gerelmx1986
Headphoneus Supremus
Well after a Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong wait heres my review
is my first few hours listening to it and i can say is wonderful on both Low and Hi-gain but seem both of my sony headphones ask for high gain to sound beautiful: MDR-1R and XBA-H3, the latter being an Hybrid IEM 1x 16mm DD 1x full range BA and 1x "HD tweeter" BA
As dap i'm using a Sony NWZ-A17 for which i have only a Fiio L5 POCC line-out cable, so i'm using switch to mode C.
Build & experience (user experience)
The Build of the HA-2 is fantastic, it feels heavy on my hand and shirt pockets, the leather cover is a nice touch because with that you no longer need rubber bumper feets. Feels pretty sturdy and the jacks feel tight, tough not as tight as the Fiio x3 ones, but tighter than the Sony A17 own HP-out jack.
The switches on the side are relatively easy to operate and the bass one has a green marking, wish that was also present on the gain switch, tought a minor whine not a big problem. The ledsof the charging feature feel nic.
The volume kno feels nice and has a nice resistance feeling and a nice texture, clicks nicely when you power it on or off, the led looks nice too.
My only complaint is the weird placement of the mode selector on the back of the HA-2, i think the front has sudficient space to have put it there but is fine otugh.
Accesories
It comes with a bunch of cables, a 3.5 to 3.5mm cable, a nice touch for daps which doesn't posses a lineout per-se, an USB to lightning for iDevices, a micro B to Micro B cable, for android devices or devices that have a micrB port, and a white charging cable and data cable??? or is just for charging, gotta guess that, i have some micro USB spares to use it on my laptop.
Also includes a charger for fast charging it (this can be also used to charge you other devices with no risk of damaging them) and two rubber bands for attaching the device, personally the feel pretty sturdy and they don't press "by accident" any button of my A17 walkman which already has pretty "sensitive" buttons
SOUND QUALITY
So far with Graupner's orchestral works (MDG Gold, New stravaganza orchestra) sounds amazing, the clarity and imaging is very nice, similar to that of my A17 if not retaining the original soundstage size of my A17. I can hear more details than with the A17 alone, esp the cemablo & viola di gamba.
The bass on the MDR-1R is no longer anemic type, seem to be driven well on H gain (BASS boost OFF), so far the knob is at vol. 2 and a half. with XBA-H3 this goes down a bit to 1.85 closer to 2
There's no channel imbalance at all unless the jack of the line-out pops out and i think is plugged snuggly
D'OH moment
I was not satified before with my XBA-H3, hated them because they were overall bassy, that even removed the sponge filters in an attempt to tame the bass to somehow a workable solution but nothing is compared when i plugged them to the HA-2.
They sing, they sing so wonderful, more neutral, bye bye bass bloat in the mid-bass, more trebble clarity now, now i no longe whine that i don't have the XBA-Z5
, H3's seem to have leveled out closer to neutral as well do 1R's with nice bass extension and full body.
On low gain they sound equally good but feel H gain maskes them shine better, with L gain the volume on the 1R's goes to 4 and in the XBA-H3 to 2.95 to say so not even touching the 3 mark. Even on L-gain the harpsichord is clear on the XBA-H3 just like it is on the 1R's while bieng driven directly from the Walkman's HO direct.
Need to spend more time comparing the HO and LO of my Walkman but i can say the LO sounds waaay cleaner, nice clean signal. I am still debating wether i shall buy the more expensive digital Out for the walkman give the negatives of being a bit clumsy and battery hog.
Later i will try it out in the PC to bypass the intel HD driver and to see how good is the sabre chip.
So far i'm loving it, nice sound quality, no coloring at all as far when using AMP mode only, feels sturdy, nice finish, lots of power to spare
Edit i'm using only FLAC & HD-FLAC
is my first few hours listening to it and i can say is wonderful on both Low and Hi-gain but seem both of my sony headphones ask for high gain to sound beautiful: MDR-1R and XBA-H3, the latter being an Hybrid IEM 1x 16mm DD 1x full range BA and 1x "HD tweeter" BA
As dap i'm using a Sony NWZ-A17 for which i have only a Fiio L5 POCC line-out cable, so i'm using switch to mode C.
Build & experience (user experience)
The Build of the HA-2 is fantastic, it feels heavy on my hand and shirt pockets, the leather cover is a nice touch because with that you no longer need rubber bumper feets. Feels pretty sturdy and the jacks feel tight, tough not as tight as the Fiio x3 ones, but tighter than the Sony A17 own HP-out jack.
The switches on the side are relatively easy to operate and the bass one has a green marking, wish that was also present on the gain switch, tought a minor whine not a big problem. The ledsof the charging feature feel nic.
The volume kno feels nice and has a nice resistance feeling and a nice texture, clicks nicely when you power it on or off, the led looks nice too.
My only complaint is the weird placement of the mode selector on the back of the HA-2, i think the front has sudficient space to have put it there but is fine otugh.
Accesories
It comes with a bunch of cables, a 3.5 to 3.5mm cable, a nice touch for daps which doesn't posses a lineout per-se, an USB to lightning for iDevices, a micro B to Micro B cable, for android devices or devices that have a micrB port, and a white charging cable and data cable??? or is just for charging, gotta guess that, i have some micro USB spares to use it on my laptop.
Also includes a charger for fast charging it (this can be also used to charge you other devices with no risk of damaging them) and two rubber bands for attaching the device, personally the feel pretty sturdy and they don't press "by accident" any button of my A17 walkman which already has pretty "sensitive" buttons
SOUND QUALITY
So far with Graupner's orchestral works (MDG Gold, New stravaganza orchestra) sounds amazing, the clarity and imaging is very nice, similar to that of my A17 if not retaining the original soundstage size of my A17. I can hear more details than with the A17 alone, esp the cemablo & viola di gamba.
The bass on the MDR-1R is no longer anemic type, seem to be driven well on H gain (BASS boost OFF), so far the knob is at vol. 2 and a half. with XBA-H3 this goes down a bit to 1.85 closer to 2
There's no channel imbalance at all unless the jack of the line-out pops out and i think is plugged snuggly
I was not satified before with my XBA-H3, hated them because they were overall bassy, that even removed the sponge filters in an attempt to tame the bass to somehow a workable solution but nothing is compared when i plugged them to the HA-2.
They sing, they sing so wonderful, more neutral, bye bye bass bloat in the mid-bass, more trebble clarity now, now i no longe whine that i don't have the XBA-Z5
On low gain they sound equally good but feel H gain maskes them shine better, with L gain the volume on the 1R's goes to 4 and in the XBA-H3 to 2.95 to say so not even touching the 3 mark. Even on L-gain the harpsichord is clear on the XBA-H3 just like it is on the 1R's while bieng driven directly from the Walkman's HO direct.
Need to spend more time comparing the HO and LO of my Walkman but i can say the LO sounds waaay cleaner, nice clean signal. I am still debating wether i shall buy the more expensive digital Out for the walkman give the negatives of being a bit clumsy and battery hog.
Later i will try it out in the PC to bypass the intel HD driver and to see how good is the sabre chip.
So far i'm loving it, nice sound quality, no coloring at all as far when using AMP mode only, feels sturdy, nice finish, lots of power to spare
Edit i'm using only FLAC & HD-FLAC
