[jlbrach]

I wholeheartedly respect @SLC1966’s guidance. I’ve successfully taken direct buying suggestions from him often (Great Guy), I find the E3 to be as you do though and a much more enjoyable listen to my ears than the Stealth.

I still find the Susvara with a requisite chain of streamer, DAC, and amp to be the pinnacle of over ear to my tastes and hearing but I find the E3 to be the best $2K of cans with mid-fi chain I’ve heard. Listening with our own ears is still necessary in this early age of AI, it hasn’t solved this for me yet.

the best 2k set of HP's to me by far is the RAAL CA-1a at least in my observation

 

[SolarCetacean]

Unfortunately, I missed out on the E3 at the last area headphone meet. Someone said they would bring it, but they ended up not making it that day. I was able to hear the Stealth and Expanse again, but my opinions on the Stealth did not change. It sounded dull and constricted. I took off my glasses and pressed the earcups against my head to try to get the best seal possible, but the bass was still lacking impact despite good tonal presence. The notable lack of air in the upper treble also hurt the sense of space between notes, so even though the soundstage was fine, maybe even good if I focused on each instrument individually, the spatial presentation in its entirety seemed smaller than it was. Like the space as a whole was less than the sum of its parts. Oh well, I like to think that I gave the Stealth an honest effort (I've demoed it 3 times now), but I just value a different set of attributes in sound than what the Stealth is going for.

If the E3 has more air and impact, I think I would like it. The only thing that may trip up its performance is the upper midrange which I am sensitive to - I think Harman has too much ear gain for my preference. No real way to know except to try it out!

 

[OneEyedHito]

the best 2k set of HP's to me by far is the RAAL CA-1a at least in my observation

Fair enough . Those are great too, I should have said closed back as that was my thinking!

 

[jlbrach]

no problem my friend, it is all subjective

 

[SLC1966]

Hey I'm curious. Has anybody sold the Stealth in favor of the new E3 Closed ? Or does anybody has the two HPs in their listening rig currently ?

Interesting, as your take is pretty much the opposite of mine. I've owned the E3 for a few months, and recently did a comparative audition with the Stealth and Expanse. All in all, I've now auditioned the Stealth on 7-8 occasions and the Expanse on a few. IMO, the flagships decidedly do not perform at a higher technical level than the E3, and I actually thought the E3 had the best (deepest) soundstaging of the lot. In terms of tuning, the Stealth was the outlier for me, given its comparatively woeful bass dynamics. The E3 is brighter in the upper midrange than the others, which can be borderline strident on some material, on some chains. That might be a deal-breaker for some listeners.

While I respect your subjective opinion, I wanted to highlight that DCA headphones seem to have a wider-than-average divergence of individual user experiences, and I'd encourage prospective buyers to audition and come to their own conclusions.

Let me elaborate some more since the world around me is now asleep and my initial response was on my phone as I was dealing with normal life things.

I previously took a massive deep dive into IEMs which thankfully has passed and for a few years I have been diving deep into HPs as well as HP chains/systems and also 2ch systems/chains. My dive is intense and involves many hours of listening, analyzing and comparing. That is a huge part of my audio joy. I like to buy HPs from the same company and dive deep. I have done it with the Sennheiser HD series, the ZMF line of HPs and with the DCA HPs. I like to try and figure out the differences between the different HPs within the same company. I end up reviewing some for fun using an odd style that I enjoy. I did the same thing with different IEM companies.

The E3 is probably the best closed back HP out there for 2K. And a huge plus is that it is easier to drive than the big boys i.e. Susvara, Expanse and Stealth among others. When I listened to my E3 on a Jot and Bifrost or on my DX300 Max or DX 300 then the difference between E3 and Expanse/Stealth is not that great. The difference is there but not easy and quick to decipher.

My post earlier today was based on (which I did not mention) the chain I built for my Stealth and Expanse. With this chain the differences were extremely obvious and easy to pick out. The Stealth and Expanse take things to a whole other level of engagement, clarity, texture, and layering when on a system specifically built for them. The exact same goes for Susvara. I have a different chain built around the Susvara.

IMHO the Stealth, Expanse, and Susvara sound bland when not heard on the right system. All three of them are extremely hard to drive. They do not shine when not driven correclty. Yes music comes out of them with most amps and DACS but they are not sounding like their true selves. When they are driven appropriately they shine amazingly to pure visceral levels of enjoyment.

For Stealth and Expanse I am happy with Yggy OG-Holo Bliss- and Khozmo Passive Pre. For me Susvara sounds best with Holo May-Ferrum Stack (Oor and Hypsos)- and Holo Serene.

Such a chain is absurd and ridiculous and cannot be justified one bit. All done to get the best out of Susvara, Stealth and Expanse. There are many other chains out there that would sound great but for now I have settled on those chains for my purposes.

Without a chain bordering on psychosis the E3 is an amazing sounding relatively affordable HP that sounds wonderful with a relatively affordable chain. No question about that.

 

[BassicScience]

Let me elaborate some more since the world around me is now asleep and my initial response was on my phone as was dealing with normal life things.

I previously took a massive deep dive into IEMs which thankfully has passed and for a few years I have been diving deep into HPs as well as HP chains/systems and also 2ch systems/chains. My dive is intense and involves many hours of listening, analyzing and comparing. That is a huge part of my audio joy. I like to buy HPs from the same company and dive deep. I have done it with the Sennheiser HD series, the ZMF line of HPs and with the DCA HPs. I like to try and figure out the differences between the different HPs within the same company. I end up reviewing some for fun using an odd style that I enjoy. I did the same thing with different IEM companies.

The E3 is probably the best closed back HP out there for 2K. And a huge plus is that it is easier to drive than the big boys i.e. Susvara, Expanse and Stealth among others. When I listened to my E3 on a Jot and Bifrost or on my DX300 Max or DX 300 then the difference between E3 and Expanse/Stealth is not that great. The difference is there but not easy and quick to decipher.

My post earlier today was based on (which I did not mention) the chain I built for my Stealth and Expanse. With this chain the differences were extremely obvious and easy to pick out. The Stealth and Expanse take things to a whole other level of engagement, clarity, texture, and layering when on a system specifically built for them. The exact same goes for Susvara. I have a different chain built around the Susvara.

IMHO the Stealth, Expanse, and Susvara sound bland when not heard on the right system. All three of them are extremely hard to drive. They do not shine when not driven correclty. Yes music comes out of them with most amps and DACS but they are not sounding like their true selves. When they are driven appropriately they shine amazingly to pure visceral levels of enjoyment.

For Stealth and Expanse I am happy with Yggy OG-Holo Bliss- and Khozmo Passive Pre. For me Susvara sounds best with Holo May-Ferrum Stack (Oor and Hypsos)- and Holo Serene.

Such a chain is absurd and ridiculous and cannot be justified one bit. All done to get the best out of Susvara, Stealth and Expanse. There are many other chains out there that would sound great but for now i have settled on those chains for my purposes.

Without a chain bordering on psychosis the E3 is an amazing sounding relatively affordable HP that sounds wonderful with a relatively affordable chain. No question about that.

Thanks for the elaboration.

For the record, I've now heard the Stealth on a variety of chains, both solid state and tubes. Most recently, it was (alternately) off the Woo WA23 and then a Chord TT2/M Scaler. It has sounded better on some systems than on others, but its basic character remained pretty consistent. It simply has never engaged me, and I'm not willing to put any more effort into chasing some "magic synergy" that I'm not convinced exists. Clearly, you hear things differently, and that's perfectly fine. Let's just agree to disagree.

 

[lowlou]

SLC1966, with the chain you use for your Expanse and Stealth, how much do you have to turn the volume knob on your Kozmo and Holo Bliss ? Do you have access to the full course of the knobs, or only a small portion of it before you reach dangerous output volumes ? Which volume control do you typically use, daily ? Do you use the passive attenuator prior to the Holo Bliss to gain fine resolution on the amp volume potentiometer ?
Thanks

 

[SLC1966]

SLC1966, with the chain you use for your Expanse and Stealth, how much do you have to turn the volume knob on your Kozmo and Holo Bliss ? Do you have access to the full course of the knobs, or only a small portion of it before you reach dangerous output volumes ? Which volume control do you typically use, daily ? Do you use the passive attenuator prior to the Holo Bliss to gain fine resolution on the amp volume potentiometer ?
Thanks

Holo Bliss alone with Stealth and Expanse is around -55. Expanse is a tiny bit harder to drive. Susvara is at about -45 for example. Utopia is about -65. I listen at low volume. Bliss goes from -77 to +05. Massive play in volume with sensitive IEMs and HPs to hard to drive HPs. Bliss without a pre is all that is needed to drive easy to hard to drive stuff. With Khozmo and Bliss together Bliss is at 00 and Khozmo is at around 25. Khozmo goes from 0-63. I keep Bliss at 00 and just use the Khozmo pot.

Massive play also with Khozmo and Bliss together. When I had Ferrum stack in bypass with Khozmo (original intention for having a Khozmo passive pre), I ran into difficulty not having any play with IEMs or sensitive HPs like Stellia. Anything after 1 on Khozmo was too loud for my low volume preferences. Ferrum stack with Khozmo had plenty of play in volume for the hard to drive stuff like Stealth.

I hope that helps.

 

[lowlou]

Absolutely ! Thanks for taking the time.

 

[plumpudding2]

Finally got around to doing the pad swap (the old ones were literally falling apart leaving black dust everywhere and I was worried it might get into the drivers)
It is indeed a bit more difficult than in the video, considerable strength is needed to remove the old pads and in my case I ripped the cushions from the mounting ring.

Another unpleasant surprise was that the previous pad applicant had managed to glue the pad to the AMTS insert which also came off with the pad. I carefully put it back as best as I could but I hope it'll be kept in place properly by the pad and is not now shifting around.

However as always after a pad swap you feel your headphone sounds exactly like designed and it's supremely comfortable compared to the old worn-out pads

 

[alxw0w]

AMTS insert which also came off with the pad

Wow, do you have photo of that?

 

[plumpudding2]

Wow, do you have photo of that?

oops missed my chance, should've taken a picture

 

[lowlou]

Does anybody know how the SN-8-4(P) cables are wired on DCA ? There are four PINs on the SN-8-4(P) connectors. I'd like to connect one balanced cable per ear, to be fed by 2 XLR out of the amp. Not sure how to solder the XLR female pins to the SN-8-4(P) pins, and if I should use a quad cable, or a tradionnal three wire mic cable ? Dan ?

For context I want to buy an SPL Phonitor 3 DAC Headphone/monitor amp, with his additional 4-monitor extension ; this way via a 4 position switch, I can toggle between four pair of headphones. But dual XLR female to dual SN-8-4(P) cables do not exist according to my googling. So I'm going to solder them myself I guess. I'd Like to use my Gotham Gac-3 cables and Neutrik XLR connectors as the basis for the cables if possible. They are great. But There is no infos online about how to connect SN-8-4(P) pins to any other connectors commonly used on other gear.

https://spl.audio/en/spl-produkt/expansion-rack/
https://spl.audio/en/spl-produkt/phonitor-3-dac/

 

[Daniel Johnston]

Does anybody know how the SN-8-4(P) cables are wired on DCA ? There are four PINs on the SN-8-4(P) connectors. I'd like to connect one balanced cable per ear, to be fed by 2 XLR out of the amp. Not sure how to solder the XLR female pins to the SN-8-4(P) pins, and if I should use a quad cable, or a tradionnal three wire mic cable ? Dan ?

For context I want to buy an SPL Phonitor 3 DAC Headphone/monitor amp, with his additional 4-monitor extension ; this way via a 4 position switch, I can toggle between four pair of headphones. But dual XLR female to dual SN-8-4(P) cables do not exist according to my googling. So I'm going to solder them myself I guess. I'd Like to use my Gotham Gac-3 cables and Neutrik XLR connectors as the basis for the cables if possible. They are great. But There is no infos online about how to connect SN-8-4(P) pins to any other connectors commonly used on other gear.

https://spl.audio/en/spl-produkt/expansion-rack/
https://spl.audio/en/spl-produkt/phonitor-3-dac/

Unless you are trying to go ultra cheap, maybe reach out to the custom cable makers mentioned in the thread.

Hart audio is inexpensive but good. Audio Ninja is pricier but better build quality. I like Corpse cables personally.

DCA might give you pin out schematic if you email them.

 

[lowlou]

None of the custom cable makers make dual female XLR to SN-8-4(P) cables.
And their prices...