Musical Cans?
Sep 11, 2020 at 10:39 AM Post #91 of 95
Ok thanks, noted! thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

Here are some combos for hd6xx to consider in various price tiers and configurations

Horizon III + Schiit Modi 3 + Genalex Gold Lion 12AU7 ($460)
http://www.garage1217.com/garage1217_diy_tube_headphone_amplifiers_006.htm

https://www.schiit.com/products/modi-1

http://www.garage1217.com/garage1217_diy_tube_headphone_amplifiers_008.htm

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Liquid Platinum + Schiit Modius + CH 650 S ($725)
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=33305

https://www.schiit.com/products/modius

https://en-us.sennheiser.com/ch-650-s

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Liquid Gold X + CH 650 S (all in one amp+dac - $1199)
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=38967

https://en-us.sennheiser.com/ch-650-s

* This may be of interest if you don't want to worry about tubes

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It's not worth it to buy a super expensive dac and pair with cheap amp usually
 
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Sep 11, 2020 at 11:55 AM Post #92 of 95
The fact you can't get your math to work does not mean what I said isn't the case. There is definitely a difference between how poorly or well Sennheisers sound depending on the amp and high power solid state or tube OTLs work with them well for that reason.
Where did it not add up?

If they are 97dB/mW they produce 97dB SPL when given 1mW of power.
Every doubling of power gives +3dB so 2mW would give 100dB, 4mW 103dB and so forth

300mW is just over 2^8mW (256mW), so you get just over 97+8*3 = 121dB SPL

The reason 6xx (and we'll, any headphone for that matter) sound subtly different on different amps is due to distortion and output impedance, both which are completely independent of output power and voltage headroom. You can design two amplifiers with the same distortion and output impedance, one having 10mW output and the other being 5W and they'd perform the same as long as you never demand more than 10mW (about 107dB SPL off the top of my head). Placing a resistor in series with the headphones to emulate different output impedance can give the same effect as "amp rolling" in a lot of cases if we assume negligible distortion is produced by all amps at reasonable listening levels.

Edit: actually the hd6xx are stated as 103db/mW which just further proves my point. 97db is for hd600.
 
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Sep 11, 2020 at 12:09 PM Post #93 of 95
I haven't enjoyed the HD 650 with anything but solid state, so take what I say with a grain of salt: unless the Little Dot is really bad, getting a new amp/DAC would not be my first recommendation. My experience is that getting a better amp will give you more of the things you already like about a headphone, but it's not going to change it into something completely different or drastically better. It's kind of like going from a good high school athlete to an All Star high school athlete. Better, sure, but still not a professional athlete; not even a college athlete. (Not to say that the HD 650 is a high school athlete.) The difference between how my HD 650 sounds out of a competent amp vs. an incompetent one is generally subtle enough that I can get away with the incompetent amp so long as I'm not paying too much attention. And the same goes for any of my headphones.
If the Little Dot is really and truly a bad amp / bad pairing for the HD 6XX, I think you'd know it. I used to have a FiiO E11 that sounded unmistakably horrible with the HD 650.

The general rule of thumb is that changing headphones makes the biggest difference, followed by amp, followed by the DAC. People throw around something like 85% headphones, 10% amp, 5% DAC. Those numbers are largely arbitrary, to the point of being nearly meaningless, but I'd even go so far as to say that it's probably more like 90% headphones, 7.5% amp, 2.5% DAC if you're talking about tubes, and maybe 95%, 2.5%, 2.5% if you're talking about solid state (since solid state is so easy to get audible transparency, there's less difference between high end and low. Once you reach the point of transparency, any difference is 100% headphones, 0% amp, 0% DAC).

Also, I'm with @TMM, that any headphone only needs enough power to reach the transient peaks in your music. Anything more than that is completely superfluous. Though most measurements I see for the HD 650 are between 99dB @1mW and 103dB @1mW. I think the HD 600 are 97dB (I think).
 
Sep 11, 2020 at 2:24 PM Post #94 of 95
If you decide to go the "try new headphones route", may I recommend the GRADO HEMP:
https://gradolabs.com/headphones/limited-editions/item/124-hemp

Very different in many ways from the 6XX and a very musical headphone thats not too expensive. And it looks cool, seems to be universally liked. Tho I still think you should establish a solid gear baseline first; note to use both the HEMP and HD6XX you'd need to buy the EMBER instead of the HORIZON in my previous gear recs :)
 
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Sep 11, 2020 at 4:31 PM Post #95 of 95
If you're willing to go vintage, you can't go wrong with a Stax SR-Lambda in the original bias. Still easily the most musical headphones I've heard and even better if you manage to get a tube amp with it as well.
 

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