vkalia
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2013
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Anyone know which dealers would be carrying it? I am buying one as soon as it becomes available.
I left that to my sound mixer friend. He tunes speaker systems in live venues for a living and knows how to deal with the sensitivity in the upper mids. I did sweeps in bits alongside him- an octave and a half wide at a time looking for bumps and dips. He did the final pass over the whole range at the very end.
There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to combine various models of computers, players, amps, and DACs to get really really great sound. It is relatively easy for electronics to exceed our ability to hear and reach audible transparency. You can spend a small amount of money and reach transparency with cleverly chosen inexpensive gear... or you can spend a little more and reach 2 or 3 times audible transparency with Mac players... or you can spend a whole lot more and get 10 times transparency with separate high end amps and DACs. That's all fine. But if you're evaluating them with human ears listening to music in real world conditions, they'll all sound the same... transparent.
But the same can't be said for transducers. Headphones and speakers (and the rooms they inhabit) are the big wild card in any sound system- they are all over the map. People are used to making the electronics jump through hoops to correct for the peccadillos of the transducers. Achieving clean, balanced sound out of tranducers is a trick. Getting clean, balanced sound straight out of the box without having to buy a lot of outboard equipment is even rarer. That's exactly why the PM-1s are so remarkable. Open the nice wooden box, plug them into an iPod and you get phenominal sound. No need for anything else.
Cram five or six more tap dancing angels onto the head of that pin... but when the rubber hits the road it really doesn't matter. Don't mess with something that is perfect as we can ever expect to get in this imperfect world.
Amping isn't just about volume. It is also about signal quality. The best amps are more transparent, have a lower noise floor, greater dynamic range, etc. Same is true of better DACs. If the Oppo sounds the same with an iPod or iMac as it does with high-end amps and DACs, that would indicate the Oppo lacks transparency (which is different from neutrality). Did any beta folks use the Oppo with highly regarded components? Any comparisons made switching among better components? Did the Oppo sound different when driven by Oppo's own amp/dac? (Oppo surely expects it to, right?)
Saying that you don't need anything better then a iPod and PM-1's. Maybe I'm missing something here...
[COLOR=282828]Saying that you don't need anything better then a iPod and PM-1's. Maybe I'm missing something here... [/COLOR]
Rather worrisome, isn't it? As a rule, orthos need power and lots of it.
The difference is that the Oppos have conductors in a spiral pattern on *both* sides of the diaphragm, not just one side. Double the conductors means MUCH higher sensitivity. It's a different sort of design than other orthos.
I think what that might contribute to the higher sensitivity of PM1 (relative to other dual-ended planar magnetics I mentioned above) could be lower membrane tension, lighter membrane, more efficient tracing material, stronger magnets, more efficient tracing pattern (spiral instead of serpentine), smaller distance between membrane and magnets, or a combination of those.
STUPID QUESTION !!......but isn't the idea to pair these headphones with the Oppo HA-1 ( for best results...) ?
Think of it with a budget in mind... you have $1500 to spend... you can get lesser headphones along with an amp/DAC and a DAP or soundcard for your computer... or you can just get an iPod and the PM-1s...
If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on the iPod/PM-1 combo sounding better than doing it the hard way because really good headphones make all the difference and iPods are audibly transparent to human ears. The other way would probably be klunkier, more prone to problems and it wouldn't sound as good dollar for dollar.
If you already have a good headphone amp, go ahead and plug the PM-1s into it. It couldn't hurt I suppose. But you sure don't need to go out and buy one special to get the most out of the Oppos.
Which amp and DAC was that? You're saying because you tried one amp/DAC combo and didn't find a difference, that no amp/DAC combos make a difference in the sound of the PM-1? Based on my experience, this makes no sense. Time to take a vacation from this thread.