Sonic Defender
Headphoneus Supremus
If you are perceiving becoming fatigued that is entirely possible. Our hearing brain is a complex system, and very personal so there is always difference between individuals. This means that even if a majority of people do not have the same physiological response when listening to the Heritage amp your experience of some fatigue is clearly your brain telling you that something isn't quite the way it would like it to be. If the engineers intentionally designed a signature, lets say for arguments sake that they pushed a frequency zone a little forward to give a slightly euphoric or lush quality to the sound, that might be the region that only one person in two hundred is sensitive too in a way that over time they become fatigued. This can be made more pronounced for the listener if the headphone they pair with the amp is also a little forward in the same region.I have the Klipsch amp and have tried to use hp-3 with balanced xlr. I get so much more volume out of xlr even with low gain and unbearable high volumes high gain. With xlr i can turn the knob only to a max 11 o'clock. Also to me seems that heritage amp seems to make listening fatiguing. I much prefer to use my hp-3 with my portable xdsd with burrbrown dac. Is there anytjing reasonable to exlplain this? How can you use high gain with balanced?
It can be too much of a good thing so to speak. Many people might experience the emphasized region as very pleasant and really enjoy that sound. Think about how for some people the pleasant harmonic distortion that you get with a very tube like sound signature (I'm simplifying with that statement I know, but the point is valid) is what they most enjoy. Others may experience this as lacking some of the micro-edges that they need to hear to have their hearing brain excited about what it is taking in. So all of that long winded response is to say that yes, your brain and your gear might be having an interaction effect. If you are sure about what you prefer that is great, it tells you that your hearing brain is responding more favourably to the xDSD's signature. No problem, your brain knows what it wants. Listening fatigue is a real thing, sometimes it is a minor issue and sometimes it rises to the level where you aren't really able to enjoy the listening experience. Trust your brain, if you are consistently getting the signal that when you use the Klipsch amp it is fatiguing, it probably is fatiguing to you.
That doesn't make the Klipsch a bad amp, or your hearing brain wrong, it is simply an interaction effect happening inside a very complex hearing brain. That is why this hobby is so amazing to be in now, there are so many amazing companies all producing meaningful products, and there can and are sonic differences so experimentation is both really fun and to a point necessary. We have to try gear combinations until we find one we really love, and even then, no reason not to try other signatures out if you are so inclined. I have owned a few nice iFi products (iDSD Nano and iOne) and also responded very favourably to the signatures.
Last edited: