Well, my listening impressions will be delayed for a couple weeks. The volume pot on my LC has stopped working and I am stuck at a fixed volume level on both SE and Balanced. Will need repair. In my brief listening so far, it's very much what I remember from my first listening session at the SF Meet. Neutral sound signature with very clean and dynamic presentation.
My LC arrived at a point when I was about to leave town for about 3 weeks away, so I have not had time to really test-drive it, talk less of performing the recommended 150-hour burn-in ritual. However, out of the box, and paired with an Emotiva DC-1 DAC, I tried my Sennheiser HD700 on it and WOW!, what a revelation! I have never heard this much-maligned, and to my mind, highly "misunderstood" pair of cans, sound this gracious, beautiful and non-fatiguing. In short, the LC has cured my "love-hate" relationship with the HD700 within minutes of their encounter, although I am also persuaded that it is much, much, more than a mere "HD700 whisperer."
By the way, I also tested it briefly in the same chain with my Hifiman He-500, and while the combination sounded decently good, I did not experience the same "WOW"! sentiment as I did with the HD-700, but that might simply be because the He-500 already sounds great in all my other rigs and with almost every genre of music I have thrown at it, so I wasn't expecting any surprises...
There is more to come, of course (including the 150-hour burn in ritual and its aftermath), but I thought I should just chronicle this story of the first encounter between the LC and the HD700, a match made in musical nirvana, if there were ever such a place
Thanks. Not being an EE, can you give an example of how this would impact the source at 1x? My dac signal comes in, say at 2v RMS, and some dynamic passage of music with my headphone combo needs more, say 3v, to sound right. Does 1x do anything to help in that case?
I am no expert on analogue circuit design but my understanding is that the DAC's high impedance output would prevent it providing the dynamic current change to drive your headphones.
The unity gain amplifier provides the same voltage as the DAC, but has a low impedance output and a power supply that is capable of delivering rapid changes in power to provide the dynamic performance that makes our headphones sound sweet.
If that's not right I hope someone will correct me. It's a number of decades since I briefly studied analogue electronics.
Well, my listening impressions will be delayed for a couple weeks. The volume pot on my LC has stopped working and I am stuck at a fixed volume level on both SE and Balanced. Will need repair. In my brief listening so far, it's very much what I remember from my first listening session at the SF Meet. Neutral sound signature with very clean and dynamic presentation.
I am no expert on analogue circuit design but my understanding is that the DAC's high impedance output would prevent it providing the dynamic current change to drive your headphones.
The unity gain amplifier provides the same voltage as the DAC, but has a low impedance output and a power supply that is capable of delivering rapid changes in power to provide the dynamic performance that makes our headphones sound sweet.
If that's not right I hope someone will correct me. It's a number of decades since I briefly studied analogue electronics.
That is one general benefit, I understand. In my specific case, the Mojo has a 0.075 ohm output impedance. Would like to get more info so as to more fully understand what the amp is doing and how best to pair it. Of course, it also just sounds great!
Sorry, just trying to be smart, I knew you meant physical resistance. Don't notice anything like this on mine. Where it does happen it's normally just a slight misalignment of the control knob. I suspect that the problem amps have a more fundamental quality problem within the pot.
That is one general benefit, I understand. In my specific case, the Mojo has a 0.075 ohm output impedance. Would like to get more info so as to more fully understand what the amp is doing and how best to pair it. Of course, it also just sounds great!
Ah yes ... from the very little I've read I understand that the Mojo has a unique output taken directly from the FPGA chip that does all the magic. I'm really surprised that it can do this without an analogue amplifier / buffer stage, but my knowledge in this area is so out of date as to be practically non-existent.
Sorry, just trying to be smart, I knew you meant physical resistance. Don't notice anything like this on mine. Where it does happen it's normally just a slight misalignment of the control knob. I suspect that the problem amps have a more fundamental quality problem within the pot.
That is one general benefit, I understand. In my specific case, the Mojo has a 0.075 ohm output impedance. Would like to get more info so as to more fully understand what the amp is doing and how best to pair it. Of course, it also just sounds great!
Your DAC output impedance and current drive have little bearing on the amp's output since the LC and all amps have input impedances in the 10K+ ohm range. Whatever differences you are hearing between 1X and 3X output on LC is 100% due to the LC itself.
As for Mojo, it's headphone out and line out use the same circuit straight from the FPGA so it is basically a line out with a voltage control for volume levels.
Sorry, just trying to be smart, I knew you meant physical resistance. Don't notice anything like this on mine. Where it does happen it's normally just a slight misalignment of the control knob. I suspect that the problem amps have a more fundamental quality problem within the pot.
Anyone still have their Gustard H10 and their LC?
Would love some comparisons. I no longer have the H10 to compare but there seems to be some who have listened to both and found the H10 to have better mids and soundstage and LC too thin and bright.
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