

What I thought was a huge sound stage before, in the denons, was really just good-quality music production, à la Fleetwood Mac, for example.

What I thought people meant by a wide soundstage, is really just a subjective experience of the HRTF, unique to each person's anatomy - its not a mechanical, measureable, guarantee-able trait inherent to a given headphone.

What I thought people meant by "Open"-Ness is NOT a synonym for a wide sound stage. It's something different, something that I can best describe as a sense of air pressure on the eardrum.

What I thought people meant by detail and imaging is different too. I thought they were the same, synonyms again, but now I know detail is sound retrievability, I.e. Being able to hear a mouse fart in the recording booth, whereas imaging is once again a facet of the HRTF, and being able to place instruments in 3D space.

Then there's the gear related stuff. Transparent, solid-state Amps really do just amplify, nothing more. It really and truly is just a mixture of the placebo effect and confirmation bias and audiophiles being audiophiles when they insist otherwise. Tube amps, and amps that are built to specifically change the frequency response are another matter, of course, but, once again, are heavily dependent on one's anatomy, and subjective ability to hear these subtle differences, because the differences ARE subtle.


So now I'm approaching things with very new eyes. I have developed an appreciation for the detail that the HD800s DO have. I have an appreciation for what open-ness ACTUALLY feels like, and how it makes listening less fatiguing. I have an appreciation for well-produced music, and how important production quality is.

And believe you me, I don't want to spend 1599 CAD (I still have the sale price because I locked it in at my store), but I DID actually try cheaper headphones, too, and I CAN hear how the $1099 Meze 109 Pros aren't as open, or as detailed as the Senns. And I CAN hear how the $799 Hifiman Edition XS is just as veiled and muddied as my old 6XX's.

Now, does this necessarily mean I HAVE to buy the $1599 HD850s to get this kind of sound? No. I'm sure there are SOME kind of headphones, somewhere, that are just as clear, just as detailed, just as open, but cheaper. The thing is, the search is ABSOLUTELY NOT the fun part. Not for me. It is tiring and draining and expensive and very not fun. I don't like running across the city to different stores. I'd like to just buy one headset, and never consider this topic again for the next 10+ years. Ideally, for the rest of my life. At the tender age of 28, though, I know that's a big ask.

My financial situation is that I'm basically unemployed. I work, but I'm not very successful AT my work. My income in a year is maybe $10,000. $25000 was my best year. However, I also have no expenses, as I live with my parents, and take care of the house.

So, I have about ten grand in my bank, and that's basically all I'm going to have for the rest of the year. Spending $3000 doesn't put me in a worse financial situation than spending $300 PER SE, it just means I have less money for the rest of the year to spend on other things. However, since all my actual necessities are covered, that's not as precarious a situation as it sounds.

Still, is it worth spending $1599 on some headphones, and then another $500 on a Jotinheim 2 DAC/Amp? I don't know. Music is pretty much the only thing I have left in this life that can elicit an emotional response from me. I'm okay putting some money into that, as long as it's just once (for the next ten years), and as long as it actually GETS me some improvement. The cheaper headphones were too close to my current 6XX's to be worthwhile.

Ps. I actually find Head-Fi's method of containing multiple evolving conversations and topics in a single thread to be very confusing and non-sensible. It seems far more efficient to break up different topics into different threads, but maybe that's just me.

 

[moneypit]

My financial situation is that I'm basically unemployed. I work, but I'm not very successful AT my work. My income in a year is maybe $10,000. $25000 was my best year. However, I also have no expenses, as I live with my parents, and take care of the house.

Your money is your own. Every situation is different and I can't tell you what to do...

I wrote a lot more but deleted it. You can fill in the blanks.

 

[Thomasr]

Worst case scenario, you listen to something in the 6-figure range which ruins you for everything else, your spirit is broken and you give up.

This quote feels like peak HeadFi.

 

[Thomasr]

In the course of just three short threads, I seem to have completely reversed course, right? I'm now singing a completely different tune than before

Just know that these reversals will likely continue to happen even after you've spent boatloads of money on gear.

Budget accordingly.

 

[earmonger]

Especially given how much of your annual budget would go to the headphones, I'm going to make one more plug for the ATH-R70X. I am considerably older than you, a sometime musician and lifelong music junkie, always trying to hear all the details that make music magical. I've been through a lot of headphones, though not in the kilobuck zone. The ATH-R70X are just utterly satisfying to me.

Someone in Canada -- Amazon? -- must have the Audio-Technica ATH-R70X on sale with a return policy. Please try them.

 

[orbilius]

Haha yeah, I know this must all seem deranged from the outside...

Your order of events is correct. I started with a notion, six years ago, that I would get some better audio equipment, and that would finally allow me to re-experience what I heard those years ago at Bay Bloor Audio on some Denon AH-D2000.

The I made my posts here and on Reddit, and spent time going to stores and testing things. What followed was several days of un-learning all my mistakes, my erroneous preconceptions, and my naiive expectations.

It's this growth and un-learning of mistakes that makes my posting seem so schizophrenic. In the course of just three short threads, I seem to have completely reversed course, right? I'm now singing a completely different tune than before, asking for the exact opposite of what I was asking for earlier, right?

Well, yeah. That's because I learned, and I realized the errors in what I was wanting and expecting.

What I thought was a huge sound stage before, in the denons, was really just good-quality music production, à la Fleetwood Mac, for example.

What I thought people meant by a wide soundstage, is really just a subjective experience of the HRTF, unique to each person's anatomy - its not a mechanical, measureable, guarantee-able trait inherent to a given headphone.

What I thought people meant by "Open"-Ness is NOT a synonym for a wide sound stage. It's something different, something that I can best describe as a sense of air pressure on the eardrum.

What I thought people meant by detail and imaging is different too. I thought they were the same, synonyms again, but now I know detail is sound retrievability, I.e. Being able to hear a mouse fart in the recording booth, whereas imaging is once again a facet of the HRTF, and being able to place instruments in 3D space.

Then there's the gear related stuff. Transparent, solid-state Amps really do just amplify, nothing more. It really and truly is just a mixture of the placebo effect and confirmation bias and audiophiles being audiophiles when they insist otherwise. Tube amps, and amps that are built to specifically change the frequency response are another matter, of course, but, once again, are heavily dependent on one's anatomy, and subjective ability to hear these subtle differences, because the differences ARE subtle.


So now I'm approaching things with very new eyes. I have developed an appreciation for the detail that the HD800s DO have. I have an appreciation for what open-ness ACTUALLY feels like, and how it makes listening less fatiguing. I have an appreciation for well-produced music, and how important production quality is.

And believe you me, I don't want to spend 1599 CAD (I still have the sale price because I locked it in at my store), but I DID actually try cheaper headphones, too, and I CAN hear how the $1099 Meze 109 Pros aren't as open, or as detailed as the Senns. And I CAN hear how the $799 Hifiman Edition XS is just as veiled and muddied as my old 6XX's.

Now, does this necessarily mean I HAVE to buy the $1599 HD850s to get this kind of sound? No. I'm sure there are SOME kind of headphones, somewhere, that are just as clear, just as detailed, just as open, but cheaper. The thing is, the search is ABSOLUTELY NOT the fun part. Not for me. It is tiring and draining and expensive and very not fun. I don't like running across the city to different stores. I'd like to just buy one headset, and never consider this topic again for the next 10+ years. Ideally, for the rest of my life. At the tender age of 28, though, I know that's a big ask.

My financial situation is that I'm basically unemployed. I work, but I'm not very successful AT my work. My income in a year is maybe $10,000. $25000 was my best year. However, I also have no expenses, as I live with my parents, and take care of the house.

So, I have about ten grand in my bank, and that's basically all I'm going to have for the rest of the year. Spending $3000 doesn't put me in a worse financial situation than spending $300 PER SE, it just means I have less money for the rest of the year to spend on other things. However, since all my actual necessities are covered, that's not as precarious a situation as it sounds.

Still, is it worth spending $1599 on some headphones, and then another $500 on a Jotinheim 2 DAC/Amp? I don't know. Music is pretty much the only thing I have left in this life that can elicit an emotional response from me. I'm okay putting some money into that, as long as it's just once (for the next ten years), and as long as it actually GETS me some improvement. The cheaper headphones were too close to my current 6XX's to be worthwhile.

Ps. I actually find Head-Fi's method of containing multiple evolving conversations and topics in a single thread to be very confusing and non-sensible. It seems far more efficient to break up different topics into different threads, but maybe that's just me.

Given what you have shared, I think a quality pair of IEMs is all you need to connect with music and leave spending 1/10th of your annual income on the hobby for another time. I have found great enjoyment out of my Timeless 2/Fiio BRT5 mobile setup. If anyone can’t enjoy the music with this setup then they just don’t like the music.