New Livewires Developments - The 50ohm Resistor

[FaRKle]

Ok, so yesterday turned out to be a better-than-normal Friday when I got a call from John over at Earpeace. He told me they had just gotten in a batch of 50ohm resistor adapter samples for the Livewires and wanted me to take one home for the weekend and see how it sounded, and if it got rid of the hiss problem or not!

I spent a couple hours at home listening to my iRiver H120 comparing the resistor to just the normal cable.

Tracks:
-Band of Brothers - Main Theme
-The Rock Soundtrack - Hummel Gets the Rockets
-Green Day - Holiday
-Bon Jovi - Have a Nice Day
-Kelly Clarkson - Because of You
-Carrie Underwood - Lessons Learned
-Taylor Swift - Tim McGraw
-Rascal Flatts - These Days

So Livewires have an impedance of 22ohms including the stock cable as told to me by John, so adding this resistor makes it a good 72ohms. When I plugged the cable with resistor adapter into my H120 the hiss was immediately gone. I couldn't hear a trace of it.

So far so good?

Band of Brothers - Main Theme
This piece has a really nice soundstage and open feeling about it when I listen to it with my HD580's. With the Livewires it still had that open feeling, although I've always felt that it sounded a tiny bit veiled which always bothered me. The 50ohm resistor seemed to definately take away that veil. I thought Livewires were some of the most articulate headphones I've ever heard, and surprisingly the resistor improved that clarity and allowed me to hear even finer details. Another interesting note was that the bass impact seemed to grow by a significant amount.

The Rock OST - Hummel Gets the Rockets
This is one of my favorite peices all around because of the power given to it by all of the horns and the way the piece moves. Once again the resistor added to the clarity of the Livewires. I sort of expected a richer sound from the horns, but that really never came. They sound pretty similar without the resistor. The bass impact is once again more prevalent. It did make the music seem even more powerful with the improved bass impact though.

Green Day - Holiday
The resistor here made some difference with the vocals. It brought forward the main singers voice and clarified it. One thing I've heard about Livewires is that alone they are very articulate and have great separation, but once all the ranged and instruments are thrown into the sound it really loses that, making it hard to distinguish the individual instruments and what not. I would say that the resistor eases that and it maintains a good level of separation when everything is thrown together still.

Bon Jovi - Have a Nice Day
This piece always sounded veiled to me on my iRiver and the only way I've heard it without the veil was hooked up to an RSA Hornet M. The resistor unit didn't remove all of the veil, but it did get rid of some of it. It also seemed that the sound was opened up a bit more and was more forward than before. Once again the bass impact grew.

Kelly Clarkson - Because of You
I thought I needed to listen to some female voices next. When I got the Livewires I always thought they sounded better with female singers over male singers. The resistor really brought out her voice more. It was more clear, and every little breath and what not you could hear. The detail was there and it was more clear than before. Stock on my Livewires I thought this piece had enough bass impact. With the resistor adding more of it, sometimes it felt like it was a bit more than I would've liked.

Carrie Underwood - Lessons Learned
Once again like Clarkson the resistor did a great job of revealing the singer's voice. It was very crisp and clear. It also revealed all those little details as before. The piano in the background seemed to be brought forward some as did the bass.

Taylor Swift - Tim McGraw
The resistor improved the articulation of the guitar here and as seen before brought forward and opened up her voice. The usual bass impact becoming greater occured as well.

Rascal Flatts - These Days
This has always been a pretty lively song to listen to. I really like listening to this on my SR-60's. I felt that the resistor unit definately brought everything more forward and put me in one of those grado-esque modes where you just want to crank up the volume. The clarity was improved as was the separation.


I decided to plug the resistor and Livewires into my computer as well (SBA ZS2). I was moderately surprised when there was still a good amount of hiss after using the resistor. I realize that the SBA ZS2 isn't THAT great of a soundcard, but I would've thought the resistor would've gotten rid of most of the hiss. I haven't tried plugging it into my laptop yet, I'll do that later.

Overall I think this resistor unit is a great idea. It's not very aesthetically pleasing, but it shows an improvement and more potential for the Livewires. For portable players I have no doubt it should solve the hiss issue across the board. Some re-occuring points on it were a more forward and opened up mid range, increased clarity in vocals and midrange, and a significant amount of bass impact over the standard. As far as raising the volume on my H120, I probably had to raise it about 15% to get it to the volume level I was at before, not a huge increase.

I'll get pics up later.

 

[tk3]

So the Livewires have a 22 ohm impedance?
That's not so bad, actually higher than some others like UE-10 (although the sensitivity of Livewires is unknown AFAIK).

Thanks for the impressions by the way, sounds like the adapter has similar beneficial effects like going from ER4P to S.

 

[mwallace573]

So 50 ohm is the magic number for the Livewire. I tried a 75 ohm adapter that I had lying around and it made everything sound really distant, like I had moved from the front row to somewhere near the back, if that makes any sense. I talked to John a few days ago and he is sending me one of the resistor cables as well, as I was getting ready to return them due to the hiss.

Oh, and he didn't want to tell me what the sensitivity of the Livewire was when I asked, but he did say that it was very high.

 

[cantsleep]

ive ordered another set of wire.
i guess i can reterminate with a new plug and install resistors in the plug.

 

[OverlordXenu]

I'll have to go ask John to throw one of those in with my order.

 

[BIG POPPA]

This sounds like a job for Alex @ Apuresound to reterminate the plug with a resistor? Wonder how much that would set me back? I know when he recabled my KSC-75's with a 75 Ohm resistor it was 106 bux. Those headphones are SWEET!

 

[JoeB]

I wonder if this will come as standard or be a separate purchase in the near future, any ideas folks? I just ordered my livewires a few weeks ago, and like the sound of this.

 

[Culverin]

so will this work for the um2s as well?

it'd be nice to find a resistor made especially for the um2s drivers

 

[kugino]

since the cable is replaceable on the LW, i'd be happy to order a new one with the integrated resistor...the hiss made it unusable with my (former) PINT...

 

[FaRKle]

Quote:

I wonder if this will come as standard or be a separate purchase in the near future, any ideas folks? I just ordered my livewires a few weeks ago, and like the sound of this.

I'm not exactly sure how things are going to work. John discussed a couple different ideas with me on the issue. The original idea was to have the resistor adapter and just keep the stock cord. The resistor would just be added to the overall Livewires package.

Then he said that a lot of people suggested that they wouldn't like an external resistor and would rather have a cable-integrated resistor. That led to a model similar to the ety's, where Livewires would have "Sport" and "Professional" cables. The pro without the 50ohm resistor embedded and the sport with it.

So I'm not really sure which way it's going to go, but they do seem to be making a good effort to improve things.

To me, I would imagine that normal users would just buy the Sport model and have no worries about hiss. They wouldn't be missing out on the high sensitivity either since they won't be doing any monitoring. Then John & Co. will charge a bit more (~$10-$20?) for the Pro model and include the resistor adapter in there so artists can utilize the high sensitivity for monitoring and use the adapter during personal use.

I do hope that they'll start to have a straight plug instead of the 90deg one when they start to ship the cables with the resistor adapter.

 

[Kosmic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FaRKle /img/forum/go_quote.gif I do hope that they'll start to have a straight plug instead of the 90deg one when they start to ship the cables with the resistor adapter.

For portable users like myself a straight plug is a no no. It offers the potential of damaging leverage to sockets of players that are kept in trouser pockets. It would ne nice though, for people like yourself, to have the option of a straight plug.

In my case high sensitivity = longer battery life which is a bonus for me. I'm not sure of the hiss level on iRiver Clix2 second generation players so I can't comment yet, but if it's only apparent between tracks then I can live with it.

 

[FaRKle]

Quote:

In my case high sensitivity = longer battery life which is a bonus for me.

Yeah, I'll definately vouch for that one. I was able to get about 3hrs worth of battery life from the 10% or below battery marker on my H120 during a plane ride. The plane landed before my battery died...

 

[BIG POPPA]

I asked for a straight plug with my order. Andrew told me that a regular plug will be sent and then when the next shipment comes in he will send me a straight plug. They are in the works

 

[Funk-O-Meter]

I did some experimenting with a impedance adapter with mine but didn't get around to ordering different resistors to AB. I don't have to order resistors now, just order the finished product from John! I had actually asked him if they had done any research about impedance adapters a while back. There's my answer! Looks like they're on it as usual.

 

[JoeB]

Funk, how much did it cost? I'm yet to recieve myn, so unsure on how bad the hissing will be. So not sure if I want to order right away.