Maxvla
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2002
- Posts
- 8,565
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- 654
I got new toys tonight so I must post!
So here's the deal. I've had these Sennheiser HD580 for about 10 years. In that time I've gone mostly without an amp because both of the amps I bought, both solid state, including a Gilmore Lite, offered me virtually no change in performance. I became pretty skeptical of amping, but finally decided I'd give tubes a try with a Little Dot MKIII with stock tubes (GE + Russian).
Got it home, set it for 300ohm, and flipped it on and let it warm up for about 20 minutes while I got some food ready. Sat down with a pile of discs of many genres, and 7 hours later I could hardly pull myself off my loveseat! There it was; the expansive soundstage, the pristine clarity, the smooth timbre of the instruments, I finally had it. Until this experience I had thought speakers would always be the better way to experience music, but no longer. The music through my headphones was lush and beautiful. The classical music was powerful and soothing at the same time, nearly making me fall asleep, but still awake. It was a strange state to be sure. Folk and jazz were equally amazing, but in a different, more lively, way. I concluded that HD580s, as others mention, are not the greatest pop, rock, or r+b phones, but the music was still light years ahead of what I had heard before. Perhaps rolling would make this setup better for pop/rock, but I'd rather get a different headphone altogether (and had planned on doing so) to complement my HD580s. One thing that was strange with mostly the pop music was that the soundstage with this amp/headphone actually sounded TOO big and it was quite distracting. I had thought about DT880, but I'm open to suggestions for a rock/pop set of cans.
After a few hours I realized I might prefer HD650s to my HD580s with what people call a darker sound. I kept feeling on certain songs that there was more to the low end that wasn't coming through perfectly.
OK, OK I'm a believer! The right amp can make a huge difference.
So here's the deal. I've had these Sennheiser HD580 for about 10 years. In that time I've gone mostly without an amp because both of the amps I bought, both solid state, including a Gilmore Lite, offered me virtually no change in performance. I became pretty skeptical of amping, but finally decided I'd give tubes a try with a Little Dot MKIII with stock tubes (GE + Russian).
Got it home, set it for 300ohm, and flipped it on and let it warm up for about 20 minutes while I got some food ready. Sat down with a pile of discs of many genres, and 7 hours later I could hardly pull myself off my loveseat! There it was; the expansive soundstage, the pristine clarity, the smooth timbre of the instruments, I finally had it. Until this experience I had thought speakers would always be the better way to experience music, but no longer. The music through my headphones was lush and beautiful. The classical music was powerful and soothing at the same time, nearly making me fall asleep, but still awake. It was a strange state to be sure. Folk and jazz were equally amazing, but in a different, more lively, way. I concluded that HD580s, as others mention, are not the greatest pop, rock, or r+b phones, but the music was still light years ahead of what I had heard before. Perhaps rolling would make this setup better for pop/rock, but I'd rather get a different headphone altogether (and had planned on doing so) to complement my HD580s. One thing that was strange with mostly the pop music was that the soundstage with this amp/headphone actually sounded TOO big and it was quite distracting. I had thought about DT880, but I'm open to suggestions for a rock/pop set of cans.
After a few hours I realized I might prefer HD650s to my HD580s with what people call a darker sound. I kept feeling on certain songs that there was more to the low end that wasn't coming through perfectly.
OK, OK I'm a believer! The right amp can make a huge difference.
