[inthere]

  Pay more than msrp. Problem solved? (not a good solution, but might work out for you)

 
Exactly what I was thinking, just a bit hard to pull the trigger.

 

[knowhatimean]

I finally had a chance to hear a pair of NHs today. I thought they sounded pretty good given the fact that I greatly
prefer my playback system in comparison to the McIntosh disc player that I listened to a few of my discs through.. I should have drug my backup DAC (Metrum Octave NOS mini DAC) along with me when I picked up a few discs from my library..

I humored the salesperson at Magnolia by letting him bring up a few things on Tidal that he connected to the McIntosh through a USB cable from a laptop. I didn't have high hopes for the hookup without something like an Empirical Audio Offramp inline in front of the player connection.. I suppose the sound was passable ,but I've heard some of my discs sound my better through this player.( which prompted me to take a 10min ride home
to return with some higher level listening material.

I didn't really spend too much time listening other than a few of my favorite Orchestral passages that have some
"Tasty" dynamic pretty well recorded things going on in them including some different recorded listening perspectives to them. The only non Orchestal disc I brought with me was David Wilcox CD ; Live Stories & Songs. I've had a sneaking suspicion for awhile that how much this headphone works or doesn't work for you has more to do with what kind of music it is that you generally prefer to listen to..From what I've heard so far I'm
pretty certain that there's a 99.7% chance that Ithers's a .05% chance that I listen to music that presents the NH
with the type of problems some people find listening to this music I normally have to chuckle a bit.

I do listen to some (preferably live,well recorded, tasefully produced) Singer / songwriter material , but "songs" for the most part are a bit too trivial & seriously lacking in much I find to be "musically satisfying".& not just more noise. As Joni Mitchell once said "There isn't much Muse in today's music"

I'm already considering a few things I'll do should I decide to get the NH. Those screens behind the drivers will
be coming off, then I retro-fit some Audeze Vegan earpads to the NH using the snap on plates from the original earpads onto the Vegan pads. I'll give them another listen or 2 at another dealer though the Bryston headphone amp & bring my "fixed" HD800 (no Ring Radiator nonsense on it) along for reference.(which do sound diferent, but the NH didn't come off as comparatively sounding "toyish"; that sounds more like artifacts of source material I don't care to listen to anyway. "My" HD800 may be a whisker more detailed,but the NH may bave a half a whisker of lower midrange presence to them. The stock HD800 is seriously lacking in terms of "Humanity" & is a bit "Mechanical" in terms of "Musicallity

Being horrendous at typing, please excuse my not taking the time to edit this posting. "I gets lazy sometimes"

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Before you mod, give them time. They grow into something special over time. If you want to mod later, go for it, but don't do it based on early impressions.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

BTW do we have a favorite third party cable that's not @$$ expensive? I sit practically right beside my amp and the crazy long cable keeps getting stepped on or caught under a chair wheel.

 

[elnero]

  BTW do we have a favorite third party cable that's not @$$ expensive? I sit practically right beside my amp and the crazy long cable keeps getting stepped on or caught under a chair wheel.

 
I guess that depends on your definition of expensive. I like the Moon Audio Blue Dragon quite a bit more than the stock cable. I got mine used so it wasn't too expensive.

 

[waynes world]

BTW do we have a favorite third party cable that's not @$$ expensive? I sit practically right beside my amp and the crazy long cable keeps getting stepped on or caught under a chair wheel.

Or getting eaten by evil cats lol

 

[kman1211]

Well I did a headphone swap with my Nighthawks, so going to be like a week or two without them, it's going to be hard without the Nighthawks.

 

[Krutsch]

  BTW do we have a favorite third party cable that's not @$$ expensive? I sit practically right beside my amp and the crazy long cable keeps getting stepped on or caught under a chair wheel.

 

   
I guess that depends on your definition of expensive. I like the Moon Audio Blue Dragon quite a bit more than the stock cable. I got mine used so it wasn't too expensive.

 
I just ordered a Blue Dragon to replace my destroyed original cable. 5 ft long with a 3.5mm Oyaide plug. I have a Black Dragon (HD-700) and a Silver Dragon (HD-650) and I love the build quality.
 

Or getting eaten by evil cats lol

 
Frickin' cats...

 

[joeq70]

BTW do we have a favorite third party cable that's not @$$ expensive? I sit practically right beside my amp and the crazy long cable keeps getting stepped on or caught under a chair wheel.

I've had two cables from Lindsay at Impact Audio Cables, both are well made and sound great.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/248802051/custom-infinity-series-cable-fits

 

[derbigpr]

   
/cut

 
 
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. And yes, HD600's are more accurate than NH's, in every single way, no doubt about it. No offense, but anyone who disagrees with that is either deaf or trying to push the NH's forward and make them appear better than they actually are. Your interpretations of song frequency graphs are wrong too. It's not as simple as "flat freq. response = every part of the song sounds equally loud".  Actually, that would make a rather bright sounding recording.  You're forgetting that what you see on those graphs are raw frequencies in the song, not the actual frequency levels you're hearing.   A natural sounding record will often be warm-tiled, in fact, take any of the best (most natural) sounding recordings out there, and you'll see they're always a bit tilted in favor of lows, and they still don't end up sounding too warm on neutral systems. Again, take any realistic sounding recording, and you'll find that to be true. For example, Jazz in the pawnshop is an incredibly natural sounding recording, yet, at all moments, the upper mids and highs are 10-15 db below low mids and bass, yet it doesn't sound dark or muffled. That is because by the time you actually hear the sound, certain frequencies get greatly amplified, others reduced, etc.  I don't know what else to add to this, other than you're clearly going too far trying to justify the sound of NH's, which is clearly nowhere near neutral, natural or accurate, not by any standard.  It's a warm and thick sounding headphone, and it's the headphones fault, it's not about the recording.  I'm not saying it's a bad headphone because of that, but denying it's inaccuracy would be absolutely ridiculous.

 

[derbigpr]

  BTW do we have a favorite third party cable that's not @$$ expensive? I sit practically right beside my amp and the crazy long cable keeps getting stepped on or caught under a chair wheel.

 
Try something like this, it's much cheaper than buying a new cable:
 

 

[adpo]

  BTW do we have a favorite third party cable that's not @$$ expensive? I sit practically right beside my amp and the crazy long cable keeps getting stepped on or caught under a chair wheel.

I just braid mine

 

[SomeGuyDude]

   
 
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. And yes, HD600's are more accurate than NH's, in every single way, no doubt about it. No offense, but anyone who disagrees with that is either deaf or trying to push the NH's forward and make them appear better than they actually are. Your interpretations of song frequency graphs are wrong too. It's not as simple as "flat freq. response = every part of the song sounds equally loud".  Actually, that would make a rather bright sounding recording.  You're forgetting that what you see on those graphs are raw frequencies in the song, not the actual frequency levels you're hearing.   A natural sounding record will often be warm-tiled, in fact, take any of the best (most natural) sounding recordings out there, and you'll see they're always a bit tilted in favor of lows, and they still don't end up sounding too warm on neutral systems. Again, take any realistic sounding recording, and you'll find that to be true. For example, Jazz in the pawnshop is an incredibly natural sounding recording, yet, at all moments, the upper mids and highs are 10-15 db below low mids and bass, yet it doesn't sound dark or muffled. That is because by the time you actually hear the sound, certain frequencies get greatly amplified, others reduced, etc.  I don't know what else to add to this, other than you're clearly going too far trying to justify the sound of NH's, which is clearly nowhere near neutral, natural or accurate, not by any standard.  It's a warm and thick sounding headphone, and it's the headphones fault, it's not about the recording.  I'm not saying it's a bad headphone because of that, but denying it's inaccuracy would be absolutely ridiculous.

 
So what you're saying is that headphones which accurately represent the curve of the song are wrong because... something. Gotcha.
 
I've had the HD600's. and the HD650. The Hd600s were a great headphone, but recordings sounded one of two ways through them: great or super bright and piercing. That was all. That, to me, explains the flaw. If a headphone is only ever "balanced" or "bright" it means they're tilted. A proper headphone should sound bassy, should sound bright, should sound balanced depending on what it's fed. 

 

[elnero]

   
 
I just ordered a Blue Dragon to replace my destroyed original cable. 5 ft long with a 3.5mm Oyaide plug. I have a Black Dragon (HD-700) and a Silver Dragon (HD-650) and I love the build quality.

 
Excellent! I'll be curious to see how you feel it compares to the Black Dragon. 

 

[disastermouse]

I was about to express my skepticism about cables....and then I remembered that this was an Audioquest product discussion. LOL.