Jorg
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2004
- Posts
- 429
- Likes
- 10
I had a week with the top amplifier from Audio-Technica. Here are my impressions:
Headphones that I had large (>10 hours) experience with:
Grado SR-60;SR-225;SR-325;RS-2;RS-1;PS-1 everything with both bowls and flats
Sennheiser HD580;HD600;HD650
Audio-technica ATH-L3000; ATH-D40fs
AKG K-1000; K-501 with old pads
Etymotic ER-4P/S
Beyerdynamic DT880
Amps:
Grado RA-1 old version; RA-1 new version
Headroom MAX w/SA 2004
Corda HA-2 MKII
ASL OTL32 don't remember what tubes
Russian DIY tube preamp with 300B tubes
I've used HD650 with stock cable, SR225 and RS-1 this week. From the first minutes of listening to it I was impressed a lot. No other amp could make me forget about it just because the sound was always not the way I want to hear it. But DHA3000 allowed me to tune both RS-1 and HD650 easily. I can tune HD650 to sound Grado-like and still with that soundstage while I can never get good soundstage from RS-1. Anyway I can tame it a bit moving the treble down.
The sound is warm and even warmer than the MAX and very close to the 300B DIY amp. The amp that I used most was the RA-1 and it served me well with electronic music, but for classical/vocal music it was to edgy and "sharp". DHA3000 is smooth and I like listening to Mahler/Tchaikovsky with it.
I tried tuning the sound that way with the OSS/3D EQ (I feed DHA3000 with the signal from foobar2k->chaintech AV-710->glass toslink), but I felt that it degrades the sound. I think DHA3000's EQ is just tuned to work best with headphones.
As for the impedance match, I think it's just a gain switch
After few hours of listening I opened it's bottom and was just shocked. It uses Blackgates! From the first look it's obvious that Japanese engineers put a lot of effort to make this amp and used highest level components. The pot is soooo smooth. When I listen to it, my gilfriend comes to me to touch it She also likes it's look a lot. It's perfectly elegant.
All I can say is that the sound is just flawless when I tune it to my tastes - rich, warm, smooth, detailed and, most importantly, very enjoyable. That's by a good margin the best amp that I've heard and I honestly I can't think of a better amp. My cousin auditioned it recently in Japan with the Qualia 010 and liked it a lot also. He said that the EQ definately helps with it's bass (his basic setup is HD650+ASL OTL32). I wish I had the L3000 around, but soon I'll be able to audition it with the MDR-R10 and in July, when I'll visit my cousin in Tokyo, I hope to audition it with 010 too
Headphones that I had large (>10 hours) experience with:
Grado SR-60;SR-225;SR-325;RS-2;RS-1;PS-1 everything with both bowls and flats
Sennheiser HD580;HD600;HD650
Audio-technica ATH-L3000; ATH-D40fs
AKG K-1000; K-501 with old pads
Etymotic ER-4P/S
Beyerdynamic DT880
Amps:
Grado RA-1 old version; RA-1 new version
Headroom MAX w/SA 2004
Corda HA-2 MKII
ASL OTL32 don't remember what tubes
Russian DIY tube preamp with 300B tubes
I've used HD650 with stock cable, SR225 and RS-1 this week. From the first minutes of listening to it I was impressed a lot. No other amp could make me forget about it just because the sound was always not the way I want to hear it. But DHA3000 allowed me to tune both RS-1 and HD650 easily. I can tune HD650 to sound Grado-like and still with that soundstage while I can never get good soundstage from RS-1. Anyway I can tame it a bit moving the treble down.
The sound is warm and even warmer than the MAX and very close to the 300B DIY amp. The amp that I used most was the RA-1 and it served me well with electronic music, but for classical/vocal music it was to edgy and "sharp". DHA3000 is smooth and I like listening to Mahler/Tchaikovsky with it.
I tried tuning the sound that way with the OSS/3D EQ (I feed DHA3000 with the signal from foobar2k->chaintech AV-710->glass toslink), but I felt that it degrades the sound. I think DHA3000's EQ is just tuned to work best with headphones.
As for the impedance match, I think it's just a gain switch
After few hours of listening I opened it's bottom and was just shocked. It uses Blackgates! From the first look it's obvious that Japanese engineers put a lot of effort to make this amp and used highest level components. The pot is soooo smooth. When I listen to it, my gilfriend comes to me to touch it She also likes it's look a lot. It's perfectly elegant.
All I can say is that the sound is just flawless when I tune it to my tastes - rich, warm, smooth, detailed and, most importantly, very enjoyable. That's by a good margin the best amp that I've heard and I honestly I can't think of a better amp. My cousin auditioned it recently in Japan with the Qualia 010 and liked it a lot also. He said that the EQ definately helps with it's bass (his basic setup is HD650+ASL OTL32). I wish I had the L3000 around, but soon I'll be able to audition it with the MDR-R10 and in July, when I'll visit my cousin in Tokyo, I hope to audition it with 010 too
