[artotious]

Hi,
This is my first thread. I have been using hd 598 since 5 yrs. Browsing head-fi forums reviews, convinced me to purchase it, since then I absolutely love that piece for its comfort and soundstage/mids. I had been using dell laptop of 2014-15 (i7 5th gen ) which has Realtek dac. I had purchased fit e10k at the same time. It cleans up a noise floor bit, but distorts the phase as all intra-depth difference is lost and all things sound at at same depth from head. I finally settled down without external dac/amp(fit). Installed Sonarworks Reference 4 and was enjoying that headphones. With or without Sonarworks, the soundstage I was getting was phenomenal and airy through 3,5 mm (kind of speaker like, sitting back 6-7 rows in theatre in audiophile terms, without any artificial widening or depth ).

I wanted to upgrade laptop. Also, no Apple Music lossless windows app was one of the reason. I narrowed to the Mac book air and m1 pro 14 inch. I had heard/seen in many places in this forums and reddit that sound through Macs since 2014 are good enough and much better than windows counterpart. Anyways I was coming from a mid range 2014 laptop with so called "crappy" dac/amp setup. I was having reasonable expectations.

My experience with m1 air hd 598.
Overall disappointed. This is my analysis after a month of its use and several a/b sessions.
Sound is crystal clear, bass is slightly better. But the soundstage is gone. Soundstage is extremely claustrophobic. All the 6-7 rows(speaker like feeling) that vocals are playing in front of me has gone mostly. Its not only has way less depth but is also far less wide. Its like its playing just 1 or 2 cm in front of the head, I tried Sonarworks Reference trial, still it could barely match previous experience. tried boom 3d but it has very artificial effect. Through m1 air 3,5 mm clarity is good, I say slightly better but the overall enjoyment is like a third tier closed back headphone.

One pattern I observed that it could be an apple thing as my iPad Air 4 with apple usbc to 3.5mm has worse soundstage than my one plus6t using hd 598 and its converter. So my question is it normal for m1 air to sound like this? I had extensively compared with my previous laptop. Does m1 pro laptop will have similar soundstage? Or any suggestions by experienced folks!!

Thanks,

 

[ubs28]

Try the 16” M1 Max MBP instead.

 

[artotious]

thanks.
that would be an overkill for my need. I barely use m1 air power. btw, what could be the issue here? are the amps/dac weak in Mac air or they have tuned it that way, for more consumer grade sound(intimate) sound.
I am planning to get my dream end game setup of hd800s with hdv820 by next year sep-oct, or probably, will wait for next Sennheiser mainstream flagship setup(hd 900 or anything) and will use it for 8-10 yrs.

 

[ubs28]

It could be that the internal DAC + amp is bad in the M1 Air. With the M1 Pro / Max, Apple have redesigned it and they did an incredible job. Headphones like the Sennheiser HD 650 and HD 800 S work excellent from the 16" M1 Max MBP.

The 16" M1 Max MBP even sounds better than highly rated DAC + amps to me, such as the Poly + Mojo (which sounds thin and has a small soundstage next to the 16" M1 Max MBP. Atleast that is what it did when i was streaming with Apple Music - high resolution audio).

The HDVD820 should be a great choice as Sennheiser have developed it explicity for their high-end headphones. (I did not hear it myself as I am not interested in it, but I would be very surprised if it did not sound good with the Sennheiser HD 800S).

 

[artotious]

thanks, I will try to sell my air(lol) and will get 16 inch base Mac book pro.(only video encoders ,extra gpu corescores, are different from max, I guess) in fact, I almost ordered it, on the launch day, but was not ably to justify its power for my use. Was Also misled by good enough praise that apple receives overlooking its flaws.

 

[ubs28]

thanks, I will try to sell my air(lol) and will get 16 inch base Mac book pro.(only video encoders ,extra gpu corescores, are different from max, I guess) in fact, I almost ordered it, on the launch day, but was not ably to justify its power for my use. Was Also misled by good enough praise that apple receives overlooking its flaws.

If you are not going to make use of the power (I use it for music production for example), then the HDVD 820 is most likely a better option to be honest. I would be very surprised if it doesn't sound better than the M1 Pro / Max as it is specifically made for the HD 800S.

 

[nadman12]

The new MBP's have exceptionally good audio out. My old 2017 MBP was definitely not this good.

 

[artotious]

If you are not going to make use of the power (I use it for music production for example), then the HDVD 820 is most likely a better option to be honest. I would be very surprised if it doesn't sound better than the M1 Pro / Max as it is specifically made for the HD 800S.

I found out a brilliant Goodhertz can-opener plugin. Pure wizardry. Opens the headphone much more than previous levels and its sounds like speakers. Using the trial version, will definitely purchase it after trial. Its slightly expensive at 69 dollars but the good thing is it achieves it without any artifical colouring or audible loss of quality. Using it with Sonarworks Reference sound followed by can opener. Purchased utility called sound-source for using these plugins sequentially. Now finally, problem is currently solved and am at peace now lol.
598 sound so open(speaker like), using that plugin, on underpowered air, I can't imagine it with hd800s(next year) on the top amp (either Mac book pro 16 inch or hdv820..

 

[artotious]

The new MBP's have exceptionally good audio out. My old 2017 MBP was definitely not this good.

It must be, as apple has explicitly mentioned this feature at the spec sheet. Question is can it make top of the line amps like hdv820 redundant in terms of sonic quality, or at least reach at 98-99 percent of their quality?

 

[chesebert]

Try the 16” M1 Max MBP instead.

I second this. 16" M1 Pro/Max has a decent internal DAC and amp. You can probably toss Dragonfly and other similar quality DAC/amp and use the internal DAC/amp instead. One annoyance I found with MacOS (only been using it for a month coming from Windows so I may just be ignorant) is that I have to manually switch output sample rate using Audio Midi setup as the internal DAC cannot automatically switch sample rate based on what is played.