[hanumanbob]

Remember that your personal experiences with THX amps may not necessarily apply to everyone. For example, with your class A amp, is your Arya or whichever headphone imaging flanking sounds beyond the drivers? I happen to be someone for which even the Stax SR-X9000 with SRM-T8000 or the Sennheiser HE-1 in a shop setting do not image anything beyond the drivers without the recording having already incorporated special mixing or HRTF effects to achieve such. On the other hand, I can easily use DSP and HRTF measurements to cleanly image sounds a meter to the left and right (which makes the music sound ridiculous in regard to "wiiide soundstaaage"), or ahead of me like in a proper stereo triangle.

Anyways, I suppose it can't hurt to have makbrown see if they can try a class A amp. Again, my personal experience was described in post #11,781, judge what you may about my hearing which from my last audiogram showed a hearing threshold around 5 dB SPL (yeah, not perfect, but not alarming) amid my tinnitus IIRC. My K9 Pro ESS has given me plenty an impressive "you are there on stage" experience for certain excellent recordings, though I know that what can impress today may sound mediocre tomorrow or at a specific time of the day. I can absolutely have my favourite classical recordings sound "huge" (filling the space between the large drivers and in front of my face; I need DSP to project that in front of me like in a live concert hall) and exquisitely textured, filled with all the warmth and fullness of the recording, though yes, I have not yet personally heard whether that could somehow be made even "better".

I do respect your class A DAC/amp recommendations, though I am curious as to what you think of "ESS sound" paired with class A per those DAC/amps. I am personally a skeptic, but wouldn't mind trying out a nice pairing of non-ESS to class A if you could recommend one. Have you any experience with the HiFiMan Serenade or others in that range? Or anything worth not making the jump to the Holo Audio Bliss KTE first driven by my ESS DAC?

Some believe the hobby to be about pairing for the "best" or most preferred results. Some like myself are in pursuit of "fidelity", or to recreate the most real sound, which if constrained to headphones demands chasing the original tonality of the recording's monitoring system (theoretically, the best average is "neutral") if not the original venue, and likewise that original monitoring system's imaging (you cannot have proper coherent speaker imaging through headphones without accurate HRTF measurements and DSP). So far, I've found that fancy headphones or amps on their own are not enough to transport me into the concert hall; that much I can tell from attending classical concerts almost every week on average including three days in a row.

Being a classical orchestral musician I’ve never been totally happy with anything I’ve owned. It’s never vast enough.

 

[MrHaelscheir]

Being a classical orchestral musician I’ve never been totally happy with anything I’ve owned. It’s never vast enough.

Yeah. I can imagine that most classical music is mixed from the central audience perspective with a forward image rather than to cater to someone looking for an authentic "in the orchestra" experience (if that's what you're looking for). Right now, stereo to binaural DSP gives me good to great forward imaging, but I probably need longer-distance measurements if I am to make it sound convincingly like the string quartet or orchestra is 5 to 10 meters away.

 

[Someguy420]

Quick PS, just compared sound of the same piece from the cassette deck to a version on the computer. Deck definitely has the advantage across the board. Though, the cassette being listened to was also recorded directly from a record, and the phones were connected via a dual 3.5mm to 6.35mm into the deck.

Edit to PS: Posted the original PS just as you posted Mak. I will look into these suggestions and keep everyone updated.

I'd say definitely an amp problem. If possible go to a store and try them out on a powerful warmish sounding amp and be amazed.

If I plug them straight into macbook, they can get ear bleedingly loud. But the sound is just terrible, no staging, imaging, dynamics, distorted nasty sound. I'm not going to even talk about awful bass performance. Although I wouldn't say they sound muffled, bright is the word I'd use with my experience. Indeed, even cheap 100$ headphones sound better straight from laptop. Don't believe people (likes from ASR forums) who say that if you get volume, all is good. Simply just no. Go to a hifi store and confirm it by yourself. Why is it like that? I don't know, although there's some talk about amps being able to provide enough current and not only voltage.

As far as burn-in goes. Every dynamic (moving) object will wear over time and become softer. And is definitely noticeable with speaker drivers. Speaker drivers will sound smoother over time. It's a gradual process taking place until end of the speaker. Guitar players go crazy for vintage speakers for that reason, even though new reissues are manufactured exactly the same way.

Also I'd highly recommend looking into EQ as you can make headphones perfect for you. Especially big planars as they are very EQ friendly compared to dynamic drivers.

Windows: Equalizer APO
Mac: eqmac or soundsource.

I wouldn't recommend sticking with oratory1990 presets (or any other) or trying hard to adhere to harman target. It's a one-size-fits all target that most likely won't be your ideal. We are all special little snowflakes with distinct ears and other anatomy. And besides that, I use different EQ settings with different amps. Definitely try those oratory presets out though!

If you want something that sounds the best to you, you must learn to EQ. It's a topic that can go very very deep. Mastering engineers pretty much devote their life into mastering this skill. But don't let that distract you. Start off easy by adding a bass shelf and play around with the amplitude (gain) and frequency (where it starts). Gain will determine the amount of bass you want to add. Frequency for bass shelf will mostly determine the warmth of the headphone. At 100hz headphones will sound thin, at 150hz will sound overly thick and bloated. Your ideal is somewhere in there.

Everything in EQ is relative to other parts of the EQ. For example you can make headphones sound overly thick with bass shelf that extends deep towards mids. And compensate with a boost in the upper mids (around 2kHz range). This way you can have body and clarity for vocals.

All these changes are personal preferences and can be very rewarding when you find your ideals. And can be quite fun if you get into it. That said, you still need a good amp, especially if getting into EQ. I'll leave a nice cheat sheet down below. It isn't quite as simple as that though, but will give you a direction.

Also a sidenote on gear: Amps and DACs do make quite big differences in sound. IC amp sounds different form Solid State and Tubes sound different from those. Mostly this order goes from analytical to musical, there are trade-offs picking one over other. And there are exceptions. Some SS amps sound tubey, some tubes sound very SS like. Best for you is to try different things and find what you like. Don't get drawn into SINAD and other measurements, trust your ears over everything else!

For DACs there are mostly 2 categories: sigma-delta and R2R (also multibit goes here). Sigma-delta is newer detailed, punchy and analytical sounding. R2R is more musical sounding one, more natural timbre etc. but you will be trading off details and punchiness of sigma-delta.

I think that's quite a lot for you to get started and hopefully answered some questions. Cheers!

 

[Voohoo]

I'm using them with a dual 3.5mm to single 4.4mm cable, connected to a 4.4mm to 3.5mm adapter, and then plugged straight into the 3.5mm jack on my laptop. Maybe they don't produce good sound without an amp? But, I would think they'd sound good without an amp and great with one if this was a lack-of-amp problem. Moreover, I would think an amp would simply boost sound levels, not improve the crappy audio. Crappy audio will be crappy no matter how loud it is.

I don't trust that 4.4mm to 3.5mm adapter you have. What you're describing with sound makes me thing there's a ring on on the of jacks/plugs that isn't making proper contact.

 

[Shane D]

Got my new-to-me Arya's today. Very nice! Big sound and they are in excellent shape. I traded a set of 109 Pro's for them.

 

[Atomicman]

Got my new-to-me Arya's today. Very nice! Big sound and they are in excellent shape. I traded a set of 109 Pro's for them.

As i did. meze109 to Arya stealth. Great Upgrade!

 

[Shane D]

As i did. meze109 to Arya stealth. Great Upgrade!

I found the 109's super comfortable, beautiful and just okay sound wise. I have always wanted to try the Arya's but they were too expensive for me so I grabbed a set of HE6se V2's a few years ago.

So far, I am Really enjoying these.

 

[szore]

Got my new-to-me Arya's today. Very nice! Big sound and they are in excellent shape. I traded a set of 109 Pro's for them.

Congratulations! Which version did you get?

 

[Shane D]

Congratulations! Which version did you get?

They are either V1 or V2. They are four years old. Still in great shape though.

 

[SmartCheetah]

For me the 109 Pros were outclassed by the Edition XS. The Aryas (Stealth) stomp on them sound-wise. They are not overly bad though, just severely overpriced for their performance.

 

[chimpicus]

Congrats on the buy.

After getting a DAC/amp combo and spending some hours messing about with equalizing, things are pretty much unchanged. The DAC/amp makes a marginal difference, and equalization helps a tiny bit. But there's still little to no depth on most sounds, humans still tend to sound like nasally robots, and everything is pretty flat and muted. Oh well. At least I learned about accoutrements and procedures for getting the most out of future headphones.

Thanks for the info.

 

[peteham]

As i did. meze109 to Arya stealth. Great Upgrade!

I have both, and wouldn’t part with either.

 

[MrHaelscheir]

Congrats on the buy.

After getting a DAC/amp combo and spending some hours messing about with equalizing, things are pretty much unchanged. The DAC/amp makes a marginal difference, and equalization helps a tiny bit. But there's still little to no depth on most sounds, humans still tend to sound like nasally robots, and everything is pretty flat and muted. Oh well. At least I learned about accoutrements and procedures for getting the most out of future headphones.

Thanks for the info.

Care to let us know the model of DAC/amp and what EQ filters you tried? I would at the minimum try a peaking filter centered at 1.8 kHz with a Q factor of 1.5 and a gain of around 3.5 dB. Are you finding the lower midrange to be too much or too little? You can set a peaking filter centered at 300 Hz or 400 Hz with a Q factor of 1 and play with the gain. There is also the possibility of there being a peak around 5 kHz; see if setting a peaking filter at 5 kHz with a Q factor of 6 and a gain of up to around -5 dB helps.

Otherwise, unless your Arya unit was actually quite far off in tonal variation or severely distorting (could you tell us the date of the QC stamp on the box or serial number card or wherever?), you are probably simply too used to your other headphones' frequency responses. Looking back to https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hif...ganic-impressions-thread.890421/post-18035986 (post #11,795) comparing the frequency responses, perhaps try a peaking filter at 1 kHz with a Q factor of 1.5 and a gain of 4 dB, a peaking filter at 4 kHz with a Q factor of 3 and a gain of -6 dB, a peaking filter at 7.5 kHz with a Q factor of 5 and a gain of -6 dB, and optionally a peaking filter at 100 Hz with a Q factor of 1 and a gain of 2.5 dB. This is basically attempting to push the Arya's frequency response toward your ThieAudio Wraith's frequency response.

If that or spending more time listening to see if "mental burn-in" (getting used to the tonality) sets in doesn't work, and the unit is found to not be defective (are you able to have someone else hear the pair and give their impression?), then maybe this is unfortunately not the headphone for you.

 

[Someguy420]

Looking at the graphs. Wraith has pretty much no ear-gain. Something like 8db difference in that region. (6db for twice the perceived volume). This will make Wraith sound a lot darker than Arya. And remember, change in one part affects others. So Wraith would be much more mid-forward and with added warmth, due to bump and roll off in lower frequencies. I think you are used to much different sounding sound signature. Something like Audeze LCD series would be a better match, which are also known for having very little ear-gain.

That said, many LCD owners upgrade to Arya for better resolution/detail capabilities (even in bass, where the LCD is famed for). And to keep sound signature similar to LCD apply negative EQ in ear gain region. Also try adding bass shelf with something crazy like +6db @ 250hz.

I wonder what amp/dac did you get, that it made so marginal difference between it and laptop port?

All that said, EQ only goes so far and I wouldn't recommend going out buying all kinds of amps and dacs without knowing what you desire. There are stores for that, where you can try out different things. That's why I said in previous post to go to a hifi store and try out powerful warmish sounding amp.

 

[squidman]

Well upgrading from the HE-4xx to the Arya Stealth, and at cough cough 800+ bucks still sitting in my craw! But whatever, it takes what it takes. Should be ok upgrade. Still sitting on magni and modi + schiit + dac and amp. Don't really see a need to upgrade those at the moment. Maybe some tube amps down the line. Well went all in tonight to purchase the Arya Stealths, we'll see. Still totally down with my he-4xx's, nice cans! And have HD600's, which are probably my best cans. But not as much fun as the hi-fi mans.