[kopeHUN]

As of now my only complaint about the cable is that it feels sort of nasty: it tangles up easily and stays bent. It's definately not the limiting factor in sound now, but I thought I might as well get a nicer one if I'm going to take them apart anyway.
 

 

[kopeHUN]

Quote:

if you don't care i would highly suggest rewiring the sextetts for 4-pin XLR. you get the chance to not only run them off of speaker outputs but you can make a 4-pin XLR to Balanced 1/4'' TRS jack. the sextetts are already balanced with 4-core cabling so all you have to do is remove the 1/4'' TRS jack and strip new wire from the cable and solder it to the 4-pin XLR and done. XLR connector is heavier of course but it's worth it in the long run especially if you have to use them on multiple sources/gear cause XLR is universal and can wired to about anything. the sextetts do like speaker outputs from powerful amps.
if you need guidance,the AKG K1000 uses the same 4-core cabling for 4-pin XLR so you can use the manual as reference.

I'm not sure I completely follow what you're saying, as to the benefit of the XLR. What you're saying is that the 4 pin XLR would enable me to run it off speaker outputs (how is that done?). By  4 pin Xlr to Balanced 1/4" TRS jack do you mean an adaptor that would make it possible to use the XLR with regular headphone outputs?
 
If that is so I'm not sure the XLR is for me. I do have an amp at home (a nad 3020) but It really wouldn't fit in my room here in the dorms. (Two architects living in one really small room

) A headphone amp with a small footprint is the best I could do. Or would I benefit from the XLR with a headphone amp as well?
 
Currently at home I run it form my Kenwood Basic C2 preamp, and it doesn't seem to have enough power to drive it properly, I think. It goes loud enough, but the bass isn't very controlled or precise, and the sound seems to fall apart at higher volumes. I don't mean LOUD, just louder than normal. Don't get me wrong, I'm no bass head, but i really think this headphone could do better. On low volume it sounds quite nice.
 
 

 

[RexAeterna]

i have the same problem some times. i think everyone has the tangling issue but i guess it's common for the material it's made out of. i just stand up and run my finger through it and let it untangle itself cause i put mine up every night before i go to bad. adding a heavier jack did help a bit preventing it from tangling easily but it doesn't bother me much. just be careful when soldering new wire to the speaker terminals cause the terminals are the solder joints so you'll have to be quick about it when soldering cause if you keep it on too long the voice coil wil become detach from the terminal.

if you want to do it cheaply or locally,bare speaker wire will work and you can pick up your own insulation as well local home dept and so forth. speaker wire is the same thing as any other bare wire since copper is copper and silver is just silver,ect. speaker wire is usually already insulated as well which is a plus and you can braid it and so forth to make it look pretty and add strength to the cable.

if anything i suggest don't go any heavier then 22 gauge wiring if you want it a simple process. i rewired pair of 240DF's with 18 gauge silver/copper wire i had left over and it was pain in the butt cause i had to make the hole in the protector cover that pops over the driver a bit bigger in order to fit the 18 gauge wire so if you don't want to bother with any modifications stick to 22 gauge the heaviest.

good thing about older AKG's as well is they can easily be converted to dual-entry as well cause if you look on the right earcup you'll see a rubber pad underneath on most if all older k240 models cause AKG had a major habit of recycling parts and making dual and single entry k240 models and reason behind them having multiple versions of the same model as well.

 

[RexAeterna]

I'm not sure I completely follow what you're saying, as to the benefit of the XLR. What you're saying is that the 4 pin XLR would enable me to run it off speaker outputs (how is that done?). By  4 pin Xlr to Balanced 1/4" TRS jack do you mean an adaptor that would make it possible to use the XLR with regular headphone outputs?

If that is so I'm not sure the XLR is for me. I do have an amp at home (a nad 3020) but It really wouldn't fit in my room here in the dorms. (Two architects living in one really small room

) A headphone amp with a small footprint is the best I could do. Or would I benefit from the XLR with a headphone amp as well?

Currently at home I run it form my Kenwood Basic C2 preamp, and it doesn't seem to have enough power to drive it properly, I think. It goes loud enough, but the bass isn't very controlled or precise, and the sound seems to fall apart at higher volumes. I don't mean LOUD, just louder than normal. Don't get me wrong, I'm no bass head, but i really think this headphone could do better. On low volume it sounds quite nice.

the sextetts use a separate negative and positive wiring for both left and right channels. the negatives act as a ground as well. so it's basically a 4-core cable. a 4-pin XLR is the same thing. all i did was take the TRS jack off,strip new wire and soldered the wires to the given pins on the XLR cable.

you can use multiple adapters as well. to use off of speaker outputs i made a female 4-pin XLR to bare wire. and all i have to do is plug it in back of any amp's speaker outputs and done but make sure volume is at zero first.

for adapter for 4-pin XLR to 1/4'' TRS you simply solder it the same way as the XLR but the two negatives will be together as a shared ground. you'll see when you unscrew the jack from the sextetts.

just look up K1000 manual and look at it and you'll see what i'm talking about. XLR can be converted to DIN and other XLR formats as well which is reason why professional studios use XLR a lot.

EDIT: i'll try to take pics later to show you if you still don't get. you don't have to go XLR route. i'm just trying to be helpful and to be honest i am not very good at explaining things.

 

[kopeHUN]

Quote:

i'm just trying to be helpful and to be honest i am not very good at explaining things.

Me being hungarian might be part of the problem.

Also this is all new to me so thank you for having the patience to explain this, I understand now.
 
So do you think running them from a regular amp's speaker terminals would be a good idea? At first I thought I'd sell the 3020 to get a headphone amp instead from the money.
 
BTW I won't do the soldering work myself as I've never soldered before, but I know a good tech who works with a lot of nice vintage gear. He even had, long ago when he was working for Philips, the Philips badged version of these cans.

 

[rhythmdevils]

I'd go for the speaker amp.  MOAR!!!

 

[scompton]

For the Sextett, the NAD is probably a very good amp.  I had a NAD 3155 that drove Sextetts very well.   If you like how the 3020 sounds with speakers, it should be fine for the Sextett out of the headphone jack.

 

[kopeHUN]

Quote:

For the Sextett, the NAD is probably a very good amp.  I had a NAD 3155 that drove Sextetts very well.   If you like how the 3020 sounds with speakers, it should be fine for the Sextett out of the headphone jack.

I used to like the nad, but since I've upgaded my speakers to Philips MFB's I haven't used it much. I tried its headphone output for a few mins when I got the cans, but I didn't like what I heard. But the source was my not very good turntable, so I will try again the next time I go home

 

[RexAeterna]

Me being hungarian might be part of the problem. Also this is all new to me so thank you for having the patience to explain this, I understand now.

So do you think running them from a regular amp's speaker terminals would be a good idea? At first I thought I'd sell the 3020 to get a headphone amp instead from the money.

BTW I won't do the soldering work myself as I've never soldered before, but I know a good tech who works with a lot of nice vintage gear. He even had, long ago when he was working for Philips, the Philips badged version of these cans.

no problem and naw,i know most people here in the states don't even understand what i talk about,even some well known stores that have 24/7 electronic techs. i only know one guy in my state that's been working on audio gear for over 30 years and knows what i'm talking about everytime i bring my amps and stuff up to him. it's good you know a tech that had experience with older gear cause most techs nowadays are very lazy and don't want to bother with vintage audio equipment since they're harder and take more time to work compared to everything nowadays using simple chips and so froth making it idiot proof.

your tech will probably know about the wiring very well then and can explain it better in person to you. the headphone will be fine as long as you don't over-do the volume cause the amp will see it as a 600ohm load and will try to feed it actual voltages so if you push it too much it will try to feed up to 30v rms into your headphones and the sextetts only need about 1v nominal to operate. good thing about speaker outputs is the output impedance is extremely low(close to zero ohms since it's meant to keep perfect electrical dampening for 8ohm speaker loads) so not matter what,electrically the driver will be very well controlled(another reason to use speaker outputs instead as well)

might run into gain issues with background hiss depending on the amp's S/N ratio but it seeing a 600ohm load resistance you should be fine. you can always have the Tech make you a 4-pin XLR cable like this as well for regular headphone outs if you need it.

(not my pic. took it off online as an example.)

i also see a muting switch on the Nad when i looked it up real quick. is that a -20db muting switch? you probably won't need it anyway though because muting switches from my experience are only needed if your hooking it up to low-impedance compatible monster amps(like if it can drive up to over couple hundred watts into a 2ohm load) so the -20db switch becomes very useful cause of the massive gain some of these amps can have.

 

[rhythmdevils]

I have the 1020 preamp and I'm not sure how it compares to the 3020 but I'm pretty sure the headphone out on mine is not coming from the preamp output, because I like the preamp with my powered monitors, it's fairly flat with just a bit of euphonic warmth.  But the headphone out sounds a lot more uneven.  The 3020 is a different unit though, so it certainly could have a better headphone out.

 

[scompton]

The 3020 should be an integrated amp with the preamp circuitry of the 1020 and the amp circuitry of the 2020.  The 3155 has 250 ohm series resistors off the amp section for the headphone jack.  I have no idea how they would do the headphone jack on a preamp.
 
I only had 1 headphone I didn't use the 20dB muting button with and that was an AT-705 electret that a previous owner had reterminated with a TRS plug.  He also modded the transformer box with a TRS jack.  The 3155 had a "soft" clipping feature that was supposed to make it clip like tubes.  I wanted to try to make it clip so I plugged the AT-705 into the 3155.  It didn't clip, but I had to have the volume at near maximum to get listenable levels. 
 
The last 2 digits on both are the power, so the 3020 might not need the -20dB muting.

 

[KimChee]

I'm gonna have to get one of these for a backup, they can be had pretty cheapily on Ebay

 

[RexAeterna]

The 3020 should be an integrated amp with the preamp circuitry of the 1020 and the amp circuitry of the 2020.  The 3155 has 250 ohm series resistors off the amp section for the headphone jack.  I have no idea how they would do the headphone jack on a preamp.

I only had 1 headphone I didn't use the 20dB muting button with and that was an AT-705 electret that a previous owner had reterminated with a TRS plug.  He also modded the transformer box with a TRS jack.  The 3155 had a "soft" clipping feature that was supposed to make it clip like tubes.  I wanted to try to make it clip so I plugged the AT-705 into the 3155.  It didn't clip, but I had to have the volume at near maximum to get listenable levels. 

The last 2 digits on both are the power, so the 3020 might not need the -20dB muting.

yea,you are right. the headphone out is always fed straight from the speaker outputs and same power amp section. it just goes through the pre-amp as well typically as design but shouldn't matter too much really. for the nad, speaker outputs might be beneficial for it's power rating. i tested my sextetts lp off of speaker outputs of my amps and it's headphone out section and on my smaller low powered amps it improved the clarity and sound quite a bit especially for my little kenwood kr-720. the nad might do the same. i know the nad is way different design in comprehensions but who knows. the extra power defiantly won't hurt.

 

[RexAeterna]

I'm gonna have to get one of these for a backup, they can be had pretty cheapily on Ebay

that depends. i seen lot of bidding wars for them especially if it still comes with original box and paper work. also when you get one you and power them right,you might not want your k702's anymore

 

[rhythmdevils]

If you find a Sextett by doing the ID'ing yourself (one that is not labelled "Sextett" in the ad) they sometimes go for cheaper.