[greggf]

I often use my (really cheap) Sony DVD player to spin CDs when burning in headphones, in order to spare my normal CD player wear 'n' tear.

With the 701 and 650 (and 595 and 770 and 580 and 600..........) the Sony sounds like mud. The sound is very congested, everything runs together, it sounds slow and sloppy, everything is very indistinct. The DirecTV sound or its XM channels are even worse.

My first reaction, upon listening, is that it's like I've suffered a minor stroke. And it sure isn't just because the headphones aren't broken in yet........

I'd say headphones>source>amp, but as others are saying, that's tough to swallow, because sources and source quality change fastest AND the cost can be a bear.

 

[pageman99]

I guess I followed a fairly standard pattern. Headphones first, amp second, source third.

My reasoning (having come from the computer world), was that it's just bits, 0's and 1's. They can't be incorrect, or sound different, right?

Wrong!

Took awhile to realize that source is very close to phones in importance, if not more important.

We'll see after my new gear arrives (see sig), but I suspect I'm ready to join Team Source First.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azure /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just saw somebody's signature and it looks like this guy's rig will be iPod Shuffle -> Singlepower Extreme Platinum -> Grado GS1000

At least he/she could use an iPod with line out capability.

 

[Mindless]

Yeah, crap in = crap out.

If you don't have a proper source you won't be able to utilize the rest of your system to it's full potential. I've known this for a long time but I fully understood it when I tried my current source, the Linn Ikemi. I went ahead and bought it yesterday. Sure, it cost $2000 but it's a hell lot better than paying $3500 for it new.

With it, the music is brought to a whole different level of separation, clarity and musicality. It's just above anything else I've ever used. I found my Opera great as a DAC when used with my Denon DCD-1520 transport, but they pale in comparison with the Ikemi. Sure, the Linn was 20 times the price but honestly, it was well worth it and now I don't have to worry about source upgrades since it's pretty much the most high-end you'll ever need for a headphone or speaker system.

Never has HD600 been such a great headphone for me. They seem to reproduce all genres of music with ease now, while before they had trouble preforming rock and anything remotely bassy.

Now, it's just a matter of waiting for my GS1000 headphones.

Bottom line: A good source is well worth the money.

 

[hciman77]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asr /img/forum/go_quote.gif A situation of ignorance on the whole audiophile concept - people just don't know where the core of hi-fi sound exists.

Outside the Audiophile World I would imagine that most people are more concerned with listening to music than worrying about extracting the last ounce out of their systems. Only in places like this one is there likely to be much debate about it.

As for where the core of HiFi sound, well HiFi is an abbreviation of High Fidelity, this is a point of departure, for me Fidelity means true to the source, for others it is some set of sound characteristics that are deemed pleasurable or desirable. The HiFi Core is very open to interpretation. If a cheapo DVD player can output an accurate rendering of what is on a 16 bit CD then by one definition it is Hi Fi. If a $1000 tubed CD player produces a FR curve that looks like the Loch Ness monster but is raved about by Stereophile or some such then that too may be called Hifi. It depends on your perspective. If a $200 DVD player is indistinguishable from a $12,000 CD player then either both are hifi or neither - regardless of price, but dependent on who you ask.

Quote:

Why do you think so many people listen to digital files on their DAPs or computers?

Because it sounds pretty good (my DAP that is, not my computer sound card, which is rubbish, and measurably so as well

) would be my personal answer

Quote:

Usually the people who listen to optical discs have comparatively higher-end systems.

That is a bit of a generalization I fear and very dependent on your sample.

Quote:

Most people are just unitiated, they don't know what they don't know - they think amps are a fix-all for headphones that don't sound ideal, they don't know that headphones like the K701 and HD650 were built for audiophiles and not the mass market,

I think you mean that they dont share your perspective, a feeling I know pretty well around here

 

[DJShadow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif i agree with all this. the G08 has by far been the biggest improvement ever made in my system. the music has really never sounded better: a huge sense of space and depth, great detail and texture, and a very natural non-digital sound to the music. it does not play; it flows. other upgrades - source or amp - was more of okay this sounds a little better, a little more this and that, etc, not bad; but the G08, was immediate: wow! this is a serious improvement. it took me all of 5 seconds to confirm how much better it was when compared to my other sources. in general, i rank the importance of gear as Source - Headphones - Amp, assuming of course that each component in the chain is at least of minimal competence, which has also been mentioned by others.

Your thoughts resemble mine in retrospect (different equipment of course).

Everyone has made great contributions so far. I'd like to see this thread stickied or at least make new comers aware of it. The drawback however is that people who need to be informed probably don't frequent the sources forum in the first place (as Azure pointed out, the disproportionate ratio of posts in the amp versus sources forum).

 

[Mindless]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJShadow /img/forum/go_quote.gif The drawback however is that people who need to be informed probably don't frequent the sources forum in the first place (as Azure pointed out, the disproportionate ratio of posts in the amp versus sources forum).

This is because high-end amplifiers are so hyped. Sure, amplifiers add further detail, depth, clarity and whatnot to the music, but it dosen't render the music (or so to say) like the CD player (or DAC) does.

People have been mislead (unintentionally of course) to believe that amplifiers play a much greater role in a headphone system than a proper source does. People think that the headphone out of their $300 reciever is uncapable of "properly" driving / powering their headphones, which is a unfortunate misunderstanding. A $300 reciever from 20-30 years ago is fine to use, hell, it probably packs more power than much of the dinky stuff produced today.

I don't have that many years of experience when it comes to headphone amplifiers but honestly, the differences between the ones I've heard are almost unaudible. Comparing my Opera ($1100) and my brothers EAR90 ($700+), it's quite hard to decide which one is better.

However, when comparing sources in similar priceranges, many sound very different from eachother. You can often tell right away exactly how and what is different, which for me has been very hard with amplifiers and sometimes taken me weeks to do.

 

[d-cee]

i personally think source upgrades cause the rest of your system to improve significantly, if your headphones + amp have good synergy, an improved source will elevate their performance even higher

my thinking is that it's about the weakest link in the chain, it all depends what's in your system at any given time to determine what upgrade would have the most effect

i think the reason sources don't get as much love is that without headphones/speakers people wouldn't be able to hear anything. without the proper amps to drive said phones/speakers they sound bad/distort (usually, except for easily driven phones) but most sources will sound semi-acceptable, even portables on first listen

over the long term though source upgrades are much more appreciated.

in my experience, my headphones didn't sound all to different because my source and amp weren't that good and very coloured, then when i upgraded amps i could better distinguish between headphones, as well as sources, but then with better sources headphones and amp all yield noticable improvements

i guess amps are like a gateway, between a starting point (source) and a destination (headphones) may not be as active a component, but essential nonetheless, hence i cannot rank importance of headphones/source/amp

 

[HiWire]

High-end sources are expensive. It's much easier to get sucked into the headphone and amp hype, with their lower entry costs. Also, home sources are harder to carry around to meets, and people often don't have the opportunity to hear a good variety of high-end sources - either because of snotty hi-fi shops or geographical issues.

 

[Agent Kang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dept_of_Alchemy /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm one of those who subscribe to the transducer>amp>source camp. Since the distortion from headphones is higher than amp and which is in turn higher than the source, it makes sense to me that diminishing return sets in faster in the source which has less room to improve upon compared to the analogue stages.

What's the point of amplifying a crappy signal? Distortion minimization as a primary objective means very little in this case. The digital-to-analogue conversion, which is one of the main role of a source is often understated IMO. Having tried various amps/cables/sources, I'd say the biggest marginal improvement in SQ came from upgrading my source.

 

[tbonner1]

Transducers (speakers and headphones) have the biggest impact on sound colorations.

 

[ccotenj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tbonner1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Transducers (speakers and headphones) have the biggest impact on sound colorations.

x2... and amplification and source aren't even the same ballpark...

imo, what comes out of your system is 95% (at least) transducers, they are by far the most important part of your system... you can split the other 5% between amplification/source in whatever way pleases you, but the changes in those result in "marginal" (at best) improvement, whereas changes in transducers can result in "true night and day" differences...

 

[vcoheda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccotenj /img/forum/go_quote.gif x2... and amplification and source aren't even the same ballpark... imo, what comes out of your system is 95% (at least) transducers, they are by far the most important part of your system... you can split the other 5% between amplification/source in whatever way pleases you, but the changes in those result in "marginal" (at best) improvement, whereas changes in transducers can result in "true night and day" differences...

care to give some examples of your source/amp experience.

 

[CarbonTi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccotenj /img/forum/go_quote.gif x2... and amplification and source aren't even the same ballpark... imo, what comes out of your system is 95% (at least) transducers, they are by far the most important part of your system... you can split the other 5% between amplification/source in whatever way pleases you, but the changes in those result in "marginal" (at best) improvement, whereas changes in transducers can result in "true night and day" differences...

OK, I'll play. Don't agree with this. It sounds much like the writings found in the old Stereo Review magazine, one of the forefathers of hi-fi journalism. They'd test stereo gear by measuring frequency response, total harmonic distortion percentages and a laundry list of other measurements. The editorial inference was that it was possible to quantify sound quality based on measurements and that components that measured to the same specs shouild sound identical.

Not much credence was placed on the role of components on shaping the sound signature before its emanating from the speakers - to Stereo Review, the transducers were the only part of the component chain that was actually heard. In following Stereo Review's lead, Consumer Reports would test mass market hi-fi gear in a similar fashion. I'd conjecture that this is where the advice of placing greater emphasis on speakers came into the mainstream. All the quality amps and preamps didn't color sound because they did their function as straight wire with gain.

Or so they believed way back when...

Source makes a lot of difference to me, as others have said "Garbage in = Garbage out". You could hear the difference yourself by using a $20 Chaintech av710 soundcard and $20 Koss KSC75 phones - simply AB switch the HP plug between the regular and the hi-rez output jack on the card. Nothing done downstream from the regular output could close that sonic gap to the hi-rez output. Using inferior source alters the cliche of "It doesn't get any better than this" to "It won't get any better than this".

I guess that puts me in the "source first, the everything after

" camp.

 

[Mindless]

Quote:

Quote: Originally Posted by ccotenj /img/forum/go_quote.gif x2... and amplification and source aren't even the same ballpark... imo, what comes out of your system is 95% (at least) transducers, they are by far the most important part of your system... you can split the other 5% between amplification/source in whatever way pleases you, but the changes in those result in "marginal" (at best) improvement, whereas changes in transducers can result in "true night and day" differences... Quote: Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif care to give some examples of your source/amp experience.

I'm going to have to ask the same thing. What kind of experience do you have of A/B'ing or testing different amps and sources in general?

Sure, in the end it is the transducers that relay the music into your ears and brain but that dosen't mean the headphone or speaker is responsible for most (as you portray it) of the "musical creation". They play a part surely, but they don't answer for 95% of the change in sound.

Comparing low-end to high-end, I'm sure a set of speakers or a headphone could answer for a 95% change in sound, but if you compare high-end with high-end, the differences are much smaller. The characteristics of the tranducers may vary greatly but they both produce sound of equally well. The change would at best be a few % difference going from one tranducer to another, the rest would simply be coloration and / or personal preference.

I used to be a headphone + amplifier-first believer but I realize today that sources play a much greater role. I thought I had hit the roof with my HD600 using my old Denon but when I upgraded to my Linn Ikemi, the possibilities of HD600 seemed endless. The improvement is beyond anything I've experienced when changing headphone or amplifier.

People seem so set on upgrading their headphones and amplification that they totally forget about the source which causes them to be unsatisfied with their high-end headphones and amplifiers. They say "What the hell, I paid $xxxx for this?", yes, you did. One shouldn't expect great change when going from one amp or headphone to another when using the same low-end source.

Because, as we have mentioned before: Crap in = crap out.

With my new system, I've kept everything in pretty much the same pricerange ($1000-2000) except the interconnects. I've spent $1300 on headphones, $1100 on amplification, $2100 on a source and about $300 on interconnects. To me, it's pure audio bliss. Sure, the $2100 on the source hurt like hell the second I bought it but I don't regret buying it now when I can listen to this beautiful music everyday, for many years to come.