Thanks for comparison!
It seems everyone that hear Ebony mention it being a smoother or liquid. I guess I'll be very happy with the Ebony, looks like everything I want Mahogany to fix is there.
That's exactly right!
Thanks for the review
@DecentLevi. So in your opinion, the Purpleheart had less overall bass and impact than the Mahogany? Seems to be the opposite of what a few other reviewers and even Massdrop thought (on the PH description page they said it had more bass than the M).
The way I heard it, with extensive comparisons / critical listening with 3 different amps, was that the Purpleheart had around 1db less bass than the original Mahogany, leaving the original as the king of bass
quantity - both of which are darker than neutral making Ebony quite spot on in that region. The volume levels were the exact same on all comparisons, seeing how they all have the same impedance and the volume was not changed between A/B'ing. Perhaps the intention was for the PH to have more bass, but at least the pair I tried was leaner than the original. I also though the PH had a tad better impact, and the Ebony even better.
First off, great review of the Ebony and the other 2.
@DecentLevi, was the Liquid Carbon run in balanced mode for the comparisons? (ie: were the headphones re-terminated to balance for the comparisons?)
When you say 20% differences this is really a lot in my opinion, so even a novice would easily notice the differences in the 3 different wood types?
My LC amp was in SE mode for these comparisons, since that was the only connection option to those headphones. I do suppose it would be relatively easy for anyone with skills to convert any of the TH-X00 models to balanced should you desire, and I can even refer you to my modding extraordinaire friend
@Packdemon who can recable these for anyone that would like to contact him. RE the amp comparisons, I had also done extensive comparisons between the LC on balanced and the Elise SE with the same headphones and source chain, and believe it or not the Elise still sounded at least 2x better to me in many regards.
There is no math in that calculation. There could not be any other way to determine other than yourself doing the A/B comparison.
His 20% might be your 5% or your 40%. His 20% might be my 2%. The number (or a percentage estimate) itself is pretty useless in its own right.
Even the question you ask of whether he thinks a novice might notice is subjective and a response does not actually indicate whether a novice will actually notice.
Absolutely even a novice should hear major differences between the Mahogany and the Ebony anyway, because these are almost opposites in terms of dark vs. moderately U-shaped. The 20% I was referring to were smaller differneces like dynamics and highs, but for the bass I'd say it's at least 60% different between the Mahagony and Ebony.
Of course my percents are not based off math or scientific formulas, hence my wording about "perceived differences". Just a best guess estimate, that I figured would paint a bit clearer of a picture than just saying something like a "nuance" verses a "moderate" or a "medium" amount. Just trying to be accurate and objective.
And certaintly my comparisons are not absolute universal truth either because results may vary based on source chain, burn-in of various components, music, individual headphone variations, hearing, and even mood / preference.