[babarrun]

I found that adding an Oor or equivalent to the RME is not really worth 2000€, unless you use HQPlayer and want to run it in DSD direct mode.

I suggest saving up for either Ferrum Wandla + Oor or Holo Spring 3 + Bliss.
(Disclaimer I haven't heard Wandla just very good things about it)

Especially in this price segment it would be advisable to go to a dealer for a demo or a meetup or even CanJam and listen!

Nobody can tell you what your ears like. I know quite a few head-fi'ers that after listening to everything decided to stick with an RME unit.

how did you find the Holo Spring 3 + Bliss? the may is well out of reach

 

[mrspeakers]

Hi Dan,

Love the headphones.

the headphonia review says "If you want the EXPANSE to shine give it some tube love or pair it with a smooth-sounding powerful headphone amplifier..."
any thoughts on the Expanse pairing with the Lyr+

would love to get your thoughts on what you may like.

Hi, haven't tried the Lyr+, sorry! The Asgard and Jotenheim 2 do really nicely with it though...

I just ordered the Expanse on friday and that's good advice about glasses. As a rule, I never wear my glasses while listening to any headphones.

I wear reading glasses and I just place the arm of the glasses on the top of the pads, works just fine for me.

So the cable connection on the left ear cup came out and is hanging by the wires. Called DCA and they said send it in. UPS tried to deliver twice and UPS said the business was closed.

Called DCA support and they said someone messed with their doorbell, and that I need to call UPS and I give them DCAs main line to the driver so they can call and let them know they are there. UPS says the driver can't make phone calls.

Called DCA back, and Sue says she is in Connecticut and there is nothing she can do except have someone look out for the UPS truck and hopefully they will see them.

So I spent 4k on a set of cans, to have the connector just fall out, then spent $100 to shipping because I insured it for the entire cost and now I can't get it delivered because of a busted doorbell. Sue says it is UPSs fault and they are terrible, so it is UPSs fault because of DCAs busted doorbell.

This is the kind of customer support 4k buys you these days.

This entire experience has soured me on DCA no matter how good the cans sound, and I may sell these after I get them back. It's terrible that Sue tried to blame UPS when they actually did their job and tried to deliver the package, and it's DCA fault for not anwering the door when UPS shows up.

Sorry about that, to my knowledge this is the only time this has happened though of course it's possible I didn't hear of it... We do pride ourselves on our support, and it's never good to have someone less than satisfied with the experience. In general ship to us with FedEx or USPS, UPS is the least reliable resource.

We have the most trouble with UPS of all carriers because they're the major carrier we just don't use, so we get zero support and often the drivers ignore the clearly posted sign that says it takes up to 90seconds for us to answer the bell due to the size of the building, they just ring, tag and leave. FedEx and USPS actually let us get to the door.

It is true our doorbell was destroyed, our last video was a pretty out-of-it person screaming at the doorbell, spinning in circles, and then bashing it, among other things that aren't friendly to share...

If this hasn't been resolved yet we'll send you a Fedex shipping label. Let Sue know I suggested it.

 

[plumpudding2]

how did you find the Holo Spring 3 + Bliss? the may is well out of reach

Excellent. Only caveat is to get the most out of a Holo dac you should be using HQPlayer which is a lot of fiddling and you have to be a bit technical. Holo Bliss is huge and warm and will raise your electricity bill, but the sound quality is worth it.

On cables: I really like my Lavricables Grand Silver but I wouldn't drop that kind of cash on a cable until you have everything else dialed in.
Golden eared people can hear the difference between 4 and 8 cores and meanwhile I didn't pass a blind test between it and the stock cable. Look, feel and ergonomics are to me the most important cable aspects.

 

[alxw0w]

Golden eared

Golden eared or golden biased
Never underestimate power of our brain, not particularly our ears.

 

[DarginMahkum]

At last!

 

[babarrun]

I found that adding an Oor or equivalent to the RME is not really worth 2000€, unless you use HQPlayer and want to run it in DSD direct mode.

I suggest saving up for either Ferrum Wandla + Oor or Holo Spring 3 + Bliss.
(Disclaimer I haven't heard Wandla just very good things about it)

Especially in this price segment it would be advisable to go to a dealer for a demo or a meetup or even CanJam and listen!

Nobody can tell you what your ears like. I know quite a few head-fi'ers that after listening to everything decided to stick with an RME unit.

thinking of a holo bliss KTE paired with a DMP-a6

 

[babarrun]

Can you elaborate on this very beautiful stand?
Thank you!
It seems that you are very invested in the matter!

Love the pic. what size did you go with ? which would you suggest.. thanks so much.

 

[BattousaiX26]

Anyone heard the expanse with Violectric V550?

 

[babarrun]

I posted this over in the Holo Bliss thread as well but I just want to say that adding a Freya+ into my chain has really enhanced listening with the Expanse for me.
It's just punchier and more resonant, strings really ZING and I find it simply has more toe-tap factor. I haven't tried with my other headphones yet, I'm just enjoying it so much on my Expanse, this is the best I've heard these so far and I'm just doing Spotify over USB, haven't gotten into the high bitrate upsampled stuff over LAN yet.

R26 > Freya+ with the Tung Sol tubes > Holo Bliss > Expanse. Awesome.

thanks for sharing. I have a HA Spring --> Bliss > Expanse.
Wondering how much of a tube experience you got with the Freya+

 

[babarrun]

Noise and distortion is often perceived by some to be more detail in highs or more punch in the bass. If you mean hiss, that is something else. In buying an amplifier for Expanse I would be careful about the output impedance of the amplifier. Expanse has low impedance and you will have the risk of losing much power on the output resistance of the amplifier. My suggestion would in general be to not consider high output impedance amplifiers for low impedance HPs, which Expanse is. If you need transparency and unaltered sound with very low output impedance, I would rather consider solid state amps.

Another issue is, the impedance of Expanse, unlike other planar HPs is not flat, it is higher in the low mids down. A higher impedance output amplifier will transfer more power for the low frequencies, thus increasing the lows relative to the mids. This might negatively effect the mids (especially vocals) clarity. If you need mids clarity, you should keep this in mind.

If you want more size and if your setup allows it, you can always use a VST like this:

https://unitedplugins.com/Expanse3D/

can the plug in be added to Roon?

 

[DarginMahkum]

can the plug in be added to Roon?

Sorry, I completely forgot about this post, although I was thinking about what to write.

Unfortunately, as I understand, Roon does not support VST plug-ins. One possibility is, using the JRiver Media Player WDM driver mode, though I've never tried this combination. JRiver Media Player allows loading VST plug-ins and use it for media playing. Here is an example about using a VST with MPC:



After that, you can enable the WDM and then use it as an output device from Roon. Here is an example, which uses this mode to apply a convolution filter to Windows audio outputs (it also uses a VST plug-in):



More info on WDM mode:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/WDM_Driver

 

[DarginMahkum]

The above post could also be interesting for convolution filter users.

 

[ThanatosVI]

The above post could also be interesting for convolution filter users.

Shouldn't Roon users be able to load convolution filters directly via Roon?

 

[DarginMahkum]

Shouldn't Roon users be able to load convolution filters directly via Roon?

Possibly, I don't know. The method I have mentioned above supports any VST, including (as shown above) convolution filter VSTs, even when playing games. Maybe there is another method using Roon, but I don't have Roon, so I don't know if there is an alternative method.

 

[mrspeakers]

At last!

We have a couple in house, VERY nice units. We particularly love the fact you have independent DSP and volume for each of the headphone outputs.