[RayPierrewit]

I don't want to derail the current with/without plasticine mod questions, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on these headphones. After owning them for just under a week and having only accomplished the most basic mods, they are bar none the most fun I've had in audio in quite a long time! I can't get enough of listening to my music, albums that have gathered dust for a while are getting rediscovered and with a deeper appreciation. This is my first real forray into headphones and I now understand the appeal.
 
My 2 channel system is reasonably good: a Scott 299b, a heavily modified Lenco L75 turntable and Klipsch Forté I speakers. The Klipsch are very sensitive and quite revealing but nothing compared to these headphones. I mean, I can literally hear tape hiss and feet tapping and batons swirling in the air (not quite, but almost). The tape hiss is really surprising. The background is so black and silent, between songs I hear nothing (the amp is very quiet, with a barely audible hum when it first fires up), then when a song starts I can hear the analog tape hiss way way in the background. I don't even know if that's what it's called, it doesn't bother me in the least because it's so subtle. The seperation in these things is out of this world, like nothing I've ever heard. But you guys know all about that.
 
I'm sure having fun. I should receive the 840 pads shortly. I may have ordered them a little prematurely because I frankly don't see the need to change the current pads. Are the 840s really that much better? Are you guys still stuffing things behind the pads the change the angle of the drivers? Are you cutting away the fabric behind the 840 pads (that cover the drivers)?

 

[mmayer167]

Quote:

possible placebo effect?

Sure, the possibility is always there, this is audio.....          I guess we all need to get gear to measure our tests so our opinions can be validated... 
 
M

 

[RexAeterna]

I find that running frequency sweeps with different configs in each ear lets me hear the relative changes in peaks/valleys. You can hear the "center" shift left or right when the peaks don't line up. 

that's hard to do on a headphone that shares a common ground cause each channel naturally plays a different sound(due to crosstalk). usually balanced headphones that uses no common ground is easier to detect channel imbalances cause a balanced headphone will play the same sound on both the left and right ear cups(like speakers). it's our ears that forms the imaging/soundstage. not every sound is centered when in front. i'm so use to hearing speakers and my balanced headphones, the fostex always seems odd on the imaging part even though tonality wise i got them to about i wanted them. you also have the seal and how you move the earcups around your head will shift the imaging and soundstage.

 

[Twinster]

Hello Ray
 
I'm happily surprise for you that the Glow One worked well with the Fostex Headphone. I remember while researching for an amplifier coming across this very good looking amplifier and found that it was not recommended for low impedance headphone and at the time I had my Denon 21 ohms so I gave up on it.
 
PS: Bienvenue dans la famille de Head-Fi! Est-ce-que les pentes de ski sont ouverte dans les Laurentides?
 

 

 
Quote:

I don't want to derail the current with/without plasticine mod questions, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on these headphones. After owning them for just under a week and having only accomplished the most basic mods, they are bar none the most fun I've had in audio in quite a long time! I can't get enough of listening to my music, albums that have gathered dust for a while are getting rediscovered and with a deeper appreciation. This is my first real forray into headphones and I now understand the appeal.
 
My 2 channel system is reasonably good: a Scott 299b, a heavily modified Lenco L75 turntable and Klipsch Forté I speakers. The Klipsch are very sensitive and quite revealing but nothing compared to these headphones. I mean, I can literally hear tape hiss and feet tapping and batons swirling in the air (not quite, but almost). The tape hiss is really surprising. The background is so black and silent, between songs I hear nothing (the amp is very quiet, with a barely audible hum when it first fires up), then when a song starts I can hear the analog tape hiss way way in the background. I don't even know if that's what it's called, it doesn't bother me in the least because it's so subtle. The seperation in these things is out of this world, like nothing I've ever heard. But you guys know all about that.
 
I'm sure having fun. I should receive the 840 pads shortly. I may have ordered them a little prematurely because I frankly don't see the need to change the current pads. Are the 840s really that much better? Are you guys still stuffing things behind the pads the change the angle of the drivers? Are you cutting away the fabric behind the 840 pads (that cover the drivers)?

 

 

[dyna10x]

Welcome Ray. Vinyl does sound great through these. I also have a modified lenco and the fostex are similar in that they are both incredible value for money pieces of audio gear.

 

[RayPierrewit]

I'm sorry, I'm not overly knowledgable with the whole technical side of hifi, but is there any reason why the Glow One shouldn't work well with the Fostex? It has an output impedance of 32-600 ohms and it's output is 600 mW. I rarely turn it up past, say 9 o'clock, and it's very loud and articulate. Anyways, I for one love the EL84 family of tubes. My one concern about the amp was that it had a well known flaw in it's first generation: certain headphones didn't seem to "fit" properly into the jack. I was glad to see that the Fostex fits without a problem and I haven't had any issues with hum or channel imbalance.
 
On a side note, I received the 840 pads this afternoon and I slipped them on and am thoroughly pleased with the results. I'll be leaving these as is for now: a thin layer of polyester snow behind the drivers, a handfull of tiny magic eraser cubes inside the cup, vent felt in place with all vents open and 840 pads. Wowza!
 
Merci pour l'accueil Twinster... Tu es proche, mais je ne suis pas dans les Laurentides mais plutôt dans Lanaudière, et à mes connaissances les pentes de ski sont toujours fermées. La neige se fait attendre cette année!
 
Quote:

I'm happily surprise for you that the Glow One worked well with the Fostex Headphone. I remember while researching for an amplifier coming across this very good looking amplifier and found that it was not recommended for low impedance headphone and at the time I had my Denon 21 ohms so I gave up on it.
 
PS: Bienvenue dans la famille de Head-Fi! Est-ce-que les pentes de ski sont ouverte dans les Laurentides?
 

 

 


 

 

 

[SanjiWatsuki]

600mW is sadly useless information without telling us more, but it'll power the Fostex pretty well.
Quote:

I'm sorry, I'm not overly knowledgable with the whole technical side of hifi, but is there any reason why the Glow One shouldn't work well with the Fostex? It has an output impedance of 32-600 ohms and it's output is 600 mW. I rarely turn it up past, say 9 o'clock, and it's very loud and articulate. Anyways, I for one love the EL84 family of tubes. My one concern about the amp was that it had a well known flaw in it's first generation: certain headphones didn't seem to "fit" properly into the jack. I was glad to see that the Fostex fits without a problem and I haven't had any issues with hum or channel imbalance.
 
On a side note, I received the 840 pads this afternoon and I slipped them on and am thoroughly pleased with the results. I'll be leaving these as is for now: a thin layer of polyester snow behind the drivers, a handfull of tiny magic eraser cubes inside the cup, vent felt in place with all vents open and 840 pads. Wowza!
 
Merci pour l'accueil Twinster... Tu es proche, mais je ne suis pas dans les Laurentides mais plutôt dans Lanaudière, et à mes connaissances les pentes de ski sont toujours fermées. La neige se fait attendre cette année!
 


 

 

 

[RayPierrewit]

Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not the most technically inclined. Here is what I found on the specs of the amp:
 
output impedance: 32-600 ohm (4-8 speakers)
output power: 600 mW (5W x 2 at 1 KHz speakers)
frequency response: 10 Hz - 30 KHz(-1dB)
T.H.D. <1% (1W)
S/N 89dB
 
In any case it seems to power them just fine.
 
Quote:

600mW is sadly useless information without telling us more, but it'll power the Fostex pretty well.


 

 

 

[SanjiWatsuki]

Here's the problem with giving just a mW rating.
 
What type of a load gave that mW rating? By the formulas to calculate power, 600mW could mean anything. 600mW into 600 ohms would be an incredible amount of power for a headphone amp. 600mW into a much lower load would be less impressive. It's junk data that means nothing without giving its context.
 
I would suspect it is power enough to drive the T50RP, but I have no grounds for saying that in data.
 
Quote:

Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not the most technically inclined. Here is what I found on the specs of the amp:
 
output impedance: 32-600 ohm (4-8 speakers)
output power: 600 mW (5W x 2 at 1 KHz speakers)
frequency response: 10 Hz - 30 KHz(-1dB)
T.H.D. <1% (1W)
S/N 89dB
 
In any case it seems to power them just fine.
 


 

 

 

[RayPierrewit]

Fair enough. I don't have any further data to provide, but thanks for the clarification. Why then would manufacturers include useless data?
 
Quote:

Here's the problem with giving just a mW rating.
 
What type of a load gave that mW rating? By the formulas to calculate power, 600mW could mean anything. 600mW into 600 ohms would be an incredible amount of power for a headphone amp. 600mW into a much lower load would be less impressive. It's junk data that means nothing without giving its context.
 
I would suspect it is power enough to drive the T50RP, but I have no grounds for saying that in data.
 


 

 

 

[SanjiWatsuki]

It's probably the same reason that manufacturers don't provide solid information for headphone out impedance ratings. If all of the relevant data for headphone amps was published, a lot of popular amps would probably be shown as being relatively shoddy in terms of output in quality and also would reduce the appeal. For example, if we had the output impedance for tube amps, we could estimate how much the frequency response curve on headphones was being colored by the amp and equalize it to imitate the tube amp sound. All sorts of little things like that to keep consumers in the dark about an overpriced product. It's not hard to make and develop a good amplifier, but you wouldn't expect it from the price of most good headphone amps.
 
The cMoy having the same components as an expensive Grado amp is just one example of this.
 
Quote:

Fair enough. I don't have any further data to provide, but thanks for the clarification. Why then would manufacturers include useless data?
 


 

 

 

[liamstrain]

Quote:

 
Yesterday I called Full Compass. I was told their ETA for their order is "the end of December." The salesperson offered to notify me when they arrive.  I'll do the same, here.
 

 
Sorry - I grabbed the last pair Full Compass had (via Amazon). They arrived today. Lots of fun so far. 

 

[bluemonkeyflyer]

No problem and good for you!
 
Quote:

 
Sorry - I grabbed the last pair Full Compass had (via Amazon). They arrived today. Lots of fun so far. 

 

 

[marioman94]

some sweeps revealed to me that the vicious peaks in my t50rp are at 1kHz. Any specific materials I can try to cure this? It's literally piercing loud at 1k, at least twice as loud as everything else that seem fairly balanced. I have paxmate in the bottom layer of each cup, flush-loaded the baffle with clay, stiff felt with a electrical tape reflex dot underneath on each driver and 80% closed bass port (no felt). earside felt cut away and paxmate donut under some shure pads with lifters. The original stock white filter is gone. My guess is I should try those pop-up sponges mentioned some pages ago if i can find some.

 

[wdahm519]

Well, I just finished the O2 amp.  The parts arrived today and I threw it together in under 3 hours (probably faster than the average Joe could put it together though).  I still have to drill out the panel but that's just cosmetic and will take about 15 minutes.  I'm listening to it right now via the wall wart charging the batteries.  I don't have any pictures yet but they will be soon to come. 
 
Overall, I think for $60 this amp sounds great!  I love it with my Westone UM3x because it has no hiss like my Pimeta V2 does.  Also, the sound is very very clear, separation is truly excellent, and soundstage is nice.  There is a lot of detail in the sound.  The bass is present and punchy (I'll have to test its punchiness more on the T50RP's later), the mids are really smooth and the highs are pretty detailed. 
 
Since its such an easy build and it sounds so good, everyone should build one for sure.