Hi funkymonkcp,
Quote:
Since 95% of everything I listen to is Red Hot Chili Peppers...
Surely, you jest!
I'm very close to selling my HD800 because I'm convinced that I have to spend more money on a proper amp than I'm willing to spend and trying to do it cheaply would only lead me to spend even more money in the long run.
I've been beating this particular dead horse for several months, but have concluded that you can save a little money by softening the treble (removing detail) and warming the mids and bass - at the DAC - with something like the MHDT Havana 2 tube DAC and a not necessarily powerful, but neutral and transparent solid state amp. But that's a "solution" that masks the HD800's problems while also destroying one of its greatest strengths (resolution).
The ideal solution is to begin with a DAC that doesn't color or mask anything - a DAC that would be found superlative with any amp or headphone - detailed, neutral, transparent, great separation, etc. - driving
an amp that "fixes" the HD800's bad traits without degrading any of its good traits. Consensus says these are almost always tube amps or hybrids and, apparently, they have to be somewhat expensive designs to maintain transparency and resolution. Cheap tube amps won't cut it.
Without having heard it, going only on what I've read from others, perhaps the best amp under $2000 that manages to do this, of those currently available, is the Red Wine Audio Cassabria, selling for $1850 - as shipped. It replaced the discontinued RWA Corvina, which has a following with a handful of HD800 owners.
http://redwineaudio.com/components/cassabria
For a little less money to start with, the Decware CSP3, at $1249 currently, apparently needs some tube upgrades to get there, and once you start rolling tubes, you might exceed the cost of the RWA Cassabria.
http://www.decware.com/newsite/CSP3.html
That's where I would go if I were willing to spend that kind of money on an amp to "fix" the HD800, but there are a lot of other opinions out there, of course.
I'm haunted by having heard a very expensive HD800 rig at a local meet, over a year ago, that was assembled by Head-Fi member named jazzerdave. For me, it remains to this day, the very best headphone experience I have ever heard.
At the time, he was using Foobar2000 on a Win7 laptop, with a
Peachtree X1 USB-to-SPDIF converter feeding the Coaxial input of a
Peachtree iNova DAC (with iPod dock and Class A hybrid tube amp that are both bypassed - the DAC is solid state), with Line Out to the
Cavalli Liquid Glass, and some balanced copper cables to an unmodified
HD800.
I have no idea what tubes he uses, but I recall he had gone through several to find the tubes he liked best. That amp has tube sockets that face forward as well as the two that face upward - for different pin patterns. It's a tube roller's dream come true (or nightmare, depending on how obsessive you are, and how much money you have).
I have absolutely no problem remembering what I heard as a hogged his system for about 10 minutes at that meet. The difference between what I heard that day and what I hear on my "best" HD800 rig...
FiiO X5 Line Out > HA-1 amp only > balanced HD800
... puts his rig in an entirely different league - on a different planet, really! His HD800 no longer sounds like a dynamic headphone. There is
none of that "metallic" quality that all dynamic headphones seem to have. Try as I might, there is always a bit of a "sheen" with every dynamic headphone I've ever owned. It's subtle, but always there, in the best rigs I've ever managed to assemble (not that I've been around the block, much, but I'm saying within my limited experience). The most remarkable thing about listening to jazzerdave's rig is the blackness that surrounds even the faintest, shortest duration notes. It's really stunning, I mean immediately jaw-dropping. I could turn up the volume to the limits of comfort and still hear blackness around every note. Everything was separated and distinct - ultra fast, ultra-controlled, yet with really natural attack and decay. The overall sound was just
natural, not reproduced. Acoustic stuff made it an emotional experience, vocals were awesome, you name it - that rig is truly, genuinely,
awesome.
Revisiting that day just stains my brain even further - forcing me to lament that I don't have any way to listen to music that way, currently. It's enough to make me want to sell my HD800, because they deserve better, but I know they'll likely fall into the hands of another guy who is forever on the fence to spend the money they demand. It's as if I've bought a new helicopter that I don't know how to fly, nor even have the money to fly, but I enjoy sitting in it, just the same, on the ground, with the engine started and the rotors spinning ...
I should either sell them or give them exactly what they want and stop messing around with trying to find "cheap" solutions.
Mike
