GeoD
100+ Head-Fier
Over the past couple months, I took a lot of head-fi advice to heart and have been pleased with my first rig I put together. I started off with some Denon AH-D2000's and right out of the box I was pretty impressed overall, but knew they could sound much better by modding them and adding an amp and DAC. I was running them off of the headphone jack from an older Yamaha 5.1 receiver a model from 1999.
After reading head-fi, I'd say the sound was muddied a bit and I knew I wasn't feeding the cans the best power because they often sounded a bit loose or weren't fast enough. The only thing I had to compare the Denon's to were the IEMs I picked up, the Westone 3's. The W3's were definitely faster and more precise / detailed, even though I had some fit problems. Hopefully I resolved that today as I got my impressions for some UM56's.
Back to the Denon's, I decided to take the first step in modding my D2k's and took the plunge on a Jena Labs 22g recable. I sent them out to Zach at Enigma Audio for the install, and I must say it was nothing but a pleasure dealing with Zach. Ultra fast communication, updates, very fast turn around time (had the phones back within a couple days), and his pricing was extremely reasonable, best I've found.
The day before I got the recabled D2k's back from Zach, my HeadAmp PICO arrived in the mail, so I couldn't wait to put everything to the test. When I first plugged the PICO in, I was a little bummed. I was expecting a HUGE difference from feeding my cans via my laptop optical out -> Yamaha receiver -> D2k's and wasn't too impressed. After putting some hours on the PICO, my opinion quickly changed. I was starting to notice things were more precise, cleaner, synchronized better. The day before I got my Denon's back, I had an old pair of Senn 457's I picked up years before head-fi. I actually got to the point where I thought they sounded as good as my Denon's and I remember picking them up for $25. So I knew the PICO was doing something right because I remember when I got the Denon's the difference was night and day.
Plugging the Jena recabled D2k's into the PICO was simply a whole new ball game. The highs opened way up, mids came more alive, base tightened up, and more details overall. I feel that the investment in the PICO and Jena cables were both worth the upgrade. I've only had a chance to share the sound with a handful of people so far, but the reactions have been nothing short of, "I want that!", "That's the way you music should be heard!", etc.
I guess this leads me back to the title of the post, how much better can the D2k's get? My next plans were the following: Add some wooden cups, perform the markl mod and stuff the heck out of the pads. After that I was planning on working on a dedicated home rig, which as of now had plans to go fully balanced with a B22 and Lavry DA10. I opted to have the D2k's recabled with a balanced ends, then simply use a balanced -> 1/8th adapter to feed them into the PICO.
If to my ears and all of my friends and family who has listened so far think that my current setup sounds amazing, what can I expect with the next round of upgrades?
My hopes are to increase the sound stage and instrument separation. Bring the mids out some more. Bring out those faint details in the background. Perhaps a little more detail on the highs, but I'm pretty content with it as is.
I plan on listening to some balanced sources / amps before taking the plunge to see exactly what I'd be getting if I upgraded, but I wanted to float this out there to see if I'm on the right track. Also, does anyone have experience with the setup I'm considering?
edit: The thing I'm noticing the most now is how big of an impact the recording has on the sound. On my highest quality recordings, I'm just wondering in my head, how much better could it possibly sound? I've been ripping as many CD's to flac as I possibly can of all genres of music and it's simply amazing how music I'd never even consider enjoying sounds so incredible when recorded properly and listened to on a decent setup. I usually am a big fan of trance, electronica, etc. and I ripped my moms Shania Twain Come On Over CD and I couldn't believe the sound quality of that CD. To date, my favorite trance CD has been Christopher Lawrence & John 00 Fleming - Global Trance Grooves v1: Two Tribes. If you're a fan of trance or want a CD to test out some new music, it comes highly recommended, beautifully recorded.
Thanks in advance,
George
After reading head-fi, I'd say the sound was muddied a bit and I knew I wasn't feeding the cans the best power because they often sounded a bit loose or weren't fast enough. The only thing I had to compare the Denon's to were the IEMs I picked up, the Westone 3's. The W3's were definitely faster and more precise / detailed, even though I had some fit problems. Hopefully I resolved that today as I got my impressions for some UM56's.
Back to the Denon's, I decided to take the first step in modding my D2k's and took the plunge on a Jena Labs 22g recable. I sent them out to Zach at Enigma Audio for the install, and I must say it was nothing but a pleasure dealing with Zach. Ultra fast communication, updates, very fast turn around time (had the phones back within a couple days), and his pricing was extremely reasonable, best I've found.
The day before I got the recabled D2k's back from Zach, my HeadAmp PICO arrived in the mail, so I couldn't wait to put everything to the test. When I first plugged the PICO in, I was a little bummed. I was expecting a HUGE difference from feeding my cans via my laptop optical out -> Yamaha receiver -> D2k's and wasn't too impressed. After putting some hours on the PICO, my opinion quickly changed. I was starting to notice things were more precise, cleaner, synchronized better. The day before I got my Denon's back, I had an old pair of Senn 457's I picked up years before head-fi. I actually got to the point where I thought they sounded as good as my Denon's and I remember picking them up for $25. So I knew the PICO was doing something right because I remember when I got the Denon's the difference was night and day.
Plugging the Jena recabled D2k's into the PICO was simply a whole new ball game. The highs opened way up, mids came more alive, base tightened up, and more details overall. I feel that the investment in the PICO and Jena cables were both worth the upgrade. I've only had a chance to share the sound with a handful of people so far, but the reactions have been nothing short of, "I want that!", "That's the way you music should be heard!", etc.
I guess this leads me back to the title of the post, how much better can the D2k's get? My next plans were the following: Add some wooden cups, perform the markl mod and stuff the heck out of the pads. After that I was planning on working on a dedicated home rig, which as of now had plans to go fully balanced with a B22 and Lavry DA10. I opted to have the D2k's recabled with a balanced ends, then simply use a balanced -> 1/8th adapter to feed them into the PICO.
If to my ears and all of my friends and family who has listened so far think that my current setup sounds amazing, what can I expect with the next round of upgrades?
My hopes are to increase the sound stage and instrument separation. Bring the mids out some more. Bring out those faint details in the background. Perhaps a little more detail on the highs, but I'm pretty content with it as is.
I plan on listening to some balanced sources / amps before taking the plunge to see exactly what I'd be getting if I upgraded, but I wanted to float this out there to see if I'm on the right track. Also, does anyone have experience with the setup I'm considering?
edit: The thing I'm noticing the most now is how big of an impact the recording has on the sound. On my highest quality recordings, I'm just wondering in my head, how much better could it possibly sound? I've been ripping as many CD's to flac as I possibly can of all genres of music and it's simply amazing how music I'd never even consider enjoying sounds so incredible when recorded properly and listened to on a decent setup. I usually am a big fan of trance, electronica, etc. and I ripped my moms Shania Twain Come On Over CD and I couldn't believe the sound quality of that CD. To date, my favorite trance CD has been Christopher Lawrence & John 00 Fleming - Global Trance Grooves v1: Two Tribes. If you're a fan of trance or want a CD to test out some new music, it comes highly recommended, beautifully recorded.
Thanks in advance,
George
