[bumpyhead]

Hello to fellow audiophiles out there.

After upgrading my headphone from T5P 2nd to Sennheiser HD800S, I've changed my headphone amp/dac to HDV 820 from the good old Marantz HD DAC1.
Lately, I've added Adam Audio A77X monitor speakers pairing them with HDV 820 as DAC.
So far, I am utterly happy with the sound it reproduces.

Much to my dismay however, the more a man has, the more he desires. Now I can't shake off the thought that this amazing monitor speakers may sound much better if I hook them up with a better or a proper DAC.

The product I ended up after days of browsing internet reviews is Matrix Element X or Sabre Pro.
But I couldn't find (not surprising though) any direct comparison between HDV 820 and the Matrix DACs.

Would there be a significant enough sonic improvement if I move to Element X from HDV 820?
I'd appreciate very much if anyone could give me some inputs or advice.

 

[raoultrifan]

Hello,

Couldn't find any measurements as well, just some info from the manufacturer: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sennheiser-q-a-hdv-820-digital-amplifier.855156/page-3#post-13766671/
However, strictly based on synthetic measurements, I see that Matrix Element X is about perfect and definitely the distortions over noise are completely inaudibly for any human. Also, HDV820 unsigned drivers caused some frustration among Windows user recently.

In terms of headphone amplifier power there are pretty similar, with a bit advantage over the HDV820, but without having proper measurements done I would chose the Matrix any time, given it's pristine measurements. However, I managed to find some measurements for the previous HDVD800 model here: https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/dac/sennheiser-hdvd-800.php and I suppose the HDV820 should measure a bit better.

On my Mackie MR6mk3 studio monitors I was unable to hear any sound differences between a clean sound free of harmonics (with harmonics below -100dB) and a sound enriched of harmonics with Adobe Audition (-50dB away from the fundamental). That means that speaker's drivers are not able to accurately reproduce the sound and the most distortions are actually caused by the speakers and headphones and not by the DAC, well...unless the DAC is really crappy and has mains hum and really bad harmonics profile.

Your ADAM monitors are way better than my Mackies, but still don't think you'll be able to hear the 2nd harmonic if it's lower than -50dB, same applies to the 3rd harmonic too. Of course, having the 5th or 6th harmonic at -50dB will definitely be audible, but this is something you could experiment yourself in an A/B test at home; just need Adobe Audition (or ping me directly to give you the audio files) and the Foobar with the A/B test plugin or simply wait until the file finishes and the next one begins playing.

Although I do like the internals of the Marantz DAC, there's no way to measure at the same performance level as the Matrix X and I really think the HDV820 might be better than the Marantz, so given your two statements "So far, I am utterly happy with the sound it reproduces" and "Much to my dismay however, the more a man has, the more he desires", please allow me to "advise" you:
- do the harmonics test I told you about and see if you can spot any differences, and at what level of THD you can actually hear the difference (do the test for 100Hz, 1Khz and 10KHz)
- if you can find a buyer for the HDV820 (and for the old Marantz, of course) and you can spot some differences between a 0.1% THD harmonics enriched sinewave vs. the original sinewave test file with your headphones or with the Adams studio monitors, then go for the Matrix Element X.

 

[bumpyhead]

- do the harmonics test I told you about and see if you can spot any differences, and at what level of THD you can actually hear the difference (do the test for 100Hz, 1Khz and 10KHz)
- if you can find a buyer for the HDV820 (and for the old Marantz, of course) and you can spot some differences between a 0.1% THD harmonics enriched sinewave vs. the original sinewave test file with your headphones or with the Adams studio monitors, then go for the Matrix Element X.

Appreciate it very much. Will follow your advice and see how it turns out.
However, I am not that "crazy" about whether I can tell any difference from each different sonic range or pitch or whatever,
My ears and brain for music are too subjective to dig into such minute level.

I gather from your advice that it will be a hasty move for me to discard the HDV820 for the fame of the Matrix Element while I don't use any streaming.
Thanks again,

 

[iDesign]

The HDV 820 makes sense if you’re using it exclusively with the HD 800 series headphones since its tuning is optimized for them. For other headphones, you may or may not find it to suit your preferences in the long run.

 

[bumpyhead]

The HDV 820 makes sense if you’re using it exclusively with the HD 800 series headphones since its tuning is optimized for them. For other headphones, you may or may not find it to suit your preferences in the long run.

That and the balaced XLR output was the whole point of buying HDV820 although I was perfectly happy with the Marantz with HD800S.
My new drooling for a DAC this time is since I have the studio monitor speakers which I like so much, I keep wondering what if I am not doing justice to the amazing speakers by pairing them with the headphone amplifier/DAC. It's not about the headphone.

 

[raoultrifan]

[...]
My new drooling for a DAC this time is since I have the studio monitor speakers which I like so much, I keep wondering what if I am not doing justice to the amazing speakers by pairing them with the headphone amplifier/DAC. It's not about the headphone.

I can only think to two tests you can do within few minutes:
- 1) Grab the files from here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...can-we-trust-our-ears.3884/page-4#post-136991 and see if you can spot any differences between the pure sinewave and the ones with the added distortions @60dB away from the -1dB of the fundamental sound. Write down the no. of the file (harmonic) where you can actually hear the difference.
-2) With the DAC disconnected from your speakers, get at about 1m away from speakers drivers and try to hear the background noise (if any); a very quite room at night might be helpful. Given your quality speakers I presume there will be no audible noise, not even at 0.5m in front of them. Then connect the XLR cables coming from your DAC and try to hear if the background noise appears; if it does, then a new DAC with a better THD+N (and with a greater dynamic too) could help.

After all, it's about your money too, so if you can sell your Marantz and Sennheiser combos with a good price, I guess you can move onto the Matrix Element X, just to be sure you will sleep better.

 

[bumpyhead]

I can only think to two tests you can do within few minutes:
- 1) Grab the files from here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...can-we-trust-our-ears.3884/page-4#post-136991 and see if you can spot any differences between the pure sinewave and the ones with the added distortions @60dB away from the -1dB of the fundamental sound. Write down the no. of the file (harmonic) where you can actually hear the difference.
-2) With the DAC disconnected from your speakers, get at about 1m away from speakers drivers and try to hear the background noise (if any); a very quite room at night might be helpful. Given your quality speakers I presume there will be no audible noise, not even at 0.5m in front of them. Then connect the XLR cables coming from your DAC and try to hear if the background noise appears; if it does, then a new DAC with a better THD+N (and with a greater dynamic too) could help.

After all, it's about your money too, so if you can sell your Marantz and Sennheiser combos with a good price, I guess you can move onto the Matrix Element X, just to be sure you will sleep better.

Thanks for the advice. Will do the test this weekend.
I gave the Marantz to my friend as soon as I got HDV820 and being a foreigner here in Indonesia, I have no source/route to dispose of the HDV820 locally even if I add up Element X or Sabre Pro...It will have to wait till I return home.
Anyway, can't wait to find out how I perceive the differences, if at all. Thanks again.