FunyunBreath
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2009
- Posts
- 359
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- 61
I've got the D1 and the 600 ohm 880's. The D1's amp just doesn't have enough juice to power high ohm cans well at all. If you're thinking about going high-ohm your best bet for an affordable desktop amp would be an OTL tube amp. I just built a Bottlehead Crack and being OTL it powers my 880's marvelously. The D1 works great as a DAC though, and it powers low ohm cans well with really no background noise.
My friend has the 32 ohm 880's and we just sat down for a few hours and did a side by side comparison that i'm going to write a review on pretty soon. the setup we ran was: FLAC played through Fidelia set to normal 24/96 resampling -> Optical out to Maverick D1 -> Solid state out to Crack
We ended up finding out that the 600 ohm 880's when powered through this rig sounded marvelous, very very ow noise floor, incredibly detailed, tight bass, with liquid mids. His 32 ohm 880's through the crack sounded slightly warmer with a bit more noise and less instrument separation. When we ran his 32 880's through the D1 they still had a nice soundstage and were driven well even compared to the 600 ohm 880's being driven through the Crack.
The big conclusion we came to is that for 200 bucks the D1 powered the 32 ohm 880's well enough to not justify needing to buy a tube amp and the 600 ohm 880's if someone was on a budget. The 600 ohm 880's sounded better than the 32's when run through the OTL amp, but when run through the D1 they sounded lifeless and had a significantly reduced soundstage, with anemic bass and harsh highs.
My friend has the 32 ohm 880's and we just sat down for a few hours and did a side by side comparison that i'm going to write a review on pretty soon. the setup we ran was: FLAC played through Fidelia set to normal 24/96 resampling -> Optical out to Maverick D1 -> Solid state out to Crack
We ended up finding out that the 600 ohm 880's when powered through this rig sounded marvelous, very very ow noise floor, incredibly detailed, tight bass, with liquid mids. His 32 ohm 880's through the crack sounded slightly warmer with a bit more noise and less instrument separation. When we ran his 32 880's through the D1 they still had a nice soundstage and were driven well even compared to the 600 ohm 880's being driven through the Crack.
The big conclusion we came to is that for 200 bucks the D1 powered the 32 ohm 880's well enough to not justify needing to buy a tube amp and the 600 ohm 880's if someone was on a budget. The 600 ohm 880's sounded better than the 32's when run through the OTL amp, but when run through the D1 they sounded lifeless and had a significantly reduced soundstage, with anemic bass and harsh highs.