stuartmc
500+ Head-Fier
That's the thing with the HD800, it's head-and-shoulders more resolving than anything except perhaps for Stax gear, digging down into those low level signals where the "complex distortion" (as described by Nelson Pass) that's created by use of negative feedback in multi-stage designs can absolutely destroy the natural, open ambiance that I'm hearing currently - again, after 10 months of trying to get there. Really, it's that wealth of low-level, micro-detailed information that resides just above a low-noise, transparent blackness, that can enhance your perception of space and imaging, and define the natural timbre of voices and instruments. Though not due to negative feedback, I find the Schiit Vali to be especially good at destroying the timbre that distinguishes one voice from another or one brass instrument from another. People who recommend the Schiit Vali for use with the HD800 are just happy as can be to smother the excruciating resolution of the HD800 with a veil that, to my ears, makes everything have a similar timbre. It reminds me of my mother-in-law's preserves - blackberry,raspberry, strawberry - the way she makes them, they all taste the same! And frankly, having had both the HD600 and the HD650, in my opinion, neither of them are, in themselves, sufficiently transparent to judge the transparency of upstream equipment. Which can be a good thing, believe me!
OK, enough of rambling about the impact of negative feedback.
Mike
Sounds like you have been on a quest brother. I too had a quest years ago (about 20 actually). I was in search of my personal Holy Grail of Tube amps. I embarked on a two year mission and well over twenty (yes, 20 --ridiculous!) amps passed through my listening room and I tried my best to comment on them in a series of articles I wrote for Positive Feedback magazine. For lack of a better name, I called it "Tube Fest", then "Son of Tube Fest" and then I think it was "Beneath the Planet of the Son of Tube Fest"..ha ha, you get the point, I was having fun and the quest was very personal. One of the most interesting amps I experienced was the Manley SE/PP 300B. I called this one the "lab experiment" because for the first time you could throw a switch on the same amp and hear the difference between Single Ended and Push-Pull operation. The other slick lab experiment (and I know you are going to love this Mike) was a rotating knob that let you dial in negative feedback from 0 to 10db in 1 db steps. This was an incredible eye, or should I say, ear, opener. The differences in the sound were extraordinary and I had no idea how deletrious negative feedback would be. I found the draw backs of negative feedback to be several orders of magnitude greater than the SE/PP difference. As I dialed in more feedback, the soundstage depth decreased, like the doors closing on Mystery Science Theater 2000, the micro-dynamics got progressively sucked dry and the midrange bloom became a blip. I also found feedback to be an equal opportunity spoiler – the effect was more dramatic when operating in SE, but it still ruined my day when in PP mode.
By the way, I entirely agree with you that the real magic is found in the very low level information that rides very close to the noise floor. I used the "draining lake" analogy when writing about a wonderful amplifier that I actually described as my "Holy Grail" at the end of the "Tube Fest" pilgrimage. It was the Blue Circle BC-2 hybrid monoblocks that conjured up this lake analogy. What I said in that review was this:
"During my listening sessions, it was a common experience for me to detect a new sound and have to back track to confirm that it wasn't my imagination. It was as if I were sitting on a hill gazing out over a familiar lake, when slowly the water was drained and mysterious rocks, stumps and branches began to poke up through the placid surface. It was all very natural without surreal, in-your-face detail."
Ultra low distortion lets some pretty amazing stuff poke its head up out of the noise floor. But it’s not just the discreet little sonic events that are so captivating — it’s the generalized, pervasive sense of the acoustic space that really gets me. An almost continuous flow of subtle cues tells you about the size of the hall they’re playing in, who’s closer to the rear wall and sidewalls and what the relative humidity is. Just kidding about the latter, but you get my point — much of what I sense as "live" resides in and around the noise/distortion floor. The more you lower that floor, the more "live mojo" comes through.
I'm an old dog when it comes to the ultra high-end big rigs, but I'm almost virginal when it comes to the headphone scene, so you all need to be kind as my cherry is being popped, lol. I do know enough to agree with you that the HD600's are not the ultimate resolving tool with which to ultimately judge and/or critique the upstream components transparency. That being said, the fact that I CAN clearly hear these laudible characteristics of the H10, tells me that they must not be very subtle. This H10 is at an "everyman" price and sounds fantastic with quality "everyman" cans. I obviously have no opinion on how it performs with the likes of the HD800 or LCD-3, but from what FlySweep has to say, I surmise that it scales up very nicely.
Regards,
Stu
