The HE500 plastic fell apart once but other than that (replacements sent from hifiman) no problems. I was one of the first customers so have had them for awhile now.

Jude made the comparison of the Noble X to the Savant, calling it a Savant+.  This could be purely because of the increased bass presence, it could be because he felt the overall balance was equal to a Savant but with more bass authority.  In my opinion the Savant is a bargain in the audio...

edited for confusion   The teardowns of the lightning to headphone adapters clearly show a chip that is labeled as a DAC.  The lightning connector itself is adaptive, meaning it can signal anything it wants based on the connected device.  The comment from Noble is that the lightning cable is...

​I ordered the lightning cable, primarily because I don't always have my dac/amp with me.   

ordered!

k4rstar wrote:   "For anyone in Canada excited about the sale on universals but hesitant due to the potential backlog of orders, Headphone Bar (http://www.headphonebar.com/) over in Vancouver has the new universal line-up with the same 20% discount for the duration of the sale"   Thanks for...

I got a few requests to post impression from my comparison of the D1 and D2.  I am no writer/reviewer so I apologize if I am not going into details the way that you might expect but then these are my impressions, not a review.   First off, the differences between the D1 and D2 are small, but...

Quote: I agree.   Love the D2.  Have no interest in looking at anything else.  Happy, content, just loving the tunes.

Quote: Second that. The M^3 is really decent with a good PSI, will drive just about anything.    Mac336:   I am using the Anedio D2, not inside the original quoted budget but there are used D1s around for about $800 and at that price you aren't going to find much that can touch...

Quote: The HPA will be the primary focus.  I think that at this level of quality it will be difficult to tell the difference between the subtle gains achieved in the DAC/jitter sectoins vs what can be more easily discerned about the amp section.  To make things more difficult I also...

I have the D1 and D2 sitting side by side, the sound is very similar, that being stellar in both cases.  I haven't had much time to really listen as I am chasing down some volume difference between the squeezebox touch and my pc.  The D2 seems to have just a touch more depth and air. Resolution...

Just FYI, my Anedio D2 showed up today in Canada.  Impressions to follow.    

Quote: Thanks   I ordered the two sets (leather and velour) for comparison, and a travel case while I was there.  I didn't see the option for the cable or I would have ordered that as well, maybe I will reach out to Fang directly on that.  Just FYI I also ordered the Anedio D2 today...

I haven't been keeping up with the HE-500 developments.  I have an early unit with the velour earpads.  It seems they switched to a newer pad?  I already liked the HE-500 more than the LCD-2 (sold mine) but would like to try any improvements that have bee made since they came out.

I ordered my D2 today as well.  I will probably be keeping my D1 as I also took advantage of the discount on the USB interface for existing D1 owners.     

Quote:   Its easy, put both on an amp sufficient to drive the HE-500 and listen.  I have about 200 post break-in hours on both the LCD-2 (v2) and HE-500, and the mid-treble (including vocal range) are where the HE-500s are a bit better balanced.  If you are finding anything other than...

Quote: I agree.  The LCD-2 vocals (rev 1,2) are a bit too laid back in the mix.  The HE-500 has a better presentation for vocals, and the better overall balance helps preserve what to me seems like a better backdrop to the vocals.     

I have heard a lot of good tube amps, owned quite a fair number of them, own some now. Some of the my favorite amps have been tube amps. My favorite amp ATM happens to be solid state. As I type this I am looking across a couple of tubes in boxes which arrived today so its kind of funny (to me...

Quote: Tubes do not have the drive, control, low noise, or efficiency of good solid state.  That is not to say that they don't have their place, the extra - goodness of tubes is that ultra satisfying emotional context you can get when tubes are an essential part of a synergistic pairing. ...

  Quote: To get this back on topic... yes, the HE-500 works well and sounds fine with the LYR.  6bQ7a and 6N1P tubes both sound good.       

experimenting with some scaling between the HE-500 and LCD-2.  There is no doubt that the HE-500 scales with, and benefits from more power.  The LCD2 does not and in fact has some very minor problems. For the HE-500 the bass becomes much more articulate, the attack is better, the already great...

Quote: I should try stacking them!  but my head is too large for either to fit over the other.. :)    

Quote: Short story.  Left the LCD2s to burn in some more while I was at work today.  Sometime during the day my wife gets tired of hearing the same track playing in my office and goes and turns off the Anedio.  Surprised she figured out how but never mind.  Anyhow I get home from work...

    Quote: What do you have for source equipment?  Listening levels?     

Hah! I was going to try the same thing, lining the inside of the earpads with some leather I have laying around... just for a preview.