jagorev
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- May 16, 2005
- Posts
- 3,316
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- 15
So I recently sold off my beloved HD600 and ordered a HD595 in its place...unfortunately, shipping will take 2-4 weeks. In the meantime, I picked up a cheap KSC75 to tide me over.
I had another KSC75 in the past, and I thought it was a great budget headphone, but not nearly as good as a HD497, for example. At the time, I was running unamped, and the 497 sounded better at the same volume. It should be noted that the 497 has lower impedance and is much more sensitive.
Today, I plugged the brand new KSC75 into my fairly beefy 24V PIMETA, and was stunned by the sound quality.
These sound good - nothing extraordinary - from integrated headphone jacks on my computer, DAP, and PCDP.
But with an amp, they're really, really good. Punchy, well-defined bass, no muddiness, and fairly smooth treble. I had heard some graininess in my previous KSC75, which I don't detect now - my guess is that different batches of drivers have slightly different sound characteristics.
I played a bunch of orchestral recordings - usually the hardest genre to get right - and found them completely satisfying. The timbre of brass instruments, the snarling impact of tympani, it was all there. The only criticism would be that the strings sound a little bit hollow. Human voices, however, sound very realistic.
And to be quite honest, I don't really feel this is a big downgrade from the 600. Obviously the 600 is better, but the improvements from here to the 600 are all incremental. There's more smoothness, more detail and soundstage (although the KSC75 has impressive soundstage), better resonance damping, less harmonic distortion, etc., on a higher end model. But the KSC75 gets most things almost right.
The equipment I plugged this into cost around $400 - yet in no way does it feel like the $14 transducer is letting down the rest of the gear. And I have never heard such a significant change going from unamped to amped on any headphone. They sound okay with the PCDP, but brilliant with the PCDP line out + PIMETA.
And now I'm having doubts whether, with my college income, I can really justify spending $200 on a 595, 880, or something similar, when this performs at a level so close to those headphones. I might have to turn in my head-fi membership card now.
Should I save my money and cancel the order for the 595?
I had another KSC75 in the past, and I thought it was a great budget headphone, but not nearly as good as a HD497, for example. At the time, I was running unamped, and the 497 sounded better at the same volume. It should be noted that the 497 has lower impedance and is much more sensitive.
Today, I plugged the brand new KSC75 into my fairly beefy 24V PIMETA, and was stunned by the sound quality.
These sound good - nothing extraordinary - from integrated headphone jacks on my computer, DAP, and PCDP.
But with an amp, they're really, really good. Punchy, well-defined bass, no muddiness, and fairly smooth treble. I had heard some graininess in my previous KSC75, which I don't detect now - my guess is that different batches of drivers have slightly different sound characteristics.
I played a bunch of orchestral recordings - usually the hardest genre to get right - and found them completely satisfying. The timbre of brass instruments, the snarling impact of tympani, it was all there. The only criticism would be that the strings sound a little bit hollow. Human voices, however, sound very realistic.
And to be quite honest, I don't really feel this is a big downgrade from the 600. Obviously the 600 is better, but the improvements from here to the 600 are all incremental. There's more smoothness, more detail and soundstage (although the KSC75 has impressive soundstage), better resonance damping, less harmonic distortion, etc., on a higher end model. But the KSC75 gets most things almost right.
The equipment I plugged this into cost around $400 - yet in no way does it feel like the $14 transducer is letting down the rest of the gear. And I have never heard such a significant change going from unamped to amped on any headphone. They sound okay with the PCDP, but brilliant with the PCDP line out + PIMETA.
And now I'm having doubts whether, with my college income, I can really justify spending $200 on a 595, 880, or something similar, when this performs at a level so close to those headphones. I might have to turn in my head-fi membership card now.
