[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoilermakerFan Yes, it's a TV camera with the turret so they could swap to WA or zoom lenses from normal.

Well, sorta. The turret and a couple of lenses is what you had when you couldn't afford the zoom. The design of the camera you bought is older than I thought. Here's the 1955 version, stuffed with lenses:

http://www.labguysworld.com/V-400_004.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoilermakerFan I prefer my analog on pressed vinyl discs abot 12" in diameter that weigh 180-200 grams.

Hey, go nuts. Just remember what format was used to master 'em.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, sorta. The turret and a couple of lenses is what you had when you couldn't afford the zoom. The design of the camera you bought is older than I thought. Here's the 1955 version, stuffed with lenses: http://www.labguysworld.com/V-400_004.jpg Hey, go nuts. Just remember what format was used to master 'em.

Sa-weet! Thanks Wualta. Might have to send him a message with pics once she ships my way.

I know they were mastered on tapes, I just don't want to have to store reels and worry about finding tapes or NOS tape for recording my own. The vinyl is just a much easier way to get my dose of proper, truly dynamic, analog.

 

[mypasswordis]

Impressions:

I'll save the big ones for first. HE5: A good amount of soundstage and there is a slight angling of the pads, which is a nice touch. The pads themselves are quite stiff and aren't the most comfy, and the cable isn't all that great, but otherwise the build quality is superb. As to the sound, it is indeed the most balanced ortho I've yet heard, with no particular frequency spikes or troughs I could detect, through to the extremes, which are well extended. Speed is middling for a planar, which I don't mean at all in a negative way - there can be too fast as well as too slow. Amazing that this can be accomplished through absolutely no damping whatsoever, and very simple traces. The midrange is not as organic as I've heard so I'd like to figure out how to open it up and tweak a bit myself.

Don-modded LCD1: Indeed, the tonal balance is brighter on the LCD1 than on the HE5 and in fact kind of sounded like my SR-X. The mids were clearer than on the HE5 but the tilt toward the treble made the HE5 still the more enjoyable listen, in comparison. There wasn't any hint of harshness/peaks in the treble; just the tilt, and so the LCD1 is the second best ortho I've heard to date. I'm eagerly awaiting impressions on the LCD2 now, especially since I hear the impedance will be quite a bit higher than that of the HE5.

Don-modded Fostex T50v1: I actually thought the T50v1 was stock when I first heard it and immediately recognized the classic under-damped vintage ortho sound (raw, slightly bloated upper bass to lower midrange). I turned to Colin and said it needed damping, to which he replied it had already been damped by Don. We agreed it needed more tweaking, possibly in the form of more damping or pads that had larger holes in the middle to let more treble through, or a combination of both. Overall the sound was decent, with no glaring flaws (the soundstage was surprisingly decent, though not above average), and so was third ranked among the orthos.

----

Will post rest of impressions later.

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Now you really got to throw the LCD2 into that comparison!!

Speaking of orthos, I've just had a listen to the PMB 80 out of the box, so to speak. It's got an unexciting lack-of-bass kind of sound. So far....
But this was not how it was intended so sound, since the pads lack all that pleather (as usual...).

 

[dBel84]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mypasswordis /img/forum/go_quote.gif Impressions: I'll save the big ones for first. HE5: A good amount of soundstage and there is a slight angling of the pads, which is a nice touch. The pads themselves are quite stiff and aren't the most comfy, and the cable isn't all that great, but otherwise the build quality is superb. As to the sound, it is indeed the most balanced ortho I've yet heard, with no particular frequency spikes or troughs I could detect, through to the extremes, which are well extended.

I am wondering about the QC on these - so far I have heard 2 reports of some treble etchiness and 2 independent reports of them being perfectly balanced. I could definitely hear a 5-7kHz peak, not major but enough to make me whince on certain music.

I agree overall tho, these are great headphones. Just not the Holy Grail I was hoping for.

..dB

 

[Turko]

@mypasswordis

you said that midrange of HE5 not as neutral .it s good way or bad way...

I also curious performance of HE5 with wanderful balanced cable and amp...

 

[mypasswordis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turko /img/forum/go_quote.gif @mypasswordis you said that midrange of HE5 not as neutral .it s good way or bad way...

I didn't say the midrange was not neutral. I said it wasn't organic, which I realize doesn't really mean much. What I mean when I said that was I thought there was a bit of "fuzz" in the midrange that kept it from being totally transparent, and it also wasn't fluid enough. Fluid midrange is partly why I find 'stats so appealing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dBel84 I am wondering about the QC on these - so far I have heard 2 reports of some treble etchiness and 2 independent reports of them being perfectly balanced. I could definitely hear a 5-7kHz peak, not major but enough to make me whince on certain music. I agree overall tho, these are great headphones. Just not the Holy Grail I was hoping for.

Interesting. What did you think of the T50v1 when you were modding it? I assume you thought it was good. Perhaps you are just more sensitive in the 5-7kHz range than I am, and I am more sensitive to the ortho-bloat, as it were. Otherwise it could be a QC issue... Colin wasn't sure if this particular HE5 was the same as the production models since it was the exact one that appeared at RMAF so is technically a pre-production sample.


----
Last bit on orthos:

I was kind of unimpressed by the stock T40RP and it was a fair bit inferior to my modded T40v1 that's shipping out tomorrow. Less bass, more closed-in sounding, was the gist of it... I didn't listen for too long. Kind of glad I was lazy about sending my T40v1 off now, since I got to compare the two.

You can see my general impressions on various 'stats somewhere else.

 

[sachu]

I think Don was trying to get the soundstage back on the T50V1..i didn't get to listen to it before he sent it out with the final damping scheme but what i heard it was sounding amazing except the soundstage was almost non-existent.

Suspect he modded it further to get the soundstage back but at the cost of a flat freq response.

 

[mypasswordis]

Fair enough, I can see why some people would prefer some soundstage to a flat frequency response. Perhaps pad rolling some thicker, sealing pads with bigger holes would help (O2 pads?).

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Speaking of pads, the PMB-80 pads takes ages for me to fix. But they feature some impressive stats:
- Point-to-point sewing.
- Pad-to-head coupling stage upgrade with lambskin leather.
- Hand-cut centre hole.
- Hand-trimmed outer rim.

 

[Kabeer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DefectiveAudioComponent /img/forum/go_quote.gif Speaking of pads, the PMB-80 pads takes ages for me to fix. But they feature some impressive stats: - Point-to-point sewing. - Pad-to-head coupling stage upgrade with lambskin leather. - Hand-cut centre hole. - Hand-trimmed outer rim.

loool

 

[cetoole]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoilermakerFan /img/forum/go_quote.gif Cool Don. I know cetoole, MPI, Alex, and a few others are having a mini-meet at Colin's today so the HE5 will be compared to the LCD-2 side-by-side.

Ah, no LCD2 unfortunately, but we had HE-5, dbel modded LCD1, dbel modded T50v1, T40v1, T40rp, and a slew of 'stats. Sources were my modded Adcom GDA-600 and Dusty's Exemplar modded Pioneer Elite something or other. I think we just used my E810F based spud amp for the orthos, and didnt have anything but a normal SRD7 plugged into the CR620 (which is a heck of a beast). Mainly because I dont trust that DC offset hasnt drifted over the years on a receiver like that, so hesitate to plug anything in without first measuring that.

As for headphone impressions, I basically agreed with MPWI on the orthos. Basically, HE-5>LCD1>T50v1>T40v1>T40rp. I think I like the SR007mk1 better than he does though.

I was asked not to post about this at Canjam, but as it seems to be a moot issue now, there is no reason not to. As you all are probably aware, CanJam '09 was the first debut of both the Audez'e LCD1 protos and Head-Direct HE-5 protos. Both have definitely evolved since then, both in frames and the actual drivers. Most notably is the Head-Direct driver, which, at Canjam, was something completely different than any ortho I have seen or heard of. While sharing the typical front/rear magnet structure we are all used to, the diaphragm itself was 2u mylar, which was then tensioned and completely metalized. Thats right, no traces. This is why it measured as a 4ohm impedance and Head-Direct was forced to add in a series resistor to bring it up to 16ohm. The current driver shares a similar magnet structure, though I believe Fang said that they were increasing the strength a bit to up sensitivity. However, as I think Don noted, it now has a simple trace structure, which measures at about 26ohm without any series resistance added.

 

[Kabeer]

Do you feel the proto HE5 metalized driver was superior or inferior to the current one?
(I knew about this hush hush info,,,dunno if I was supposed to

)

 

[cetoole]

The proto HE-5 were definitely underdamped, and had very different pads. The current HE-5 sound far better, though no telling which specific changes caused that. I am sure though that excellent sounding headphones could be made with either driver, but I suspect they made the change more so that more traditional headphone amps would have a fighting chance of driving them.

 

[DannyBuoy]

I heard today that the HE5's will be offered with an EF5 as a combo. Fang said it is an EF1 modified to work best with HE5. I checked the Head-direct site and found these specs for a yet to be released EF5.
Any comments on how they might match up together?

Head-Direct.com | YUIN
EF5
Will be available soon.
Opamp: OPA275
Tube: Sylvania 12AU7 (CONN branded)
Frequency Response: 20-30K Hz
THD+N: less than 0.2%
S/N: more than 95dB
Input impedance: 50K Ohm
Output impedance: 2–2K Ohm headphones
Output signal strength: up to 15 Volts at 32 Ohm
Input: RCA*1
Output: 1/4 headphone jack*1
Dimension: 110mm(W)*50mm(H)*270mm(D),
or 4.33inch(W)*1.97inch (H)*10.63inch (D)
Weight: 750g (without power supply)
Acessory: 12AU7 tube, 18V AC power supply