My listening is never lying down in bed etc...makes me smile, when I go horizontal I go to sleep so this part of your experience IMO is a very personal one.
I listen in chair next to a desk with all my stuff on it, PC, dacs, amps (15+ now)...and I can easily interchange stuff.
My goto cans are Focal Clears. Perfect tonality and balance..will be interested in how these compare.
Maybe ....
But... I just got such type of info from Centrance staff and beta testers on the M8 V2 thread, as they are all pretty sure the Heddphone shouldn't have any issue as they claim to provided at this stage of development before final specs (July ?) around 1.4W 32Ohms (7V) and 20V peak voltage with this potable amp.I pre-ordered one .. and I will see.
My Metaxas Solitaire is the best speaker amp I've ever heard, by a great margin. Its main feature is the extreme bandwidth, which it shares with the likes of Spectral and the new Chord Étude. During an inspection I had the Swiss importer/distributor make a modification consisting of removing the small inductors at the outputs (and replacing some other parts to prevent oscillation from this measure), which led to an even larger bandwidth up to 2 Megahertz or even higher – and the improvement this made was clearly audible in the form of further increased transparency and naturalness. So the extreme bandwidth pays off in better transparency and impulse response, even if you just listen to music limited to 22 kHz.
Therefore I'm open for the hypothesis that an amplifier design enabling extreme peak power may improve the sound, although the additional peak power will never be exhausted. We just don't know enough about why different amplifiers sound different at all, despite «officially» inaudible deviations from an ideal transfer function – as you can learn from the Sound Science Forum. Nevertheless, so far I haven't met a correlation between power and sound quality.
Keyword synergy. For an objectivized comparison between amplifiers you imperatively need an absolutely neutral monitoring instrument (= headphone) – otherwise the amp with the best synergy (compensating tonal flaws and/or masking effects towards headphone nonlinearities) will win. If you don't have such a headphone at your disposal (...since it doesn't exist), you would have to linearize yours via equalizer. Sadly none of the comparisons I've seen on Head-Fi took this important criterion into consideration. The funniest bloomers can be found in the HD 800 threads, where this and that amp is said to be necessary to get the best out of the HD 800 – instead of reducing the 5.8 kHz peak and increasing the low bass (just to mention the most important weaknesses).
Very interesting experience .. and probably much more justified scientifically than my own Heddphone experience based on using 3 amps between 1W to 6W ..
As I read and understand your experience, the peak voltage of a new portable amp Centrance M8 V2 won't probably help me to reach the little and cheap THX887 results as extra details and "impacts" in low frequencies... It's not a good news, but now I want to try this way as I ordered it .
I tried to EQ a bit differently between the 3 amps between 10hz to 200hz, but it didn't help the two portable amps to fill the gap with the thx887 (some more bass but not as detailed and impactful, that's it) ... I think my actual EQ is quite reliable.
Basically, It's because, I couldn't measure any difference in frequencies between the 3 amps, that I conclude, probably too fast and not securely, that the way to measure with minidsp ears will never show the frequencies were the THX can provide some more instant power far over the 84db the REW generator is generating for the measurements... and in music, I just imagine that it must be a good thing to be able to react fast and as high as possible in a very short time... I agree it's totally empiric.
What is sure, it's that there is nothing scientific in my approach and measurements.... 100% empirical deductions... just for trying to approach the small THX 887 on a portable combo, which will give me freedom at home to be where I want to listen music.... I am also ready to give a chance to the DMP-Z1 if I can find one for testing purpose.
For cables, I tried 4 different types with the heddphone but also with all of my other headphones (Z7M2 & Ed15 Veritas), but till now, I have never perceived any significant differences which sounds immediately "much better "(but it's definitely much more difficult to do A/B direct comparison).
So, I would say, my ears and brain are not probably as sensitive and attracted by these changes of tonality due to cables as much as it seems to be between one standalone fixed amp (THX887) compared to 2 portables DAC/amps (PA3S 4.4mm, Xduuo XD05 )... maybe with a Dave Chord I would probably be amazed compared to the Thx887, but I won't go to a fixed system, I will first look at Sony's DMP-Z1 as It offers some freedom to move in my home (pity there is no DLNA renderer and only a bluetooth LDAC, but at least 2 x micro SD cards).
I get the same issue with the Sony WM1A, as I spent more than one week to test and measure all available adapted firmwares from the 3.02 DMP-Z1 (with region changes too) => it brings strictly no changes to my ears and brain (like few other people too on the web).
I was initially thinking same with amps .. But I found some recordings with a significant change in low frequencies between my amps and I could find on this changes many others DSD/Flacs with such characteristics (probably 10% of my 1.5Tb SD cards)
Over the past 40 years with literally hundreds of cables under my belt...I have never really heard any discernable differences that equate to the price of them..
I have SE and Balanced amps, last count a month back was 20 amps! Sold several down to 10'ish..
The only reason I occaisionally get a balanced cable is to take advantage of the "more" power capability of some balance amps.
The other reason I get a new or different cable is the quality of mechanical construction. I like good connectors and properly strain relieved terminations.
There are a few cable vendors that have some great cables at a fair price considering prices of copper and wires, connectors and the labr going into the making of them.
My HEDD's are out for delivery...hope to post a review of my experiences later next week.
The [often grossly] exorbitant prices for the majority of popular aftermarket cables, seem unjustifiable.
However, I believe I can discern differences, e.g. between a UPOCC all copper 4x 22 AWG solid cable and a UPOCC 4x28 AWG solid silver + 4x 24 AWG solid copper hybrid.
As I understand, some can get noticeable improvements due to cables, even if I never could confirm this with all type of cables I bought, I won't have any definitive opinion on this, as I was more or less thinking same way with almost all amps as if I was not concerned too by this type of influence on tonality..... till this Heddphone.
For sure now, I would say that I am actually able to really do A/B comparison with 3 Headphones and 3 amps (not possible for cables) .. and I was myself surprised at last, that amps could be so important in some situations : -> Sony Z7M2 => no change between WM1A alone or with any of the Xduoo X05+, Pa3S+4.4mm, Monolyth THX887 (any output levels I tried or Balanced or Unbalanced cable)
-> Ultrasone Ed15 Veritas => no change between WM1A alone or with any of the Xduoo X05+, Pa3S+4.4mm, Monolyth THX887 (any output levels I tried or Balanced or Unbalanced cable)
-> Heddphone by Hedd => WM1A almost unusable alone, very nice with Xduuo X05+ or PA3S+4.4mm, just impressive with the THX887 (on details available and impacts in low frequencies without noticeable distortion)
I get exactly same results with a smsl M500 + notebook instead the WM1A with all my headphones and amps.
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