wyki
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2009
- Posts
- 62
- Likes
- 28
For my second rig, I have a Pioneer DVD player (DV-490V). I have it hooked up to my computer screen via an HDMI-DVI-D cable with excellent results, saving me the purchase of a dreaded television, but that's another story.
It was an afterthought that I might use it with CDs, but I have been very impressed with the sound quality. I have it connected via its RCA outputs (this model has no digital output) to a headphone amp of sorts that was gathering dust in my closet: a Sennheiser Lucas. It is a surround sound processor, and with movies, the result is very good. There are countless buttons on the device that let you adjust it for music ("Hall" instead of "Theater"), but at the end of the day, the sound quality is mediocre. And there is one problem worse than that: while it sounds good on soft passages, in loud passages there is distortion. The interesting thing is that this problem does not occur with DVDs, even when there is a very loud noise. Thus I presume that for some reason the standard CD output is louder than DVD audio, and it's maxing out my little old amp.
Would it solve this problem to get a better headphone amp, or would the high input level distort even something much better? I have an old Sony boombox, CD (plus radio and tape) only of course, and curiously the Lucas does not distort when I play CDs on it. But the processor is much worse, so the result is distinctly mediocre. Of course, I could always get a good single disc player (the prices have certainly come down, even for say the Onkyo SACD/CD player), but this is a second rig whose main purpose (unlike my main one) is not music. So I'm trying to gauge the total cost of change before I start an avalanche of purchases. Many thanks.
PS: I think I've answered my own question. I tried the connection to my Bose computer speakers instead of to the Lucas and then used the Bose's headphone output. No distortion. I wouldn't buy Bose for its headphone output (in fact, I sold two Bose systems recently to build a little fund for headgear), but clearly the Lucas is exceptionally vulnerable to loud inputs.
It was an afterthought that I might use it with CDs, but I have been very impressed with the sound quality. I have it connected via its RCA outputs (this model has no digital output) to a headphone amp of sorts that was gathering dust in my closet: a Sennheiser Lucas. It is a surround sound processor, and with movies, the result is very good. There are countless buttons on the device that let you adjust it for music ("Hall" instead of "Theater"), but at the end of the day, the sound quality is mediocre. And there is one problem worse than that: while it sounds good on soft passages, in loud passages there is distortion. The interesting thing is that this problem does not occur with DVDs, even when there is a very loud noise. Thus I presume that for some reason the standard CD output is louder than DVD audio, and it's maxing out my little old amp.
Would it solve this problem to get a better headphone amp, or would the high input level distort even something much better? I have an old Sony boombox, CD (plus radio and tape) only of course, and curiously the Lucas does not distort when I play CDs on it. But the processor is much worse, so the result is distinctly mediocre. Of course, I could always get a good single disc player (the prices have certainly come down, even for say the Onkyo SACD/CD player), but this is a second rig whose main purpose (unlike my main one) is not music. So I'm trying to gauge the total cost of change before I start an avalanche of purchases. Many thanks.
PS: I think I've answered my own question. I tried the connection to my Bose computer speakers instead of to the Lucas and then used the Bose's headphone output. No distortion. I wouldn't buy Bose for its headphone output (in fact, I sold two Bose systems recently to build a little fund for headgear), but clearly the Lucas is exceptionally vulnerable to loud inputs.
