GoldfishX
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2013
- Posts
- 483
- Likes
- 49
It's always great when you find a headphone that sounds more realistic than you expected, though! (Especially when it's one that is far more affordable than others.) In the past, I thought certain recordings were the problem, but then, when I heard them on better gear, I couldn't believe how much better it sounded. I have no idea when my playback system will be good enough. All I know is that after hearing a few mid-range / high-end headphones, they are nowhere near good enough to my standard of absolute perfection. lol
The headphone is a slave to the rest of the chain. If you have noisy power and a high noise floor, you'll never heard "into the mix" regardless of how much much money you throw at a rig. That is why I said this review is ever-so-slightly misleading...Mahler has a rock-solid chain from his power conditioner to his source to his DAC that extends to the amps/headphones and a lot of people overlook that and just look at the headphones part. I imagine even an Orpheus cannot save music from sounding noisy, over-busy and harsh if care is not taken with the source.
I tend to find, since adding the power conditioner, the various pairings are much easier to evaluate. Even the bad pairings, at least the musical image is much cleaner and everything is there.