[porchfiddler]

I've been lurking and listening (if one can listen to something one reads) and due to some extra money, courtesy of St patrick's day bought some swag. I had a Super t-amp and some Athena bs-2 speakers in my tiny apartment which i was happy with and also thrilled by how cheaply i was able to get a decent sound. So I decided some good headphones were in order. Based on some arbitrary reccomendations from skimming the forums I bought some Sennheiser Hd-600's as I listen to Classical, Jazz and traditional folky stuff. they sound great, thanks guys! Well i've been wanting to get a mac mini as a media surver to save space and saw the dared mp-5. Usb, tube front end, awesome styling and fit and finish... so I bought one. The Sennheiisers sound so great through the headphone out, the dynamics and easy charm of them are very beguiling. The speakers out of the dared was good but did not have the same "make me smile" effect. So I took the headphone out of the daredto the T-amp and I've got to say it is fantastic. Vocals have a great prescence and strings sound natural (I'm a fiddle player) and the dynamics of symphony stuff is enhanced by the tube front end. So basically I have a tube preamp and a tripath amplifier, it's pretty damn good and that's high praise from an englishman. Anyway, question. should i turn the t-amp full up and regulate with the dared or put both amps in their asumably less distortion prone parts of the volume controls i.e a little bit. Any ideas. thanks everybody for all the great info i've gleaned.

 

[sygyzy]

Can you please expllain your experiences regarding installtion of the USB interface/drivers in your OS? The professional reviewer didn't have much luck with this. Has it been refined? Are there actually instructions in the manual?

Thanks.

 

[porchfiddler]

I had no trouble with the installation at all. Windows xp recognized the driver right away. i unplugged the usb cable and put it back in and it was working almost immediately. i may hve rebooted for good measure. I'm a computer systems admin so I'm used to things not working immediately!





Quote:

Originally Posted by sygyzy Can you please expllain your experiences regarding installtion of the USB interface/drivers in your OS? The professional reviewer didn't have much luck with this. Has it been refined? Are there actually instructions in the manual? Thanks.

 

[bengrbm]

I also have a Super T and am considering the Dared. Are you listening to your phones directly through the Super-T bridged stereo outputs? How is that wired? I would think that would sound lousy with the 600's impedance. One of the main reasons I'm considering the Dared is for use as a headphone amp, but I hadn't considered using the Super-T directly.

I'd also like more info if possible about why you prefer the Super-T for driving your bookshelf speakers (again - similar situation). Sounds like I'd be better off just getting a DAC add-on for the Super-T per your post...

Thanks