I'm having an odd sort of issue. I bought a stepped attenuator and wired them to the volume pot pads, and it works great. However, the first couple steps of volume and the last step are really noisy, and when the attenuator is set to these positions I can pick up radio (like, it's clear enough I...

How's the leakage? Is it suitable for a fairly quiet office?

The 1 notch white filter seems to remove some grain that I heard with the black felt and without any filter. Obviously these are very small differences but that's what I hear. Putting in all the filters at the same time is interesting too.

In terms of frequency response, I percieve Aeons as missing a bit at 2KHz. Otherwise it's about neutral. There's a bit of tonal tilt downwards from 2K or so to 200hz, so that may give the impression of being slightly bright depending on your perception. It responds very well to EQ so you can...

At a basic level, "perfect" decoding would be something like input digital number (sample) of 0.2 -> output 0.2 volts, followed by a new sample and a new voltage that happens in an infinitesimal amount of time. Of course, this is not possible in the real world. Yes. The answer is "may". You are...

A DAC is a digital to analog converter. An ideal DAC converts digital to analog perfectly. Coloration is deviation from the pursuit of this ideal form. Yes, they are supposed to be audibly transparent, as that is a much lower standard of "perfect to our ears" rather than "perfect to our highly...

They're very technically capable and have "huge" sounding bass. I personally love that about them. The downside is the tonal balance is simply wrong. You can compensate for this with PEQ, but I wouldn't consider this headphone good out of the box. They do need that EQ. Vocals are very negatively...

Aeons are a bit larger horizontally than the EL8s, and the plugs stick out more. The cups dont rotate so your head position is locked to above a certain angle when wearing them around your neck. Overall not bad though. They don't isolate quite as much either.

None of my amps can do even near 3 watts so I guess I'm safe running test signals at all volumes. Thanks!

What's the Max power spec of the aeon closed?

Saw some dude wearing MSR7s at the bus stop. I subordinated him with my LCD-2, which I was wearing at the time.

They're sort of mediocre. One time I accidentally pulled the spring strain relief instead of the plug head when unplugging my headphones and the spring just popped out. No way to force it back in either. That being said, it does the job. Also it tends to kink up quite a bit.

Is it bad to drive the valhalla to audible distortion with low sensitivity planars?

Yes, that's correct.

Thats unfortunate, I maxed out the TH-X00. Guess it's Aeon for me then.

I just noticed you said you had to max out the headband. What setting do you wear your D2000 on? As someone who doesnt fit a good 30-40% of headphones, the choice between the cascade and aeon may have been made for me already.

You still get phase issues and a sort of "echoey" sound. It's less pronounced though. That being said, I can see headphone/earbud + subwoofer working if you use DSP to cross the two over. I don't have a sub though.

Can you use this guy as a wired DAC/amp via what looks to be Micro USB?

Some time ago I did something similar, I put the KSC75 inside my LCD-2f. It was surprisingly good - probably even better than just the KSC75 by itself, just goes to show how much enclosure can affect sound. I've also tried Moondrop nameless + STAX + LSR305 (all playing at the same time) and it's...

I burnt my finger touching the valhalla 2 output tubes today. Also, I put some GE's 6CG7s in there. Anyone else running this setup? I don't really notice a difference.

You've sold me. The weak point of the TH-X00 has always been the harsh treble in my opinion. Cascade has less treble and less harshness, right?

Have you heard the Fostex TH-X00 or any of the other Denon variants? How do they compare with the Cascade?

Everyone's ears are different - especially from the rubbery ones on measurement heads. Although they're pretty damn good for what they are.

The X00 Ebonies are just amazing headphones... if it weren't for the cable. Taught me that a headphone could have ear shaking bass without being muddy garbage. I thought I'd have to heavily EQ the lower mids/upper bass but surprisingly that area was just fine. The treble was a bit hot for my...

I have up to 6dB boosts (with pre-amp obviously) but up to 10dB cuts - sometimes my ears pick up really high Q peak in test signals that I notch down quite heavily - it doesn't impact the percieved FR too much, but I am somewhat curious about what a high Q high dB (typically 10-15Q, 5-10dB...