Hello everyone,
Its my first time posting in this thread so I'd like to thank everyone for their impressions, they really helped with my purchasing decision.
I've had my HA-1 for about a week and wanted to chime in from a relative Newbie's perspective.
First off, some back-ground... (sorry for all the unnecessary details!)
I've never considered myself an audiophile but I've always been into mid-fi when my friends/colleagues would otherwise be happy with their ipod's and earbuds.
I had a great pair of Koss headphones and a CD player during high-school/University in the 90's that served me really well for a few years. Fast forward just over a decade and my journey into higher end headphones started a year ago when music in my new home theatre room was missing something. I had a decent budget, spent a few $$$ on a good sub + good speakers and good sub eq and some room treatments but the room's dimensions of 28 x 15 x 7' (height) were too much to overcome. I'm thrilled with the room for concert blu-rays, sports, movies etc. but 2 channel listening was just OK. This was a huge disappointment because for a few weeks during construction I had some of the equipment set up in our bedroom as a 2 channel system and it sounded incredible, this room is 14' x 22' by 10' (height) which I think made a huge difference. My wife was fine with 2 channel audio in our bedroom on a temporary basis but with a dedicated HTR its hard to argue the need for a 2 channel system in the bedroom. Especially when all our friends are happy with their home theater in a box systems and think I'm kind of nuts!
Anyhow, I started researching headphones about a year ago and picked up a pair of alpha dogs and O2 amp from JDS labs. I was very happy with the combo but did feel like the HA-1 would be something I'd have to own ONE DAY. I have a BDP-103 in my HTR and just love it. I did soon pick up an audioengine D1 to see how much better an inexpensive external DAC could be relative to the dacs in our Bluray players but was a bit underwhelmed. There is nothing wrong with the D1, its just that the O2 amp sounded so much better than the headphone out of my AVR's and I expected a similar level of incremental improvement. The D1 is now at my office and does very well in that role feeding some cheap powered desktop speakers.
One thing that has happened over the past year is that I've come to accept computer audio as the future (don't laugh, I'm still not on facebook!). It was only through reading the forums on head-fi that I came to the realization that computer audio fans are not "computer geeks that are kind of into audio" but rather the other way around. I'll be 40 soon so like many here I've experienced all the major formats we know today and my early exposure to computer audio in the early days of Napster and MP3s and expensive storage turned me off computer audio for way too long. Fast forward to last week and I decided that I NEEDED the HA-1!
So I have my silver HA-1 now and I've been listening to mostly FLAC rips of my CD's through JRiver.... so here is my review....
PROS
-build quality is unlike anything I own (except maybe a couple of my watches), I spent much more than what 95%+ of the public would spend on an AMP/DAC but I feel like it is a bargain
-pride of ownership, the ha-1 is not "esoteric" but its a very competent, well built piece of equipment that looks great and performs at a fair price.
-incredible versatility, when I have some time I'll see how my HTR sounds in 2 channels with the HA-1 as pre/pro
-detail and sound stage are noticeably better than the O2 and D1; depending on the source and content the difference can be significant (note that I am awaiting delivery of balance cables and these impressions are based on the single ended output!)
-balanced output in a $1200 amp/dac
-it may be my 40 year old ears but the HA-1 + Alpha Dogs sound just great with 80%+ of my music (most of the 20% is late 90's & early 2000's stuff that is not well mastered to begin with), I was expecting that it would be too bright.
-this may be common, but I loved that the oppo remote controlled track selection in JRIVER (did not expect that
)
CONS
-the dimensions on oppo's website don't account for the fact that the power cord is really stiff/solid, this is a good thing I didn't think I'd need 3"+ of clearance behind the unit, as such the original intended location in a book-case won't work
-the VU meter setting looks cool but does not appear to be in sync (this is a stretch but I need some cons
)
-the text is a bit small in the VU meter and spectrum analyzer display settings
-it is a bit deep relative to its width
OTHER Points:
-it is warm to the touch but I wouldn't say its hot as others have indicated
-I'm a headphone newb but I will say that I've listened to a couple of my all time favorite 20+ year old albums extensively on the HA-1 and in both cases I heard things that I'd never noticed before (with the O2 or ever before), with a headphone friendly album (Violator by Depeche Mode) I had intended to just listen to a couple tracks and I just got absorbed by the music.... I have a BUSY life, with a challenging career and young family but I got sucked in by the music in a way that hasn't happened since maybe my early 20's... if this is what a "sterile" dac/amp sounds like then I'm fine with it!
