On Fridays I take mine home for the weekend. I use the wood/leather box they came in as I can fit the pha-3 and extra cables in it perfectly I use a fabric grocery bag so I can sling it over my shoulder to the car Pretty easy actually and no worries about the phones being damaged. Not sure if...

Yes, I have. At "50 ohms, 3000mW RMS per channel" should be plenty. That said I have not finished researching. Measurement graphs would be nice to see. Built in dac option or gungnir? Eventually I'll get around to it. Was considering HeadAmp GS-X mk2 for a future purchase, like 2+ years...

I can vouch for the tonal clarity, build quality, and volume of the PHA-3, it is the best integrated headphone amp/dac that I've owned so far. That said, it feels to me like the Z1R can do better with more power. Volume is not the issue. Balanced mode on the PHA-3 puts out a max of 320mA. Wile...

I just made speaker taps out of the second 16awg speaker cable that I used for the balanced setup and tried it on my older Harmon Kardon amp and it was terrible. The amplification seemed alright, but the noise floor was at like -50db and clearly audible. Just awful. I've tested the z1r worth the...

  Back when I was 24 I had crazy large disposable income with my first real career job as I was still as frugal as any freshman. Haven't had that much disposable income since even though my salary keeps going up. Wife, kid, house, cars, maybe another kid on the way, money just goes. My toy...

I was and my folks had to deal with communism too. Though somehow my dad was able to run some discos back in the late 60s. I still have a pair of Koss phones from back then. 1984 is in reference to the book. A classic that all should read, especially in today's connected world, but I digress...

Did you mean 1984 or was that just a random year?   Back to the Z1R, Bush - Deconstructed is rockin' my nogin'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTqsVW8BLhs Especially the track Mouth(The Stingray Mix) - blowing my ears (+12db at 27Hz) Can't go wrong with the lyric 'have some more bass' at...

Was just listening to Why So Serious? The Joker Theme The from the Dark Knight Soundtrack and at 3:27 or so when the super duper sub-bass kicks in there are what sound like steel drums clearly playing in the background. I just noticed that for the first time so I thought to share...

On a bass note, I've been listening to organ music for the last couple hours in audio bliss. I personally have 20Hz at +16db and the Z1R is handling it quite well with bass detail. In particular, on the CD Johann Sebastian Bach; E. Power Biggs, tracks 1 and 3 stood out as great. Track 1 has a...

  This, exactly this.     With eq, these can produce a perceptionally flat response to 20Hz, can't quite match the SZ2000 14Hz, but the SZ2K can't do bass clarity like this, just power. I listen to music pretty loud, eq is necessary to not get high spikes in the frequency response that...

I didn't have that will power and passed out on the couch only to wake up to music in my ears literally. :) Maybe slept 3 hours too.

I haven't tried my O2 with this setup because I use my phones in balanced mode with a PHA-3 on high gain. There is a 24db loss of sound in that eq so you need to have an amp that can drive these cans 4 times louder than normal. I belive the O2 has a standard 2v out whereas high gain amps can...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M4U4fl3-Kc   This has some deep bass at 00:30. The Z1R does a nice job of reproducing it. Comparatively with SZ2000 the Z1R feels like it vibrates under the ears more with a cleaner sounding bass, whereas the SZ2000 has more air pressure, but less skin...

I think not since there is no new baffle on it, but it still sounds good to me.   On the PHA-2A note, after closely comparing the specs to the PHA-3 and judging from the shape, it would not surprise me if it isn't a PHA-3 with line-in/out and optical-in removed. My guess it is the same...

Yes, exactly; just a few hundred numbers before the baffle change. Off hand the thought came to mind that maybe I'll sell whatever gear I have lying around including all phones except the Z1R to get another pair... that has never happened before. Now I'm seriously considering if I can live...

Maybe I'll do the same and check out the Nighthawk, but more for fun than seriously consider replacing the Z1R. I haven't finished my a/b testing against the SZ2000 and T1, but I can already tell that it will replace those two without hesitation. My eq parameters always seem to produce a final...

  I just had to use the T1 as a comparison here. Un-eq'ed I clearly hear the sound starting at 20 seconds. While it sounds like a sound effect rather than a voice, to me it sounds like an intentional artifact from processing a segment of the same track being heard with a short delay of maybe...

It is a large gauge indeed. I was looking for 18awg,but analysis plus doesn't make an 18awg speaker cable that is easily used for headphones. The brown 4 conductor in-wall will hopefully be reasonably flexible once the jacket is removed to reach each side of the phones with 2 conductors per...

This is almost exactly what I'm hearing in my pair. In practice the 3250Hz peak is not as bad as it seems, but when listening critically to set up my eq parameters I was really surprised by how pronounced it is. It covers the notes G7, G#7, and A7. The narrowness of the band makes it annoying on...

Thanks for that. I'll have to check back later. In the meantime I'm going to build a cable. Switchcraft locking 3.5mm connectors are more expensive than I expected, but I don't see any other options.

Has anyone been able to find a female 4.4mm balanced connector? I couldn't find anything on mouser or digikey.

My first impression of the Z1R (yesterday) was "wow". I'll try to qualify that as it continues to burn in. The first aspect of the phones that caught my attention was the sound field. The sound gives me the impression that im in a well damped audio room for whatever the performance is. By that I...

He's not the only one doing this test. I'll be getting my z1r today I hope and testing these two. Findings will probably be posted on Wednesday.

Correct.

  If anyone would like to try them, here are the two different APO profiles that I currently use.   This one is less measured and more winging it:   Stage: post-mix Filter: ON HSC 12 dB Fc 140 Hz Gain -27 dB Filter: ON HS 12 dB Fc 2800 Hz Gain 10.3 dB Filter: ON PK Fc 150 Hz Gain 2 dB Q...