[intricate28]

Ok so with my current setup I am loving the sound I'm getting (see sig).

But!

I've found that I like the Senns mostly when the volume is turned up to a decent level. Very quite listening hasn't been overly satisfying with them. At night, my rig is basically 10 feet from where my wife is sleeping and because of the open air nature of 650's I can't turn them up nearly to the point I want them.

So, is the Denon D-2000 a good choice to compliment the 650's? Mainly to be used for night time listening but will they be a good enough companion as to be used anytime other than that? I've heard they are much more "upfront" so I though they might be the best way to go to counter the Senn's more "laid back" approach. Was thinking of getting the J Money pads with the order to start out with.

Listening tastes are very diverse but are mainly as follows.

1. Classic Rock (Pink Floyd!/Dire Straits/Creedance)
2. Trance (Armin van Buuren, nough said)
3. Jazz (Miles Davis, John Coltrane)

Thanks for any info!

 

[trungkien978]

i believe in my D2000
if u r looking for bass D2000 is right there for you
and D2000 is pretty good high frequencies too, very thin crispy
mid is a lil bit taken over but it sounds ok
plus it is CHEAPER than HD650, u can find it somewhere around 250

 

[joomongj]

Yes I'd say so. The bass looms over the adjacent spectrum but for $250 it's well worth the dough over its dings.

 

[NapalmK]

I haven't heard the HD650's so take this with a grain of salt. I absolutely love my Denon D2000's for jazz. Jazz is my favorite genre to listen to on my Denon's which is strange considering 93% or so of my listening is trance and the like. Miles Davis, Coltrane, and BB King all sound wonderful to me, clear, smooth, and natural. It also does trance very well. I mainly listen to ATB and Tiesto. I don't really listen to rock a lot so I can't tell you about that. They do require a good amp but from the looks of your sig it seems your getting a Gilmore Lite which I've heard matches very well with the Denon's.

They do leak sound however, but not enough to bother my roommates. I listen at low to mid level and they told me they can only pick up the higher notes of my music. I would imagine the J$ pads would help the isolation to a degree as they provide a tighter fit but I can't be sure.

You might also want to consider the Ultrasone Pro 750 as they are more upfront than the Denon's. They also isolate better. For trance the Ultrasone sound sig is tough to beat. They do tend to be a love them or hate them can though so definitely do a lot of research.

 

[intricate28]

Thanks for the input. Cost of the 650's doesn't matter as I already have them.

Wanted some input as to how much they actually leak. After doing some research I'm thinking I may just order them from Lawton Audio and get them out of the box with the Markl mod. Thoughts???

 

[Slackboy72]

Get a new wife who is deaf, then you can crank those Senns all the way up.

 

[MisterMoJo]

Better be sure you like them with the markl mod. You might buy them stock and then see if you want to change up to the modded. You might like the stock sound. But if you mod them you are stuck with modded headphones, unless you can find a buyer for a satisfactory price. Just be sure that is what you want. Remember, you gotta buy the headphones stock to begin with anyways- even if you get them from markl!

 

[Ham Sandwich]

I love my D2000 with the music you've listed. It is a more closed sound than my HD600 but it makes up for that in other ways.

I listened to a partially modded D2000 with JMoney V1 pads and my stock D2000 at a meet. The differences between the two were not that much to me at least for how I listen and what I tend to listen for. I've still got my D2000 as stock. I don't feel the need to mod them.

What's better than physical mods is to play with EQ. If you're willing to EQ you can have some fun with the D2000. And the best thing about EQ mods is that they're completely reversible. Use a parametric EQ like Electri-Q or similar and have fun.

The Denons have a recessed midrange. Sometimes that recessed midrange can suck something out of the mix or alter the timbre of an instrument. For example, sometimes I'll notice that a tenor sax sounds slightly more brassy than it should, missing some of the body and foundation that it should have in the tone. Bump up the mids with EQ and the timbre sounds right and the problem goes away. My basic EQ shape is similar to the inverse of the shape in the 1K to 3.5K region on the HeadRoom graph for the D2000.

I don't EQ the D2000 all the time. Just some of the time when I think it's worth the bother. With the EQ some of the jazz and some of the rock just sounds better. Other times the EQ doesn't actually make much difference. It depends a lot on the recording.

I like my D2000 and I like my HD600. Since getting the D2000 my HD600 have been getting less head time. The HD600 has become more of my classical music and vocals headphone.

 

[intricate28]

A couple of thoughts....

I thought I read that you can purchase the MD-2000 (Markl modded D-2000) straight from Lawton Audio?

I am extremely impatient and would had to order the D-2000, wait to get it, burn it in, like it but wan't more, and have to wait 2-4 weeks to get it back when I could have had them that way in 3 days

.

I've heard nothing but positive reviews about the Markl mod so doubt I would like the stock ones better (though maybe I'm out of my mind or just plain wrong).

Third, it seems almost impossible to use a Parametric EQ with iTunes........Also, have heard many say that using an EQ alters the sound and degrades the signal to the DAC/Amp.

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

Just saying, the D2000 leaks noise almost as bad as an open headphone... So it probably isn't a great choice for using in quiet time. A good option is the Beyerdynamic DT770 2005 600ohm which is nicely balanced and is a killer phone for trance. It needs to be hooked up to a good tube amp though.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by intricate28 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Third, it seems almost impossible to use a Parametric EQ with iTunes........Also, have heard many say that using an EQ alters the sound and degrades the signal to the DAC/Amp.

Your sig says you're doing FLAC files. Are you doing FLAC files with iTunes?

iTunes doesn't have the plug-in architecture to add in third party EQ. Can't add in a better EQ (as far as I'm aware).

EQ does alter the sound. That's the purpose of EQ. It also causes side effects that could be considered to degrade the sound. But when the altered and supposedly degraded sound sounds better than the unaltered pristine sound then I don't consider the degraded sound to be a bad thing. There are also differences in various digital EQs. Some are bad and some are good. Not all EQs are equal.

To make use of the better EQs you'd need to use a player like Foobar or MediaMonkey or J River or similar. Something that allows third party plug-in EQs.

You can get the MD-2000 direct from Lawton Audio. You can either send in a D2000 that you own or have Mark acquire one for you.

The D2000 with the Lawton Audio wood cups would be interesting. That's one that I want to hear. I'm not that enthusiastic about the basic markl mod that keeps the standard cups. But the larger volume wood cups, that could be interesting. I did get a brief listen to a LA-7000 at a local meet. Very nice. Mids are still a little recessed, but not as much as my D2000. That made me very curious to find out how similar wood cups would sound with a D2000.

A thing to keep in mind when reading reviews and comments about the markl mod and other tweaks is that when they speak of things like the mids becoming more prominent or the mids being brought out or such things, they mean that the mids are still recessed. Some of the changes are into the psycho-acoustical side of things where yeah it sounds like the bass is more tamed or the mids are more forward, but if you measured it on a FR graph the graph would be the same. Even the full bling LA-7000 mod leaves the mids recessed. The only way to actually bring the full midrange of frequencies into proper balance is to use EQ. And amazingly, bringing the mids up also has the side-effect of taming the bass a little (the bass no longer sounds as overdone in proportion to the mids).

One thing I like about my HD600 is that the mids are in good balance. That has spoiled me and may be why the recessed nature of the D2000 mids can sometimes bother me when it alters the timbre or sucks something out of the mix.

 

[intricate28]

Ham Sandwich,

Great comments. Love your pic, Pink Floyd is the best.

Let me clarify a couple of things. I am using FLAC files converted to AAC Lossless (should change my sig i guess though not sure if it matters as lossless is lossless). Agree with you on the point of equalized sounding being better even if its degraded if its sounds better. Though so far I haven't needed to EQ anything I listen to as I like the sound (seems more detailed without eq) as it is. That may be a side effect of having to use iTunes software eq. Again don't have much of a choice as I love the interface and don't want to go through the hassle of using a different one. Plus I like the sound I'm getting so far so why mess with a good thing.

Is it true that the D-2000's leak almost as bad as an open air phone? If so then they arn't really going to do me much good (when it comes to keeping the wife happy at night) and would be mainly wasted money that could be used for a recabling of my existing cans.

Any decent alternatives that are closed (non noise leaking)? I've tried shure IEM and loved the sound, but can not get them to be tolerable for more than half an hour. I've tried every tip they come with (small,med,large,foam,plastic,flange), so I guess my ears just arn't made for IEMs.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Yes, the D2000 leaks sound. Think of them as a semi-closed headphone. The D2000 leaks very noticeably less sound than my open HD600 when on a head, but they still leak. If you take the D2000 off your head when the music is playing they project sound like little iPod speakers. They really are like little tiny iPod speakers when you take the headphones off your head. The HD600 aren't like that when you take them off your head while the music is playing.

The D2000 actually has a gap between the cup and the body of the headphone. Sound leaks from that gap. That gap is what makes them semi-closed. I think that gap is what Denon calls an acoustic optimizer in their marketing literature (or maybe the acoustic optimizer is the plastic ring inside that the driver mounts on).

So the Denon is probably not the best choice for your needs.

Maybe an Ultrasone Pro 750 or Pro 900 would be worth a looksee? I don't know how well they keep sound from leaking. The Ultrasone have a sound that you'll either like or you won't. I heard a Pro 900 at a meet. The sound demonstrated some potential quirks during that short listen. If I was to consider getting one I'd need to give it a good audition first to know if it would suit me. They don't sound like a HD600 or D2000. They're more on the analytical/monitoring side of the sound spectrum than the HD600 or D2000.

 

[intricate28]

Hmmmmm. In a pickle now. Not really interested in the Ultrasones as from what I've heard they arn't going to pair well with my listening tastes.

As for the Denon's. I don't need them to fully kill the sound as my wife sleeps with ear plugs (not because of my headphones, she just a light sleeper). It's just that when I have Senn's at anything approaching moderate volume, it's enough for the treble sounds, or singing (Roger Waters wailing) to wake her up.

Would the Denon's block "enough" of the sound as to not have this be too noticable? Say at moderate to mid-hi volume?

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by intricate28 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Would the Denon's block "enough" of the sound as to not have this be too noticable? Say at moderate to mid-hi volume?

That's a toughie. The leakage is such that they would probably either be a little on the side of too much or a little on the side of minimally acceptable. You would definitely have to be sure to mute them or turn down the amp to 0 volume before taking them off your head. If you take them off your head while the music is playing she'll hear them more clearly than what leaks from the Senheisers.

An interesting aspect of the Denon sound compared to the HD600 sound is that the HD600 always wants you to turn it up louder when playing rock music. It can be subliminal or just outright obvious, but it always wants you to turn it up. Consequently you tend to listen to it louder. The D2000 doesn't have that effect on me. It doesn't keep tempting me to turn it up. It's happy at lower volumes. So I tend not to listen to it as loud as the Senns. (loud for me on the Senns isn't too loud, I don't listen loud enough to do hearing damage)

The Sure SRH840 might be an option. It doesn't have the Ultrasone quirks and is a smoother sound than the Ultrasones. You should be able to demo the Sure at a local pro audio store.