Schiit has a good scalable range of amps, I believe Clear will match very nicely their tube amps, namely Lyr2 which you have the option of tube rolling or a choice of their SS LISST modules, seems a great price/quality option.
I haven't compared this extensively with any other amps, but so far I'm very happy with my Clears out of the Lyr 2. One day I will bring my Clears to a meet to see what happens when I plug them into something exotic and truly expensive, but no complaints from me at the moment.
Oh, and bringing them to the meet will be made all that much easier by the inclusion of the balanced cable ( which i'm not currently using, obv ) and carrying case
I spent 3h1/2 at a store comparing the Clear with the Utopia, Clear, Susvara, HE1000 V2, D8000, LCD-4, LCD-MX4, as the LCDi4,
I found that with my DAC-amp (RME ADI-2 PRO in NOS mode) which I had taken along and with the tracks I had taken (mostly metal)
the Clear bested in detail retrieval, SNR (cleanness of background), and imaging all the others except the Utopia
and that for drum attack sit seemed on par with the Susvara (with this RME which can deliver 2,9 W per channel, which may not be enough for the Susvara), both behind the Utopia.
I also tested the Clear with a Hugo 2 and they were just as great as with the RME.
I loved them and promised the store I will order them
What's confused me about the different HRTF's and such is that yeah, we all hear things differently but we grew up hearing the same sounds differently all of our life. What I'm saying is, two people hear the McDonald's jingle and know what it sounds like even though if we recorded their HRTF's they wouldn't be the same. So we correlate sounds based on experience and can agree that certain things sound the same. This probably came out wrong but I hope my point makes sense.
In essense, yes. As far as I understand it (and I don't understand anything very far, maybe a few inches at most) when you're listening to a point source some distance away from you, the sound wave generated by the source hits your head, bends around your head, and is affected by the shape of your head, your outer ear, and your ear canal before your eardrums pick it up. So if we were to shove a microphone into your ear (not very pleasant) and record what is there, it would be different than what would be in another person's ear, but because we spend our whole lives affected by these effects, we consider them normal and filter them out. In essense, we have our own built-in compensation curves that depend on our anatomy. But two point sources originating just outside the ear are not affected by the shape of the head, and don't hit the outer ear in the same way, but your brain is still using the same baseline compensation curve, and because this curve is different from person to person, it now this leads you astray, creating actual differences in what people hear.
At least, that is what I think is happening.
Oh yeah, the Clears. They're pretty good. My comfort concerns didn't pan out, even over 8+ hours daily they're okay. The headband padding is wide so it distributes the weight.
They do, however, make all badly recorded material sound like trumpets.
FWIW in relation to the Clear and different amps I tried them with my Pioneer U-05 and later my Sony TA-ZH1ES. They were more or less the same - sounding great on both amps ... albeit one is three times the cost of the other. Replace the Clears with Utopia and it was totally different. The Utopia were very bright on the Pioneer to the point they were horrible. Put the Utopia with the Sony amp and they were simply stunning ... so yes, the Clear is easier to use with any amp in my rather limited but revealing test ... the Utopia is far more picky !
FWIW in relation to the Clear and different amps I tried them with my Pioneer U-05 and later my Sony TA-ZH1ES. They were more or less the same - sounding great on both amps ... albeit one is three times the cost of the other. Replace the Clears with Utopia and it was totally different. The Utopia were very bright on the Pioneer to the point they were horrible. Put the Utopia with the Sony amp and they were simply stunning ... so yes, the Clear is easier to use with any amp in my rather limited but revealing test ... the Utopia is far more picky !
Thanks for the further confirmation, that is exactly the point I have been arguing. Bottom line, if you have any decently powered and clean amp, the Clear will do just fine.
Thanks for the further confirmation, that is exactly the point I have been arguing. Bottom line, if you have any decently powered and clean amp, the Clear will do just fine.
Not necessarily, I've seen used Jots go around $250. And arguably some of the most expensive amps like Eddie Currents are single ended. As an electrical engineer, I'm not a believer that balanced is inherently better than single ended for headphones. I'm a believer that some amps gimp their single ended outputs like Mjo2 and that the balanced output is implemented better, thus a comparison between the two might favor the balanced output. But I would take a well implemented singled ended output over a poorly implemented balanced output any day.
Yes I’m with u. I've listened mostly with a balanced cable out of a viole tric 280.. I will spend some time comparing the two outputs. With the Sen 800s. The single output had more bass
Back to the sound of the Clear, listening to Tin Pan Alley, off of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Couldn’t Stand the Weather (Deluxe Addition). The speed, ability to start and stop on a dime as Stevie guitar plucking is astounding. Listening via the BlueSound Node 2 > Soerkus Vishine R3R DAC/Amp> Clear.
You can get a Questyle 400i to drive them very nicely in balanced use. It’s not a low end amp solution, it’s a very nice true mid-fi entering into higher end amp range. $800 is MAP
You can get a Questyle 400i to drive them very nicely in balanced use. It’s not a low end amp solution, it’s a very nice true mid-fi entering into higher end amp range. $800 is MAP
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