lindrone
King Canaling
- Joined
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This is another one of my "clarification" threads. In a couple of posts people have asked about what type of amping is needed for the 2X-S and UE-10 Pro, and how much it improves on the sound of each IEM. The answer to that question is pretty complex, and in a few posts here and there I probably caused more confusion to the issue more than anything else. So I'm hoping the following explanation on my stance with the whole issue will clear things up a bit for those who have been curious.
Does amp improve the sound in 2X-S and UE-10 Pro?
Yes, using a dedicated amp does improve the sound. The question is, how much and is it worth it? I just recently had the pleasure of testing using the 2X-S and UE-10 Pro with the SuperMono and the SR-71, as well as comparing them against my HR-2. There's improvement in sound imaging, soundstaging, low-end and high-end extension. There is also a definite scale of difference coming from SuperMono and SR-71 to the 2X-S. You can tell that HR-2 improves on those characteristic of sound even more than the other amps.
There are still, however, two considerations in whether or not to get an external amp for your IEM. First of which is the portability and sound quality trade-off. There's a good improvement in sound with those amps in comparison with just the 4th gen iPod alone. However, the improvement between the sound output of the 4th gen iPod to the SuperMono and SR-71 is much smaller than the improvement between 3rd gen iPod and the aforementioned amps. The 4th gen iPod has improved output in both treble and bass, which makes the trade-off between the extra weight and expense of an amp much easier to swallow. Where as compared to a 3rd gen iPod, I think the improvements are much more obvious and not as neglible.
The second consideration, is how sensitive one is to the improvement of the sound with dedicated amping. Just as I said in my A500 versus A900 review a while ago, those who're new to the audio field is unlikely to notice that much difference between A500 and A900. Yet the slight differences in their various sound characteristics compiles into a drastic difference for discerning audiophiles. With 4th gen iPod's improved output in a direct comparison with SuperMono and SR-71, it's easy in a short listening session to say that it made little impact. Upon careful listening you do notice all the subtle improvements that are so important.
With all that said, if I was building a home system around the 2X-S and UE-10 Pro, there's no question I would get a higher class amp. With some testing, it was pretty clear to me that HR-2 had improvements over the SR-71 and SuperMono. However, this is where I really felt the kick of diminishing return, where the HR-2 is over twice as expensive as SR-71, their sound is close enough where it takes a good amount of experience to distinguish; but the HR-2 is still superior, even if it's not a drastic margin.
Is amp or source more important?
This is another complicated issue that I commented on briefly, but seemed to cause a lot of confusion as well. I think I mentioned in another thread two ways to look at this issue. There is an improvement in both IEM's sound by with using an amp, so of course having proper amping is important. However, since both of these IEM perform admirably even without an amp, you don't need a really great, high priced amp to get very good and acceptible performance out of them.
So just as mentioned above, moving from SR-71 to HR-2 yields improvements; but since both of these IEM's hold on to their sound signature pretty well, and is able to display most of their house sound with even just headphone output, the result is that amping gets you to that level of great diminishing return sooner.
In such a case, if I had a $300 CD player and a $300 amp, I would think by upgrading to a $600CD player that has much more detail would give me better improvement than moving from a $300 amp to a $600 amp. If the proper sound signature can be reached at relatively low amping levels, then the source becomes that much more important, because even high priced amps can't give you what it isn't being fed with anyway.
In that logic, the source upgrade is more important. You still need an overall balanced approach towards building your system though. You need to get the amping to a level where you're satisfied as well as the source. Even if you had a $3000 CD player, it won't sound all that great hooked up to a CMOY. Assuming a good amount of amping is already reached, source upgrade will probably get you more drastic improvements in this particular application.
Which one sounds better out of an amp?
UE-10 Pro, in its unamped form, already does a lot to sharpen the treble and deepen the bass notes. It is purposely designed this way so even out of poor sources, it'll introduce a high level of treble detail and bass extension. However, the rest of the UE-10 Pro sound signature is lean and clean. With all the amps I've tested it with so far, there are improvements, but not improvements that I wanted. I really wanted UE-10 Pro to gain a little more warmth in its sound, and a little more physical vibration in its bass. Although a little warmth was gained, it was still nowhere near the level I wanted it to be. The bass extension didn't change any, it's already as deep as it can get, and for sure the overall bass impact didn't increase much either.
UE-10 Pro's ability to stay consistent with its sound signature, in this case, is almost a detriment to its capability to matching up with amps. Of course, in a different perspective this could be viewed as a strength. Just in my perspective I wanted something "different" out of it, but it just wouldn't give.
2X-S, on the other hand, is more faithful to whatever goes in, comes out the same way. If the source is weak on treble, 2X-S won't enhance it, if the bass extension isn't there, it won't do anything about it either. This particular playback nature makes the 2X-S more "neutral". Although depending on one's reference point of sound signatures, 2X-S sound signature overall could be considered neutral to warm.
Either way, pairing the 2X-S with amps makes for more significant difference in adjustments to the sound signature itself, as well as all around improvements. Of course, feeding it through crap still sounds pretty good, but certainly it doesn't improve upon sound that isn't there, the way that UE-10 does.
It's a matter of trade-off, I rather like 2X-S's sound signature to begin with, and even if treble lacks a sparkle and bass lack some extension from a certain source (as is the case with 2X-S direclty out of a 3rd gen iPod), it's still faithful to what the source is providing it. UE-10 enhances the sound that it's being fed, and almost regardless of the sound it's being fed, it'll stick with the same general sound signature much more closely than 2X-S.
It's easy to tell that your source is crappy with the 2X-S, where with the UE-10 it doesn't matter as much. However, it's also much easier to tell when you've got a great source and amp alongside the 2X-S, where with the UE-10 Pro I found that much harder.
A footnote about iPod
Meanwhile it can be said that 4th generation iPod definitely improved on its treble and bass response, the trebles has a sparkle and the bass extension is deeper, it is also more forward and aggressive in general compared to the 3rd gen iPod.
Obviously there are going to be people who prefer the 3rd gen sound due to its neutral and laid-back presentation. For me personally, I think 4th gen iPod's improvement far outweigh any detriment to the sound. To get that full range of sound spectrum extension is very important, and 2X-S makes that very apparent.
It isn't as important with the UE-10 Pro, since it has its own way of making the treble sharp and crisp. On the other hand, I didn't like the way that UE-10 Pro sounded with the 4th gen iPod. The additional aggressiveness and forwardness of the sound, in combination with the already forward midrange and vocal of the UE-10 Pro made up for a soundstage that feels very congested at times.
Using the line-out from the 4G into an amp alleviates a lot of the synergy issue that I had with 4G iPod & UE-10 Pro.
Does amp improve the sound in 2X-S and UE-10 Pro?
Yes, using a dedicated amp does improve the sound. The question is, how much and is it worth it? I just recently had the pleasure of testing using the 2X-S and UE-10 Pro with the SuperMono and the SR-71, as well as comparing them against my HR-2. There's improvement in sound imaging, soundstaging, low-end and high-end extension. There is also a definite scale of difference coming from SuperMono and SR-71 to the 2X-S. You can tell that HR-2 improves on those characteristic of sound even more than the other amps.
There are still, however, two considerations in whether or not to get an external amp for your IEM. First of which is the portability and sound quality trade-off. There's a good improvement in sound with those amps in comparison with just the 4th gen iPod alone. However, the improvement between the sound output of the 4th gen iPod to the SuperMono and SR-71 is much smaller than the improvement between 3rd gen iPod and the aforementioned amps. The 4th gen iPod has improved output in both treble and bass, which makes the trade-off between the extra weight and expense of an amp much easier to swallow. Where as compared to a 3rd gen iPod, I think the improvements are much more obvious and not as neglible.
The second consideration, is how sensitive one is to the improvement of the sound with dedicated amping. Just as I said in my A500 versus A900 review a while ago, those who're new to the audio field is unlikely to notice that much difference between A500 and A900. Yet the slight differences in their various sound characteristics compiles into a drastic difference for discerning audiophiles. With 4th gen iPod's improved output in a direct comparison with SuperMono and SR-71, it's easy in a short listening session to say that it made little impact. Upon careful listening you do notice all the subtle improvements that are so important.
With all that said, if I was building a home system around the 2X-S and UE-10 Pro, there's no question I would get a higher class amp. With some testing, it was pretty clear to me that HR-2 had improvements over the SR-71 and SuperMono. However, this is where I really felt the kick of diminishing return, where the HR-2 is over twice as expensive as SR-71, their sound is close enough where it takes a good amount of experience to distinguish; but the HR-2 is still superior, even if it's not a drastic margin.
Is amp or source more important?
This is another complicated issue that I commented on briefly, but seemed to cause a lot of confusion as well. I think I mentioned in another thread two ways to look at this issue. There is an improvement in both IEM's sound by with using an amp, so of course having proper amping is important. However, since both of these IEM perform admirably even without an amp, you don't need a really great, high priced amp to get very good and acceptible performance out of them.
So just as mentioned above, moving from SR-71 to HR-2 yields improvements; but since both of these IEM's hold on to their sound signature pretty well, and is able to display most of their house sound with even just headphone output, the result is that amping gets you to that level of great diminishing return sooner.
In such a case, if I had a $300 CD player and a $300 amp, I would think by upgrading to a $600CD player that has much more detail would give me better improvement than moving from a $300 amp to a $600 amp. If the proper sound signature can be reached at relatively low amping levels, then the source becomes that much more important, because even high priced amps can't give you what it isn't being fed with anyway.
In that logic, the source upgrade is more important. You still need an overall balanced approach towards building your system though. You need to get the amping to a level where you're satisfied as well as the source. Even if you had a $3000 CD player, it won't sound all that great hooked up to a CMOY. Assuming a good amount of amping is already reached, source upgrade will probably get you more drastic improvements in this particular application.
Which one sounds better out of an amp?
UE-10 Pro, in its unamped form, already does a lot to sharpen the treble and deepen the bass notes. It is purposely designed this way so even out of poor sources, it'll introduce a high level of treble detail and bass extension. However, the rest of the UE-10 Pro sound signature is lean and clean. With all the amps I've tested it with so far, there are improvements, but not improvements that I wanted. I really wanted UE-10 Pro to gain a little more warmth in its sound, and a little more physical vibration in its bass. Although a little warmth was gained, it was still nowhere near the level I wanted it to be. The bass extension didn't change any, it's already as deep as it can get, and for sure the overall bass impact didn't increase much either.
UE-10 Pro's ability to stay consistent with its sound signature, in this case, is almost a detriment to its capability to matching up with amps. Of course, in a different perspective this could be viewed as a strength. Just in my perspective I wanted something "different" out of it, but it just wouldn't give.
2X-S, on the other hand, is more faithful to whatever goes in, comes out the same way. If the source is weak on treble, 2X-S won't enhance it, if the bass extension isn't there, it won't do anything about it either. This particular playback nature makes the 2X-S more "neutral". Although depending on one's reference point of sound signatures, 2X-S sound signature overall could be considered neutral to warm.
Either way, pairing the 2X-S with amps makes for more significant difference in adjustments to the sound signature itself, as well as all around improvements. Of course, feeding it through crap still sounds pretty good, but certainly it doesn't improve upon sound that isn't there, the way that UE-10 does.
It's a matter of trade-off, I rather like 2X-S's sound signature to begin with, and even if treble lacks a sparkle and bass lack some extension from a certain source (as is the case with 2X-S direclty out of a 3rd gen iPod), it's still faithful to what the source is providing it. UE-10 enhances the sound that it's being fed, and almost regardless of the sound it's being fed, it'll stick with the same general sound signature much more closely than 2X-S.
It's easy to tell that your source is crappy with the 2X-S, where with the UE-10 it doesn't matter as much. However, it's also much easier to tell when you've got a great source and amp alongside the 2X-S, where with the UE-10 Pro I found that much harder.
A footnote about iPod
Meanwhile it can be said that 4th generation iPod definitely improved on its treble and bass response, the trebles has a sparkle and the bass extension is deeper, it is also more forward and aggressive in general compared to the 3rd gen iPod.
Obviously there are going to be people who prefer the 3rd gen sound due to its neutral and laid-back presentation. For me personally, I think 4th gen iPod's improvement far outweigh any detriment to the sound. To get that full range of sound spectrum extension is very important, and 2X-S makes that very apparent.
It isn't as important with the UE-10 Pro, since it has its own way of making the treble sharp and crisp. On the other hand, I didn't like the way that UE-10 Pro sounded with the 4th gen iPod. The additional aggressiveness and forwardness of the sound, in combination with the already forward midrange and vocal of the UE-10 Pro made up for a soundstage that feels very congested at times.
Using the line-out from the 4G into an amp alleviates a lot of the synergy issue that I had with 4G iPod & UE-10 Pro.
