[ljnew]

My mind has been blown by the sound out of this laptop's headphone jack. Someone explain this to me. I am enjoying the sound out of my Grado sr325i's so much that I am parting ways with a lot of gear, the game has been moved on for me. Bass, noise floor, details and separation are all here for me. I recommend a listen

me too, wondering if my ears are deceiving me it sounds good. tidal mqa here. i have studio monitors for mixing ath-e70 it sounds great!

 

[ljnew]

I has been a pleasure to listen to music out of the Late 2016 MacBool Pro. I am surprised by what it is resolving, the details in the music that it is providing me has me looking for threads like this to find an explanation.

Get out my head!!! me too. Trying to figure out what the hell is going on?

 

[aramk]

This has been my experience too and it seriously puts me off buying a dacamp unless I'm willing to pay in the $400+ ballpark.

 

[fdc227]

I have a 15 inch Macbook pro 2018 with i7 8850H + Radeon 560x Pro, and I can't believe how great it sounds with my HD650. I used to have a Schiit Stack (magni2 + modi2), and I never liked the sound of HD650 from this setup. The schiit seems to boost the punches of bass a bit too hard for my taste, which sort of destroyed the smoothness of HD650 and coherence. Have that being said, however, the Schiit Stack does give my Q701 enough power to shine its treble and sub-bass. I also have made some eq files for my HD700 to make it sound more like HD650/600, and HD700 also definitely benefit from the schiit stack as well. The Macbook pro keeps the source coherent and transparent, and paring it with HD650 just makes the musics beautiful and elegant. In such setup, the HD650 has a transparent and balanced frequency response that doesn't sound dark like what people used to associate HD650 with. Actually I was going to sell my HD650 for something like HD600 as I really don't like the extra upper bass bump that blends into the mids which makes the over all sound signature more dark and muffled, despite I don't think the treble on my later version of HD650 is lacking much. After paring it with MBP, I think the treble is actually airy and melodic without fatigues found on AKGs, and the sub-bass is now better controlled as well. I don't know if it is the sound the Sennheiser engineers intended to make on HD650 originally, but I think it definitely lives to "Reference Headphone" title on the HD650 packaging box. The sound is clean as well, which I guess Apple probably did some good job at shielding the motherboard.

 

[ljnew]

I have a 15 inch Macbook pro 2018 with i7 8850H + Radeon 560x Pro, and I can't believe how great it sounds with my HD650. I used to have a Schiit Stack (magni2 + modi2), and I never liked the sound of HD650 from this setup. The schiit seems to boost the punches of bass a bit too hard for my taste, which sort of destroyed the smoothness of HD650 and coherence. Have that being said, however, the Schiit Stack does give my Q701 enough power to shine its treble and sub-bass. I also have made some eq files for my HD700 to make it sound more like HD650/600, and HD700 also definitely benefit from the schiit stack as well. The Macbook pro keeps the source coherent and transparent, and paring it with HD650 just makes the musics beautiful and elegant. In such setup, the HD650 has a transparent and balanced frequency response that doesn't sound dark like what people used to associate HD650 with. Actually I was going to sell my HD650 for something like HD600 as I really don't like the extra upper bass bump that blends into the mids which makes the over all sound signature more dark and muffled, despite I don't think the treble on my later version of HD650 is lacking much. After paring it with MBP, I think the treble is actually airy and melodic without fatigues found on AKGs, and the sub-bass is now better controlled as well. I don't know if it is the sound the Sennheiser engineers intended to make on HD650 originally, but I think it definitely lives to "Reference Headphone" title on the HD650 packaging box. The sound is clean as well, which I guess Apple probably did some good job at shielding the motherboard.

Yes, my macbook pro audio is near perfect too. I wouldn't dare use eq as it's tuned to perfection.

 

[fdc227]

Yes, my macbook pro audio is near perfect too. I wouldn't dare use eq as it's tuned to perfection.

Haha I totally get you. I didn't actually change the eq setting on MBP though. I was actually pairing Schiit Stack with my PC where I created many eq files so that the mid of HD700 would not sound so void and hollow. Since the eq software uses user-made text file to change the sound signature of the system, you can always make a file called "identity", which just keeps system's original sound by setting the decibel change at all defined frequency points to zero. My Schiit Stack's power socket later broke (It was the second time it broke), and I didn't bother getting a new one as it costs a bit fortune to have it air lifted out of the US, and the stack is not easy to carry around. So my PC with Asus Z170 Mob has been powering my headphones for a bit while before I got MBP. I have say, though, that Q701 and HD700 require quite a bit power to sound decent, hence those two headphones do benefit a lot from the Schiit stack. HD650, on the other hand, can sound great even on less powerful systems (when the DAC is descent). I normally put my MBP volume at 50% and HD650 sounds loud enough with great details, defined subbass and beautiful trebles. I definitely don't miss the treble on Q701 now, though I do enjoy the sound signature on AKGs as well.

 

[ljnew]

This has been my experience too and it seriously puts me off buying a dacamp unless I'm willing to pay in the $400+ ballpark.

I doubt you could find a dac in the $400 range that improves sound. You'd be looking in the $2,000+ range like the chord mojo 2 at least imho. And I'm not all the way sure that's even a huge upgrade. I have the lg v20, v30, v40 and they are great devices. People say the mojo 2 isn't a huge upgrade over the lg v series devices but to me the macbook pro is a pretty big upgrade in audio quality to my mobile phones imho

 

[Shroune]

The macbook's audio output is pretty damn good. It took me a 1.5k$ setup to be able to béat it slightly.