[mobayrasta]

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any love for the bijou?

Sounds great with my Bijou. A great combo.

 

[kwkarth]

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kwkarth: I recall you mentioning in the main thread that the Burson HA-160 had a rather narrow soundstage with the LCD-2s.  I have been thinking that one of the ideal features of an amp for the LCD-2s is that it gives a wide soundstage (has low stereo crosstalk?), which would explain why people have had good results with fully balanced amps. Any thoughts?

I for one, don't fully understand everything that goes in to creating or destroying "soundstage."  My current position is that I want an accurate recreation of the soundstage that was captured by the original recording.  Nothing more and nothing less.  It has been my experience that many things that we falsely interpret as soundstage are really psychoacoustic effects brought on by very subtle frequency response changes primarily in the midband.  A very slight dip in the 800Hz-2kHz region, for example can give the impression of greater depth.  Likewise a slightly elevated response in the same region can give the impression of shallow depth.  Soundstage width is created by stereophonic differences between the left and right channels.  We can falsely accentuate this electronically, but I would rather hear things reproduced accurately.
 
The stereo crosstalk to which you refer, with respect to headphones and balanced amps essentially has little to do with true soundstage width per se.  Let me explain...
You may be too young to remember this, but in the days of vinyl, even the very best of cartridges were only able to give 30dB of separation between channels, yet some of the best soundstage retrieval I have ever heard came by way of vinyl.  Consider speakers in a room...  Again, with the right recording and the right room treatment, and the right speaker placement, and the right listener placement, one can experience some of the best soundstage retrieval there is to be had.
 
Today's headamps easily exceed 50, 60, and even 70dB of crosstalk / channel separation.  Even the cheapest of today's amps do this.  Any claimed "goodness" by increased separation due to a "balanced" amp is meaningless / pure poppycock.
 
Coming back to the Burson...  That is a very stout amp indeed, but to my ear it exhibited a subtle hardness, graininess, forwardness in the midband that tended to psycho-acoustically flatten the soundstage for me. 
 
Regarding realistic soundstage retrieval...  For best soundstage and imaging, one's speakers should ideally be the same distance apart as the original stereo mics were that captured the recording in the first place.  That's why binaural recordings sound so good via headphones.  The original coincident pair of mics used were about the same distance apart as your ears are.
Crossfeed has its purpose as provided by Headroom and Meier Audio products when listening to some material.
 
One of the other things responsible for true soundstage and imaging is maintaining absolute faithfulness to the phase relationships across the spectrum as captured in the original venue.  The more this is compromised, the more soundstage and image is destroyed.
 
Our brains do a remarkable job of trying to make "sense" of what we hear and when all the requisite pieces fall into place, we are rewarded with the illusion of reality.

 

[SP Wild]

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kwkarth: I recall you mentioning in the main thread that the Burson HA-160 had a rather narrow soundstage with the LCD-2s.  I have been thinking that one of the ideal features of an amp for the LCD-2s is that it gives a wide soundstage (has low stereo crosstalk?), which would explain why people have had good results with fully balanced amps. Any thoughts?

I for one, don't fully understand everything that goes in to creating or destroying "soundstage."  My current position is that I want an accurate recreation of the soundstage that was captured by the original recording.  Nothing more and nothing less.  It has been my experience that many things that we falsely interpret as soundstage are really psychoacoustic effects brought on by very subtle frequency response changes primarily in the midband.  A very slight dip in the 800Hz-2kHz region, for example can give the impression of greater depth.  Likewise a slightly elevated response in the same region can give the impression of shallow depth.  Soundstage width is created by stereophonic differences between the left and right channels.  We can falsely accentuate this electronically, but I would rather hear things reproduced accurately.
 
The stereo crosstalk to which you refer, with respect to headphones and balanced amps essentially has little to do with true soundstage width per se.  Let me explain...
You may be too young to remember this, but in the days of vinyl, even the very best of cartridges were only able to give 30dB of separation between channels, yet some of the best soundstage retrieval I have ever heard came by way of vinyl.  Consider speakers in a room...  Again, with the right recording and the right room treatment, and the right speaker placement, and the right listener placement, one can experience some of the best soundstage retrieval there is to be had.
 
Today's headamps easily exceed 50, 60, and even 70dB of crosstalk / channel separation.  Even the cheapest of today's amps do this.  Any claimed "goodness" by increased separation due to a "balanced" amp is meaningless / pure poppycock.
 
Coming back to the Burson...  That is a very stout amp indeed, but to my ear it exhibited a subtle hardness, graininess, forwardness in the midband that tended to psycho-acoustically flatten the soundstage for me. 
 
Regarding realistic soundstage retrieval...  For best soundstage and imaging, one's speakers should ideally be the same distance apart as the original stereo mics were that captured the recording in the first place.  That's why binaural recordings sound so good via headphones.  The original coincident pair of mics used were about the same distance apart as your ears are.
Crossfeed has its purpose as provided by Headroom and Meier Audio products when listening to some material.
 
One of the other things responsible for true soundstage and imaging is maintaining absolute faithfulness to the phase relationships across the spectrum as captured in the original venue.  The more this is compromised, the more soundstage and image is destroyed.
 
Our brains do a remarkable job of trying to make "sense" of what we hear and when all the requisite pieces fall into place, we are rewarded with the illusion of reality.

I am immediately reminded of the differences between my newly acquired Phoenix amp and the Lehmann BCL amp.  I posted impressions on the Phoenix thread where I noted that the Phoenix has a better "3 dimensionality" in that there is a depth perception to the frontal stage and that the BCL is more 2 dimensional and  flatter with less depth in the frontal stage...the terms I used for how you describe "3D" is separation, imaging and soundstaging. 
 
Oddly enough the BCL had more of an uppermidrange (800hz - 2khz as you described) emphasis and the Phoenix had a de-emphasis on the exact same region.  Going back to DACs and the Bryston BDA1 dac once again had an emphasis and the Reference 7 dac a de-emphasis on the exact same range, and my conclusion was that Audio GD had better separation, imaging and staging.  Yet according to you...this is merely a psycho acoustic phenomena and is merely in my imagination.  I don't disbelieve you, but rather, I feel that a lot of value is placed on this "soundstage" for which I think such a vague concept has different meanings to different people due to different psychologies.
 
Then I am reminded of my NOS dac that also de-emphasises the uppermidrange, but appears to be flatter...I believe in this case, it is a matter of poor wallwart PSU's leading to less dynamic headroom which makes an instrument unable to "leap out" from the wall of sound because dynamics are constrained by a poor switchmode wallwart PSU.  So I think a good PSU helps.  I do also think as a circuit approaches dual mono configurations I can hear a definitive division of the centre stage to left and right partitions...only noticeable with my closed D7000s.
 
On a side note, last night I connected my headphones to my 2X50 watt tube amp, using the Phoenix as a pre-amplifier.  I did not used any resistors in the output to the headphones and this method yielded the largest soundstage of anything I have ever heard from any headphone amp possible.  The 3 dimesionality wasn't as delicate as the Phoenix as a headamp....
 
but behold...even with the HD650...I found the limits of the Phoenix headamp, whereas with the speaker amp there was no limit...other than the destruction of the HD650 drivers, which I think I came close to.  Oddly my HD650s never sounded smoother after that experiment (or perhaps my hearing was temporarily subdued).  In the past I always felt my headphones can't handle power and sound compressed when more power is introduced...I realise now that the the compression is in the headphone amps and not the drivers.  Just imagine the dynamics of a concert hall and trying to simulate that with headphones...nothing will do other than my speaker amp directly powering the headphones.  The Phoenix comes real close... but the cans go just that teeny bit louder with the speaker amp before distortion traces can be heard.

 

[kwkarth]

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kwkarth: I recall you mentioning in the main thread that the Burson HA-160 had a rather narrow soundstage with the LCD-2s.  I have been thinking that one of the ideal features of an amp for the LCD-2s is that it gives a wide soundstage (has low stereo crosstalk?), which would explain why people have had good results with fully balanced amps. Any thoughts?

I for one, don't fully understand everything that goes in to creating or destroying "soundstage."  My current position is that I want an accurate recreation of the soundstage that was captured by the original recording.  Nothing more and nothing less.  It has been my experience that many things that we falsely interpret as soundstage are really psychoacoustic effects brought on by very subtle frequency response changes primarily in the midband.  A very slight dip in the 800Hz-2kHz region, for example can give the impression of greater depth.  Likewise a slightly elevated response in the same region can give the impression of shallow depth.  Soundstage width is created by stereophonic differences between the left and right channels.  We can falsely accentuate this electronically, but I would rather hear things reproduced accurately.
 
The stereo crosstalk to which you refer, with respect to headphones and balanced amps essentially has little to do with true soundstage width per se.  Let me explain...
You may be too young to remember this, but in the days of vinyl, even the very best of cartridges were only able to give 30dB of separation between channels, yet some of the best soundstage retrieval I have ever heard came by way of vinyl.  Consider speakers in a room...  Again, with the right recording and the right room treatment, and the right speaker placement, and the right listener placement, one can experience some of the best soundstage retrieval there is to be had.
 
Today's headamps easily exceed 50, 60, and even 70dB of crosstalk / channel separation.  Even the cheapest of today's amps do this.  Any claimed "goodness" by increased separation due to a "balanced" amp is meaningless / pure poppycock.
 
Coming back to the Burson...  That is a very stout amp indeed, but to my ear it exhibited a subtle hardness, graininess, forwardness in the midband that tended to psycho-acoustically flatten the soundstage for me. 
 
Regarding realistic soundstage retrieval...  For best soundstage and imaging, one's speakers should ideally be the same distance apart as the original stereo mics were that captured the recording in the first place.  That's why binaural recordings sound so good via headphones.  The original coincident pair of mics used were about the same distance apart as your ears are.
Crossfeed has its purpose as provided by Headroom and Meier Audio products when listening to some material.
 
One of the other things responsible for true soundstage and imaging is maintaining absolute faithfulness to the phase relationships across the spectrum as captured in the original venue.  The more this is compromised, the more soundstage and image is destroyed.
 
Our brains do a remarkable job of trying to make "sense" of what we hear and when all the requisite pieces fall into place, we are rewarded with the illusion of reality.

I am immediately reminded of the differences between my newly acquired Phoenix amp and the Lehmann BCL amp.  I posted impressions on the Phoenix thread where I noted that the Phoenix has a better "3 dimensionality" in that there is a depth perception to the frontal stage and that the BCL is more 2 dimensional and  flatter with less depth in the frontal stage...the terms I used for how you describe "3D" is separation, imaging and soundstaging. 
 
Oddly enough the BCL had more of an uppermidrange (800hz - 2khz as you described) emphasis and the Phoenix had a de-emphasis on the exact same region.  Going back to DACs and the Bryston BDA1 dac once again had an emphasis and the Reference 7 dac a de-emphasis on the exact same range, and my conclusion was that Audio GD had better separation, imaging and staging.  Yet according to you...this is merely a psycho acoustic phenomena and is merely in my imagination.  I don't disbelieve you, but rather, I feel that a lot of value is placed on this "soundstage" for which I think such a vague concept has different meanings to different people due to different psychologies.
 
Then I am reminded of my NOS dac that also de-emphasises the uppermidrange, but appears to be flatter...I believe in this case, it is a matter of poor wallwart PSU's leading to less dynamic headroom which makes an instrument unable to "leap out" from the wall of sound because dynamics are constrained by a poor switchmode wallwart PSU.  So I think a good PSU helps.  I do also think as a circuit approaches dual mono configurations I can hear a definitive division of the centre stage to left and right partitions...only noticeable with my closed D7000s.

Remember, more than simple psychoacoustics contribute to or detract from soundstage and imaging.  Midband colorations are only part of the picture.  I think I agree with you about the stiffness/headroom/quality of the power supply being very important.  I'm still of the opinion that channel/channel separation beyond 35dB is not as important as are many other things for soundstage and image retrieval.  .
 

 

[SoupRKnowva]

i would agree that alot of it definitely has to do with phase response, im not sure about the BCL but the phoenix is definitely no negative feedback, which helps maintain phase coherency.

 

[SP Wild]

There may be something to phase response.  Yes the uppermidrange emphasis on a LOT of solid state gear I hear as a kind of "phase smear" effect...kind of a resonating phasey property.  This includes the upsampling feature of the Bryston DAC which introduces phase smearing or electronic resonance as I hear it.  Kind of like the upper midrange is a tad out of phase leading to unstable images and instrument placements.  The end result is all the same, listening fatigue and "digititis" something that has never occurred to me in any real life acoustic performances.

 

[ptrok]

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Are they not essentially the same with the concerto having 64 steps of volume instead of 32 (vs the symphony) and other minor upgrades and the stagedac has an additional WM8741 and probably other minor upgrades.  So if space and fancier casing is not a concern it should be obvious which should be slightly better than the other.  I don't really think that either is the best for the job but if that is what your heart is set on it shouldn't be a bad pairing but I don't know for sure.
 
In any event I think that is in fact the purpose of this thread... well half of it anyhow accursed stage dac ;P.

Thanks bebop, I'm not set on the concerto or symphony but they are the only amps I know of that may do a good job of driving these cans and are within my budget. If you have a better suggestion within the 1.5k budget it would be greatly appreciated. I want an amp and dac for this price so it kind of limits me with my current knowledge of hi-fi. Thanks in advance.

 

[ak3r]

Is that any good amp/dac combo for this headphone? =)

 

[AustinHorn]

Is that any good amp/dac combo for this headphone? =)

 


I'm using the newly released CEntrance DACmini & love that combo. I find it a big step up from my Nuforce HDP which is no slouch itself. The mini/LCD-2 being fed from amy PC via a HiFace USB converter = sonic nirvana with a really small footprint! Highly recommended!

 

[MikeLa]

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My brain must have been asleep.  Are you talking about 2-7W into 50 Ohms? 
 
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For me, 3dB below that limit is more than acceptable, so something that puts out 6W or 7W is more than enough headroom to meet my needs with any kind of music and in reality, I will never approach those levels in real life listening, but I will know the system will deliver if/when called upon.  Given that, I should never experience any dynamic range compression or clipping problems. 
 
That's what I want from my system.  What you want from your system is up to you. 
 
Realistically, a couple of watts is probably more than most people will need, depending upon the demands of their music.  Rock is some of the least demanding and classical is some of the most demanding.

Yup!

Which tube based headphone amps output 2-7W into 50 ohms?

 

[El_Doug]

7 watts?!?  none that I know of!  heck, a lot of tube speaker amps don't come close to that much power
 
2 watts into 50 ohms MAYBE, but only the most powerful of headphone amps, which really should be considered speaker amps
 
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My brain must have been asleep.  Are you talking about 2-7W into 50 Ohms? 
 
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For me, 3dB below that limit is more than acceptable, so something that puts out 6W or 7W is more than enough headroom to meet my needs with any kind of music and in reality, I will never approach those levels in real life listening, but I will know the system will deliver if/when called upon.  Given that, I should never experience any dynamic range compression or clipping problems. 
 
That's what I want from my system.  What you want from your system is up to you. 
 
Realistically, a couple of watts is probably more than most people will need, depending upon the demands of their music.  Rock is some of the least demanding and classical is some of the most demanding.

Yup!

Which tube based headphone amps output 2-7W into 50 ohms?

 

 

[BournePerfect]

The Auddio GD C-2 SA outputs 6 watts into 50 ohm, although it's a ss design...
 
-Daniel

 

[Equus]

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Are they not essentially the same with the concerto having 64 steps of volume instead of 32 (vs the symphony) and other minor upgrades and the stagedac has an additional WM8741 and probably other minor upgrades.  So if space and fancier casing is not a concern it should be obvious which should be slightly better than the other.  I don't really think that either is the best for the job but if that is what your heart is set on it shouldn't be a bad pairing but I don't know for sure.
 
In any event I think that is in fact the purpose of this thread... well half of it anyhow accursed stage dac ;P.

Thanks bebop, I'm not set on the concerto or symphony but they are the only amps I know of that may do a good job of driving these cans and are within my budget. If you have a better suggestion within the 1.5k budget it would be greatly appreciated. I want an amp and dac for this price so it kind of limits me with my current knowledge of hi-fi. Thanks in advance.

If I can put my two cents in, some of it depends on what you're going to feed it and a lot of it is going to be how you hear stuff.  Honestly, if budget was a huge concern I would actually be able to live with my Forte soundcard's built-in amp or my D10 as an amp/DAC, but taste and aesthetics can vary wildly between different people.  That and the different combinations can get a little wacky...like I know I didn't like a certain Marantz CD player feeding a Luxman P1u, but I have no idea if switching one of those components out would make me like it.  My main critical areas tend to be mids, followed by rounder trebles with low sibilance, separation, staging, bass, etc....so some of the rigs I really like don't float the boat for other folks.
 
1.5k should be able to give you a little bit of options, especially if you want to consider DIY/custom-built and out-of-production/used stuff.  DACs, in particular, seem to change over relatively quickly, so the 1k DAC of today is probably going to sell for much less in a few years.

 

[Kremer930]

It may have already been said but check out the new Schiit Lyr headphone amp.  That is what I am planning to run with my Hifiman HE6.  I had a listen to a Meier Concerto with the LCD2's and they sounded very dark IMO.  The Lyr is great value too.

 

[kwkarth]

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It may have already been said but check out the new Schiit Lyr headphone amp.  That is what I am planning to run with my Hifiman HE6.  I had a listen to a Meier Concerto with the LCD2's and they sounded very dark IMO.  The Lyr is great value too.

A bit too early to tell yet, but based on their track record and the specs, the Lyr looks like it might be THE amp to get.  Hard to wait!