[LTUCCI1924]

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[Alex Altorfer]

Hello again Louis!

I know exactly what you are saying about better sound sources. I took my HP 800 and some of my CD's to an audio store the other day and tested them on a TEAC Reference 500 system on display. My headphones sounded a lot better there than on my 10 year old Optimus (Radio Shack) stereo. I need to upgrade my stereo system as well but one step at a time.

Guess what, I just arrived from another hi-fi store where I had the oportunity to test the Sennheiser 580s! Unfortunately, it was hooked to a different stereo equipment (a Nakamichi SoundSpace 8) playing a Brazilian Jazz CD I do not have at home. Given those variables I cannot directly compare the Sennheiser HD 580 to my Philips SBC HP 800 with any objectivity. I can only assume that the Nakamichi device is better than my Optimus because it is newer. I can infer an indirect comparison as I own similar sounding CD's.

To begin with I'd like to point out that the Sennheiser HD 580 costs 699 Brazilian Reals which is approximately U$ 300.00. A fair price given the kind of import tax structure we have to bear on our shoulders here. I paid R$ 99.00 (U$ 40.00) on the Philips HP 800 so the Senn 580 is fully seven times (that's 700%) more expensive than my Philips HP 800.

Now comparing the HD 580 to the HP 800. When I first picked up the Sennheiser I noticed it's better crafted with better quality materials, though it also got plenty of plastics. I put it on and immediately noticed it is a little bit lighter and quite a bit more comfortable than the Philips HP 800. Then I started listening. The Senn 580 sounded smoother. Still very detailed but the higher octaves were less sharp. The mids were cleaner and clearer. The bass was somewhat less emphatic but also more precise. Certainly the HD 580 is less fatiguing to listen to over long stretches of time due to it's smoothness. Overall, it's a better pair of cans.

Something sounded wrong in the HD 580 though. A saxophone actually sounded honky whereas saxophones never sounded honky in my HP 800. But then this may be attributed to the Nakamichi or even to lousy CD mastering. Who knows?

One thing is absolutely certain though: The HD 580 is seven hundred percent more expensive than the HP 800, but it surely IS NOT seven hundred percent better! The HD 580 I auditioned today was optimistically speaking no more than forty percent better than my HP 800! Hey there's nothing wrong in paying 700% more to benefit from a 40% advantage, as long as you are in a comfortable financial situation.

The reason I've got a big smile on my face today is I finally came to understand that my HP 800 is not comparatively bad when facing up to the "big boys". In fact I can safely guess from my Senn HD 580 audition that my HP 800 probably got the very same kind of speakers the HP 890/910 got except 10mm smaller and in closed acoustic shells. I'm sure the HP 890/910 sound better but I wonder how much better. 30 percent? Does it justify a 150% price increase? It may if you are willing to pay for it. Conclusion: my Philips HP 800 is DAMN GOOD, in fact excellent, and it cost me only forty dollars!

Well, we live in a world where people disburse thousand of dollars to get a new device that plays Super Audio CD's. Have you ever tried comparing CDs to SACDs? The advantage is so subtle it takes a severe amount of concentration to notice. I actually heard, on the same amp/speaker configuration, a regular CD on a device called REGA Jupiter sound better than a SACD on a Marantz Reference Series! No kidding! Sorry for wandering off topic here but, like I said, there's nothing wrong in paying a lot more for better quality, but I'm afraid the higher you go on the HI-FI scale the steeper the cost becomes for ever subtler sonic advantages.

If you got enough cash around the house to wipe your ass with dollar bills you can get a Sennheiser Orpheus for U$ 14,000 and be really happy with its fantastic performance. If you are on a tight budget you can get a Philips HP 800 for less than U$ 40 (in the US) and likewise be really happy with the crispy, detailed way it sounds. You can be thrilled with excellent cans without having to file chapter 11. Get it?

Cheers!

Alex Altorfer

PS: all you guys who claim the Philips Clarity headphones are bad can't hear straight because you got your heads up your asses! LOL...

 

[LTUCCI1924]

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[Poddy]

What you heard their mate was not the cans opening up. But rather the source providing a much cleaner and well read signal. With better DAC's you now have a better sound. A system is only as strong as its weakest link always remember that. As far as the Nakamichi sounding better because it is newer. Do not be fooled just because something is new does not mean it has a better sound. It has a better sound if it has been designed and constructed well using good components. I have been using Nakamichi gear for a long time and am sad to say their new equipment fails to match their gear of yester year. They are moving into the yuppy mini systems that look great and sound good. But for the money you can get much better.

 

[LTUCCI1924]

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[Poddy]

Nakamichi are a Japenese audio company. Started in the 30's they were family run. They gained their impressive name with the Dragon series (mostly cassette decks) during the 70's. However this family operated store has since been sold to a large company and their mission goals have changed to accomodate "lifestyle music."
DAC's (Digital Analogue Converters) are chips within cd players and minidisc players which take the 1's and 0's represented on the disc and change them into an analogue sine wave which can be amplified by an amplifier.
I can go into more detail if you want just ask. As for basic definitions of hi fi components check out http://www.audiovideo101.com/

 

[LTUCCI1924]

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[Alex Altorfer]

Hi Louis!

I realize my "reply" did not answer your original post and maybe that was rude. I should have either started a new thread or posted my comparison in one of the other threads we were posting at. I arrived from the store with the impetus to write my findings and that I did without much thought to your findings. Sorry for being rude.

Sorry Louis if I stated my point a bit too strongly in my comparison. I had no intention of criticizing your decision to go after the HD 580. They are, as I said, better cans and there's nothing wrong with getting them if you got the money to spare. You did the right thing in getting them and I'd get them myself if I had U$ 300 in my pocket. My car has been in and out of the shop lately and that subtracts from my disposition to buy new headphones. I also had no intention of demeaning others who have less than me and I honestly hope I did not come across that way. I also did not say I like my cans OVER all other cans. I do like their price/benefit ratio over that of the more expensive ones, but I'd like to reemphasize that the Sennheiser HD 580 is noticeably better.

I'm sure your Senns sound unreal to you with the better source and perhaps if I heard what you are hearing right now I too would be speechless and would dump my Philips HP 800 in the trash in a minute and hurry over to that store to run up my credit cards with a HD 580 and a new amplifier. I'm excited about you enjoying your cans that much and I wish I could fly over to Philadelphia and hear your private concert hall there to know what it sounds like. I suspect the Supreme amp must be better than that Nakamichi Soundspace I just heard. Maybe the store is demoing their cans in the wrong kind of equipment.

I wish headphone amps were avaliable here below the equator, but they are nowhere to be found. Here one has to have a solid state amp with phone jacks with enough power to drive his/her headphones. I assume the Supreme you are using is a tube amp? Well, I've never heard the sound of a tube headphone amp. I hope to get one someday.

Oh yeah, I'm definitely finished with comparing cans. I was kinda anxious about the other stuff out there being much better than what I got. It's that simple. I had noticed an astronomical difference between my old Koss TD/60 and my new Philips HP 800. That's what I was afraid of. What if the other cans were as far from this new cans as these are from the koss? I'd be missing out on a lot of my music! Today I noticed the Sennheiser 580 is indeed better than my Philips but the difference is nowhere as big as that between the Koss and the Philips. So I feel I now have a safe estimation of how my cans compare to the more expensive ones. They do not fare badly. On the contrary, they come quite close. Say, they may be 30 or 40 percent below sonically speaking, but that's still close. This puts an end to my anxiety. I'm now enjoying my new cans more fully and I believe I have no reason to upgrade in the immediate future unless I find a really good deal out there.

Cheers!
Alex Altorfer

 

[Alex Altorfer]

Hi Poddy!

Well I assumed a brand new amp should sound better than something that's ten years old. But that may really not always be the case. What gear do you have there, is it a Nakamichi tape deck?

Cheers!

Alex Altorfer

 

[LTUCCI1924]

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[Alex Altorfer]

Yeah, the digital/audio converted in a CD player can make an enormous difference. Mine is not so good. That's something I definitely need to get is a better CD player even more than a new amp.

Some CD equipment will even come without a DAC so you can choose one of your liking. These are very expensive though, but by just playing regular CD's they'll beat the living daylights out of most SACD players out there.

I know this is off topic. Your CD player/changer must be really good. What brand is it? Mine is from a local manufacturer called CCE. They kinda suck.

The cable you are getting. It's very expensive. It must be oxigen free I'm sure. Your stereo is definitely getting better and better.

As far as God is concerned, we are all undeserving. Everything we get comes from above. Think about it. The most powerful kings and Roman Emperors of the past ruled the world, yet they did not dream of having a simple Edison grammophone, let alone all the great sounding stuff we have at home today! Aren't we blessed!

Cheers,

Alex Altorfer

 

[Poddy]

Quote:

Originally posted by LTUCCI1924 PODDY: Did you think that i had a Nakamichi componit for my cd deck

No. The nakamichi reference was to do with Alex. Sorry for the confusion Louis.

 

[Poddy]

Alex: no cd player comes without a dac. There are components known as Transports. These are the carriage and an optical output which is to be run through a separate Dac as you notice. As far as the Soundspace goes Alex it is quite good for reproducing Music through cans. My inference was that Nakamichi gear as a whole is on a downward trend.
I have a lot of gear here mate. But the systems i usually listen to are
*Home Theater
AMC DVD 7 running a coax digital to a Yamaha RX-V1000 amp.
The other system is a Top of the line Technics Cd Player running through a Philips amp which i hope to improve on very soon.
The Nakamichi amps i have lieing around are the Fr730 and the RE10.

Louis: could you do me a favour and post an objective review when you get your new cable. I would like to know if you feel it has benefited the sound at all.

 

[Alex Altorfer]

Poddy,

"no cd player comes without a dac. There are components known as Transports."

Certainly! You may notice I referred to CD "equipment" not players. It is to transports I was referring to. The best is from Wadia, in my opinion.

You have some interesting equipment there. Lots of it!

Cheers!

Alex Altorfer

 

[Poddy]

Quote:

Originally posted by Alex Altorfer Certainly! You may notice I referred to CD "equipment" not players. It is to transports I was referring to. The best is from Wadia, in my opinion.Alex Altorfer

My mistake sorry mate.