[Kyle11690]

Hey guys, I just wanted to thank anyone who helped me decide on my first pair of Audiophile headphones. Anyways I was wondering if anyone had any tips for a New user. Ive heard people talking about playing white noise or something in their headphones for a while and it makes them sound worlds better, but i'm not sure. Any advice on that tip or any other tips?? Anything is Appreciated, Thanks, Kyle

 

[sadhanaputra]

Hi! Welcome to head-fi and sorry about that wallet

The white noise thing is called burn-in. It can be done with white noise, pink noise, or what I do is just simply play the songs I usually play anyway

One thing you should not forget to do is to give your phone some rest while burning them in.. I once heard a tale about an unlucky fella who ruined his PK1 by burning them with pink noise 72 hours nonstop..

Just enjoy the music, Kyle

Have fun!

 

[tjhmuse]

If I were you I would not worry about all of that, and just listen and enjoy.

 

[limpidglitch]

Yes, just enjoy them.
You might hear some differences during the first days/week you use them. How much is physical burn-in of the headphone, and how much is just you getting accustomed to the sound is unsure, nobody really knows, so just listen and enjoy.

 

[jonathanjong]

Yeah huh, what they said.

The most sensible piece of advice I can give you is not to get carried away. Upgrade, but not too quickly and not without reason. Think hard and read stacks (and try them out for yourself if possible!) before buying amps and interconnects and such things. And recabling...think harder and read more, etc. I went from HD201 and AKG K26P about a year ago...and I just ordered ESW9 (and am currently listening to HD25). Not a happy wallet.

 

[Kyle11690]

Thanks for the Advice Guys. I was also wondering if buying an amplifier would be a wise choice with the Quality of my headphones?

 

[warrior05]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyle11690 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks for the Advice Guys. I was also wondering if buying an amplifier would be a wise choice with the Quality of my headphones?

First off - welcome aboard! You made a nice choice of headphones. The cool thing about those Denons is they can scale pretty nicely. What that means is that if you start going down the upgrade path, the D1001s will keep up with you for a good bit and keep rewarding you with sweeter sounding music.

Before you start getting into amps and all that, first take a look at your source. If you are primarily using a DAP (digital audio player - e.g. iPod, Cowon) then ensure you are encoding your music at high bitrates - at least 220. All my lossy stuff is done at 320 VBS using Lame. The point being, start with quality. If you've got $5,000 worth of equipment but listen to nothing but 128 bitrate lossy files - you are doing yourself a disservice. Garbage in / garbage out. It is the best upgrade and it costs you nothing.

Don't lose sight of how you or where you plan on doing most of your listening. If you are primarily going to be using it in public areas - say, during commutes - don't go crazy on the upgrade path. If you do a lot of listening within quiet listening environs where you can hear subtleties in music then you can think of upgrades.

For now, just enjoy your new Denons. They really are a nice pair of headphones. Get used to their sound. Though I'm a firm believer in burn-in - don't worry about it at this point. Your ears have to adjust to their sound so the burn-in goes both ways. Have fun listening to music you really know. If these are your first pair of "real" headphones, I think you will be pleasantly surprised at what you've been missing.

Enjoy!!

 

[sadhanaputra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyle11690 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks for the Advice Guys. I was also wondering if buying an amplifier would be a wise choice with the Quality of my headphones?

Buying an amplifier would be a wise choice.
Buying an amplifier soon would not

Sit back, relax, enjoy your headphones, get acquainted with it.
Try different songs.
Take note of what you like from your headphones, and what you wish to improve.

Then, when the hunger for upgrade strikes, you'd have had a good idea of which amp/headphone you should buy.

It will also save you some money for when upgraditis strikes later on. And strike you it will.

..Unless you got money to burn

 

[1Time]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyle11690 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks for the Advice Guys. I was also wondering if buying an amplifier would be a wise choice with the Quality of my headphones?

What sound card or other equipment are you plugging your headphones into?

 

[Kyle11690]

I either plug my headphones into an Ipod Touch or my On board Sound Card on my Motherboard which is fairly decent....I think. It's Realtek HD Audio..actually I don't know if its decent lol...I think I'm going to upgrade it soon but i don't want to spend a whole lot.

And Warrior05 I'm not real familiar with all the technical jargon about file quality. Anyways I'm not sure how to check file quality but I download some of my music from Itunes and some from Lime wire. I use Lime wire because I am an AVID Techno fan and some of the music is hard to find. Is there programs that can upgrade quality or something of the sort?? Again sorry, I'm really unfamiliar with this sort of material I'm not sure how to encode my music or what to use

 

[PortaDiFerro]

The iTunes plus songs are 256kbps AACs which I find high enough, and most of their current songs are that, and soon all. But if you have older songs from there those are 128kbps which is dreadful, but they have an option to upgrade them for $0.30 per piece. I think it is highway robbery, but yielded to it anyway since that removes the DRM as well making it possible for me to listen to it through my linux box and media center too. You can just check the properties or info of the song from file explorer or your player it shows the bitrate.

If you have low bitrate songs you can't really re-encode for better quality. The information is lost already and nothing will bring it back and might even make it worse.

 

[warrior05]

Since you are using your computer then I will recommend you get yourself a small amp that has a built-in USB DAC. There are a number of units available for little money. You can also pick one up from the FS board here.

As for the whole bitrate thing. Well - I'm old fashioned I guess. All my music either CDs I bought or FLAC files I bought and downloaded so I can control how to encode to lossy.

As mentioned - if you start with 128, there is nothing you can do increase the sample rate. You can tell what a song is encoded at by right-clicking on the song and selecting properties.

If you have aspirations of someday owning high-end equipment for your audio listening then start to consider purchasing CDs or lossless downloads.

 

[limpidglitch]

If you're running iTunes from a Mac, just hit +J, and you can choose what information you want to be shown about time, bit rate, size and so forth.

 

[Kyle11690]

I also have been noticing some crackling noise with my new headphones. Is this them just breaking in??

 

[sadhanaputra]

Hm? Crackling noise? That doesn't sound good..

Best case scenario, that's just your mp3 files not being good enough..

Could you be more specific as to when you hear them (certain songs at certain times, continuously, sporadically, etc)?