[Asr]

What are your headphones of choice right now? What does your setup look like? There's not much information in your profile.

 
I have only relatively mid-level gear: Schiit Bifrost 4490 (DAC) and HeadAmp Gilmore Lite (amp) with the Sennheiser HD600, Audio-Technica AD2000 & MSR7, and Yamaha MT220 headphones. A few other mid-level headphones right now too which I won't mention, as they're only temporary for review purposes and I don't intend on keeping them much longer.
 
I downgraded to this much more basic setup from a high-end electrostatic/dynamic combo setup (electrostatic: Stax OII MKI w/ HeadAmp BHSE; dynamic: Sony Qualia 010, Fostex TH900, et al w/ HeadAmp GS-X MK2) a few years ago and actually don't miss the high-cost gear all that much, which IMO just goes to prove that high-cost gear isn't necessarily the end-all it's often purported to be. The only thing "upgrading" is guaranteed to do is empty your bank account, it won't necessarily bring greater satisfaction for anyone.

 

[disastermouse]

Is like to at least hear the high end DACs to see what sort of difference it really makes. The MB Schiit stuff intrigues me. Ragnarock would be nice just so I could run some KEF LS50s.

Transducer-wise, I'd like to hear HD800s and Ethers. I'm a little torn about where I'd like to go to move up, really. I've heard HD700s at a Best Buy and they were cool. There's someone nearby who has a pair and at some point we'll trade listens with those and my HE-500. The HD700 run only in the $400s at Amazon

JH13 FreqPhase are also interesting. I've never had CIEMS.

 

[disastermouse]

It's here and I'm listening to it! I have HiFiMan HE-500s running on it now. Attenuator off, gain is Medium, Bandwidth is high (that means no roll-off, right?), and output resistance is the lowest setting.
 
Do those settings sound reasonable?

 

[lvince95]

  It's here and I'm listening to it! I have HiFiMan HE-500s running on it now. Attenuator off, gain is Medium, Bandwidth is high (that means no roll-off, right?), and output resistance is the lowest setting.
 
Do those settings sound reasonable?

Gain and attenuation module depends on where your volume pot is I guess. But other settings look fine to me. Play around with it and find out which sounds the best.

 

[disastermouse]

This is going to sound weird, maybe, but the amp is 'shouty' in low resistance output. I switched to to mid and it's improved a whole lot. Maybe I needed to give my ears some time to adjust? 
 
(Late Edit Okay, switched resistance back to low, but changed gain to high. Now with the pot between 10 and 11, it sounds great!  
 
(Later Edit This is...
 
I think maybe I didn't know what my headphones really sounded like before. It's going to take a while for my ears to burn in.

 

[HOWIE13]

  This is going to sound weird, maybe, but the amp is 'shouty' in low resistance output. I switched to to mid and it's improved a whole lot. Maybe I needed to give my ears some time to adjust? 
 
(Late Edit Okay, switched resistance back to low, but changed gain to high. Now with the pot between 10 and 11, it sounds great!  
 
(Later Edit This is...
 
I think maybe I didn't know what my headphones really sounded like before. It's going to take a while for my ears to burn in.

My Polaris took 36-48 hours to 'settle in'.

 

[disastermouse]

So this is weird. I'm listening to a song that I know very well. There's a 'ting' metal sound (I think it's a very high xylophone note) used as an accent on one of the beats. I've always heard it, even though it's low, but right now, it's almost like I can hear the shape of the metal that is 'tinging'. Like...I can hear the 'shape' of the sound, or...I can't explain it.

 

[Luckbad]

So this is weird. I'm listening to a song that I know very well. There's a 'ting' metal sound (I think it's a very high xylophone note) used as an accent on one of the beats. I've always heard it, even though it's low, but right now, it's almost like I can hear the shape of the metal that is 'tinging'. Like...I can hear the 'shape' of the sound, or...I can't explain it.

Now you've entered the world of Hi-Fi. No going back now that you've heard it.

Plebians think we're crazy for paying big bucks to covert ones and zeroes then power headphones properly.

They just haven't heard what you've heard.

 

[disastermouse]

My Polaris took 36-48 hours to 'settle in'.

Is that hours turned on or hours actually driving headphones?

 

[lvince95]

  So this is weird. I'm listening to a song that I know very well. There's a 'ting' metal sound (I think it's a very high xylophone note) used as an accent on one of the beats. I've always heard it, even though it's low, but right now, it's almost like I can hear the shape of the metal that is 'tinging'. Like...I can hear the 'shape' of the sound, or...I can't explain it.

Welcome to the G1217 Club 

 

[HOWIE13]

Is that hours turned on or hours actually driving headphones?

Driving headphone. I just left it on continuous. It's interesting how the sound altered , bass firmed up and deepened, treble sweetened, mids fully integrated, sound stage widened. Actually, I looked it all up afterwards and was reassured that this is quite normal. You don't need to play the music loud through the cans, low  to medium vol is fine.
I can fully empathise with you wanting to take every opportunity to listen though-it's a great instrument.

 

[disastermouse]

Welcome to the G1217 Club 

A couple more thoughts:

Moving from the HD650 to the HE-500, the soundscape developed resolution, but with the Polaris, again, sounds have shapes. It really evokes an 'I am there' feeling that's pretty disorienting at first.

Secondly, this transportation quality really skews toward analogue or natural instrument sounds - percussion and piano especially - because it really evokes a feeling of location. When everything is 'flatter', it doesn't really matter if the instrument is being played in a real physical location. When I can hear the physical shape of the sound, it renders digital or synthesizer music a bit...less. Maybe not synthesizer as much, but certainly sampled music.

I'm not talking about the shape of the room, I'm more talking about subtle variations in the way sound erupts and fades or subtly changes pitch as it decays.

 

[lvince95]

A couple more thoughts:

Moving from the HD650 to the HE-500, the soundscape developed resolution, but with the Polaris, again, sounds have shapes. It really evokes an 'I am there' feeling that's pretty disorienting at first.

Secondly, this transportation quality really skews toward analogue or natural instrument sounds - percussion and piano especially - because it really evokes a feeling of location. When everything is 'flatter', it doesn't really matter if the instrument is being played in a real physical location. When I can hear the physical shape of the sound, it renders digital or synthesizer music a bit...less. Maybe not synthesizer as much, but certainly sampled music.

I'm not talking about the shape of the room, I'm more talking about subtle variations in the way sound erupts and fades or subtly changes pitch as it decays.

Interesting. The tube-like properties of the Polaris will let you hear things differently (assuming you've never heard tubes yet) while still retaining SS characteristics.
 
The thing about sampled music is intriguing. I've personally never listened to anything other than EDM on my setup (I find other genres too boring). I might listen to some rock maybe, to try to hear the differences you are hearing.

 

[disastermouse]

So...Apparently my Focus-A pads came today too! My HE-500 are darned near comfortable now and the sound is definitely different than the velours (I always hated the pleathers). Also, re: synthesized music, it has different qualities too, it just took a little while for me to hone in on them because they're not as obvious as the sounds of natural percussion and how that's been changed with this amp.

 

[Mike In Bama]

Hi disastermouse!

I haven't been on here in a long time. I have forgotten how to operate everything in this forum.

To answer your question from a couple of days ago, I have never owned another headphone amp. I have a pair of Sony MDR-V7's I bought around 1988. They still work as well as the day I got them but for the $75-100 I payed, they just didn't justify better gear.

Hoping to put the finishing touch on my hi-fi system, I spoke with many experts with similar tastes on here. After nearly a year of research I felt the Hifiman / Polaris combination would suite me best.

Last Christmas, the old man in red was very good to me. Here a year later I remain in complete awe of the performance of my setup. Is there a better combo out there for the money? I don't know and I don't care!

My upgrade-itis is cured.