[yoster]

See that's the thing - Neutral sound is what I'm after. I was hoping this would even bring a warmth to it as some have said, but even comparing it to my own tube amps - it's not even in the same ballpark (again the headphone-out). Do we know which cap(caps) go only to the headphone section? I'm curious if perhaps one of the ones I purchased are bad.

And yeah I hear you on discrete parts. That's usually my mode, however since covid I've gone full-time WFH, which means using a headset a lot, which is a bit easier running to a single device than using a long pigtail - one end to headphone amp the other to mic-input. But it just might be what I have to do if I can't sort this out.

I received the Anthem audio metering/correction unit last night. Still playing around with it - and it was fun testing my Studio 530's and various amps with it, however sadly it doesn't work EXACTLY as I thought it would. I was under the impression that the sweep sound would be played from the software (the sound card). What it actually does is play the sweep directly from the PW-Link pre-amp. So it removes the source as a component, and thus only measures the amp and speakers (which I'm happy to report was flatter than I was expecting 'out of the box'.) I think I figured out a way to 'fool' it though. I'm going to remove the RCA outputs from the anthem unit, but tell the PC software to "run" - and then play my own sweep locally from the PC and see if it'll measure that. So it will still technically be 'sweeping' from the PW-Link pre-amp, but the actual audio-input will be coming from the PC. Hopefully it's not smart enough to realize that's what I'm doing

 

[yoster]

For anyone still looking at this thread (or even cares lol), an update.

I reverted back to stock. What was immediately apparent was the different in soundstage. I can definitely confirm that this mod DID increase sound stage. With open-back headphones, it makes you feel like you're listening to speakers in a room. When going back to stock, you still have that open-back sensation (which helps in this regard), but you lose a bit of that 'I feel like I'm in a room with speakers far away' feeling.

That said....

My glorious wonderful low-end response is BACK baby! And the trade-off (for me) is worth it. I don't know what it is, but something about this mod takes the 'guts' out of the low-end - with EQ sliders unable to compensate. I can now listen to my music at length without getting frustrated lol.

Anyway, it was a fun experiment, and it gave me an excuse to play with my soldering iron and hot glue gun, but stock will be the way for me going forward! Might try some op-amps in the future but we'll see.