[craiglester]

So, This is the situation currently.

I'm running the following as a bedside system, as I'm mostly housebound these days, and do a lot of listening in bed.

Currently my source is a Squeezebox Touch, running the RCA out to a THX 789 from Drop, passed through to a Darkvoice 336.

This gives a pretty good sound on the Darkvoice, but the THX, even at full gain, seems somewhat thin sounding compared to the Darkvoice.

My AKG's are not heavily Modified, and as we all Know they require a LOT of power to run well. The Darkvoice does a decent job of it, sounds nice, but I was expecting better from the THX. I noticed the THX says it has 4 times the power when Balanced.

So, what I'm thinking is this.. I'm looking at a Schiit Modius to run in balanced mode from the Digital out of the Squeezebox touch (I like it as a transport, but the Dac could be better). From the Modius i would be going balanced to the THX, thus getting the best performance from the Amp. As the Modius also powers the SE stage at the same time, I can run that to the THX SE inputs and pass that through to the Darkvoice also.

So I have a couple of questions..

Would the THX run balanced, give me the power needed to properly power the AKG's?
Will the Dac output from the Modius be better than the dac in the SB Touch?
As the AKG's have 4 wires in the headphone cable, is it as simple as desoldering the 1/4 inch jack and wiring the 4 wires (I'm competent with a soldering iron) to a 4 pin xlr? If anyone has done this, advice would be useful (I do have a meter so I can check for continuity to ensure I dont cross wire anything).

Is this worth it in the long run? If nothing else at the end of the project I'll have a better Dac, and a basic Balanced system (I might also balance the PS1000e's I recently assembled)

Overall cost for this will be somewhere in the $300 region, is this a reasonable amount to spend to get a balanced system?

Before anyone suggests, I'm not looking to upgrade to a different streamer, I like the SB touch, and it's digital out is good with the Enhanced Digital out plugin. No Roon suggestions please.

Any advice would be welcome, happy to discuss in DM or here.

Thanks in advance,

Craig

 

[Mouseman]

So, This is the situation currently.

I'm running the following as a bedside system, as I'm mostly housebound these days, and do a lot of listening in bed.

Currently my source is a Squeezebox Touch, running the RCA out to a THX 789 from Drop, passed through to a Darkvoice 336.

This gives a pretty good sound on the Darkvoice, but the THX, even at full gain, seems somewhat thin sounding compared to the Darkvoice.

My AKG's are not heavily Modified, and as we all Know they require a LOT of power to run well. The Darkvoice does a decent job of it, sounds nice, but I was expecting better from the THX. I noticed the THX says it has 4 times the power when Balanced.

So, what I'm thinking is this.. I'm looking at a Schiit Modius to run in balanced mode from the Digital out of the Squeezebox touch (I like it as a transport, but the Dac could be better). From the Modius i would be going balanced to the THX, thus getting the best performance from the Amp. As the Modius also powers the SE stage at the same time, I can run that to the THX SE inputs and pass that through to the Darkvoice also.

So I have a couple of questions..

Would the THX run balanced, give me the power needed to properly power the AKG's?
Will the Dac output from the Modius be better than the dac in the SB Touch?
As the AKG's have 4 wires in the headphone cable, is it as simple as desoldering the 1/4 inch jack and wiring the 4 wires (I'm competent with a soldering iron) to a 4 pin xlr? If anyone has done this, advice would be useful (I do have a meter so I can check for continuity to ensure I dont cross wire anything).

Is this worth it in the long run? If nothing else at the end of the project I'll have a better Dac, and a basic Balanced system (I might also balance the PS1000e's I recently assembled)

Overall cost for this will be somewhere in the $300 region, is this a reasonable amount to spend to get a balanced system?

Before anyone suggests, I'm not looking to upgrade to a different streamer, I like the SB touch, and it's digital out is good with the Enhanced Digital out plugin. No Roon suggestions please.

Any advice would be welcome, happy to discuss in DM or here.

Thanks in advance,

Craig

I have a pair of the MassDrop AKGs and briefly considered getting them switched to balanced, but it's pretty involved and I'm afraid I'd damage them. What I eventually discovered is that AKGs crave power. I hooked them up to my Burson Playmate, which has a ton of power, and they sound great. Out of my 5k, not so much. So I think that can have the same effect without drilling holes and soldering and running wires. Don't get me wrong, almost everything else I own is now balanced. But that was as simple as a new cable.

 

[craiglester]

Wait.. massdrop did AKG 340s? How on earth did I miss that...

Well I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. Balancing them was pretty easy, I just got out the multimeter, and worked out which of the 4 wires went to the correct pins on the xlr and it worked great. One thing I'll say is that with the extra power the high end sounds better, but I have a feeling the bass I was getting from the Dark voice was a bit boosted, as the bass seems a little leaner with the 789, but everything else from upper bass up sounds a lot cleaner.

 

[Mouseman]

Wait.. massdrop did AKG 340s? How on earth did I miss that...

Well I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. Balancing them was pretty easy, I just got out the multimeter, and worked out which of the 4 wires went to the correct pins on the xlr and it worked great. One thing I'll say is that with the extra power the high end sounds better, but I have a feeling the bass I was getting from the Dark voice was a bit boosted, as the bass seems a little leaner with the 789, but everything else from upper bass up sounds a lot cleaner.

Not 340s, the K7xx, so no electrostats. I'm glad it worked out for you.