[SantinoTaffy]

Thanks! will take your advise. Luckily i have some headphones to use for to go - my Monster Turbine gold. They really are not great, but when i'm on the go im not too interested in the intricacies of what im listening to anyways, so they do the job. on top of that, they have life time warranty, in fact iv'e had them about 2 years and have replaced them about 3 times already so i wont really need any other phones for that! Also at home have my vinyl speaker set up, which iv'e wanted to dump money in too- but im hoping these headphones will satiate my appetite for at least a couple years-
 
Although it will be tempting, i will FIGHT the bug!

 

[Claritas]

I hope it's everything you desire. Happy birthday!
 
Mshenay's right about giving yourself time to take it all in.

 

[OMGLadyGaga]

Koss Portapro

 

[SantinoTaffy]

Hi guys! so i got all my gear! One thing i notice though... distortion in some registers, is this just because i haven't broken them in yet??
Tracks without the annoying pop of distortion sound amazing and wonderful as expected!! also what is the proper way of putting in the R L cable and can i leave them in or is it better to take them off when not in use?? thanks!
 
running it through the o2 odac combo from jdlabs... Using itunes and spotify 256 kbps.

 

[SantinoTaffy]

also the gain button seems to make it a lot worse ( even at same volume).
 
can these things not handle bass at all? i love them for some tracks... most just distort on high and bottom ends whats up with that?

 

[CJG888]

I think you may find that the distortion is an issue with the amp. I sometimes have this problem too - particularly on low piano notes, and particularly on high gain.

 

[Claritas]

I'm aware of cases of distortion on an O2 with high impedance cans at high volume on 6.5x gain, which can be fixed with a more powerful adapter. But this shouldn't be happening with HE400i.

If you have access to another pair of headphones, you can try to test if something's wrong with the O2. Alternatively, test the headphones on another amp. It's hard to determine from here where the problem lies, but it sure sounds like one or the other is defective.

 

[CJG888]

I had the problem with HD600s (300 ohm).

 

[Solrighal]

Can we assume you went with stock gains of 2.5x/6.5x? If so you shouldn't really need to use the higher gain setting for those headphones. My O2 has custom gains of 1x/3x and drives my HD650's easily on 1x (unity).

 

[jodgey4]

The O2 clips on input, not output... so that means your gain is too much for the ODAC's output, which shouldn't be the case, as I mentioned in the other thread you started.

 

[SantinoTaffy]

Will try my other headphones in them later today.The 6.5 gain sounds like it works a lot better with my 400i headphones besides the clipping.. The 2.5 gain is OK when volume 85+% up on most tracks. I'm a little bit confused, how can the gain be too much for the odac?  it is one unit - 02 + odac combo. Gna try on another computer too...

 

[Solrighal]

I think you're deaf or soon to be so.

 

[SantinoTaffy]

My hearing is perfectly fine, I have a 2nd listener who agrees with everything i have said thank you. 

 

[coletrain104]

  Thanks guys! so far leaning towards the hifiman 400i 02+odac combo.... Was able to call and check that it would be compatible with my macbook and said should be completely fine plus 2 year warranty... Thoughts??

I will say that the Hifiman 400i is, in my opinion, the right choice. I've listened to mine through the Modi and Vali, and it is really something special. The gain is find, I usually listen to mine in the 9 or 10 o'clock position, and there are no issues between the two
Edit: oops. I didn't realize there was more than one page and replied. my bad. Happy listening

 

[Solrighal]

My hearing is perfectly fine, I have a 2nd listener who agrees with everything i have said thank you. 

Perhaps and if so I apologize but the 400i shouldn't need 6.5x gain.