Orthodynamic Roundup

[gurubhai]

Quote:

 I don't think we've seen even close to the potential yet and I have a feeling it's going to be a modern smaller driver ortho that will be the real game changer. 

Game changer as in a mass-market low cost ortho?
I don't believe that the smaller(<50mm) orthos have enough resolution to really challenge current TOTL headphones.
 
 

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Quote:

Apparently, the LCD-2 rev2 has a thunderous bass response? I'd buy it used anyway, so it wouldn't cost me anything if I were to resell it quicky afterwards.

I have a rev1 here, and yes it's got plenty of thunder. What's special about it is that it goes low, rather than just having strong mid bass, and that it also sounds good. 
 

 

[wualta]

Quote:

 
1 ) Well, english isn't my native tongue...
 
2 ) What would be a worthy phone to try in order to gain more clarity over the sintered HP-1, but still keep its very uptight mid-bass, holographic headstage and fun factor? The T50RP provides far clearer trebles, but its headstage is meh, the mid/deep bass is flabby and it's just boring to listen to IME. I guess I could dare saying that the sintered HP-1 is utterly colored but also extremely fun to listen to, when the T50RP is too analytic/sterile sounding(even off a discrete amp) and not fun enough in comparison.

1 ) C'est dommage. But we don't hold it against you.
 
2 ) Ah. How about one of the NAD RP18s (Kevlar or Mylar). Or, going the other way, perhaps a YHD-3 or YHE-50, if you can find one. I confess that I've never heard any of the things you hear in the HP-1, so I have no idea if these headphones will give you what you want. I'm simply concentrating on the "fun factor" and crossing my fingers. Does anyone else have suggestions for leeperry?
 

Quote:

I don't think the LCD-2 or LCD-3 is that far above the vintage orthos and I don't think they are by any means the best an ortho can be.  I think they still have problems just like the vintage stuff.

I definitely agree with the last two bits. The few times I've heard one of the Neo Orthos, I became convinced they were a full step beyond anything I had, but that the tradeoffs, the tuning and tweaking, had just begun. The high price makes the Neo Orthos viable at this stage, but also raises expectations very high. It also opens a wide price gap-- wider than the performance gap-- between the Neos and even the priciest vintage orthos, and many people will default to vintage who don't care for the diy approach, which creates dissatisfaction. The gap needs filling and it looks as if some upcoming product from HiFiMan is designed to do that. If any of the major players is moving in this direction, they're being very quiet.
 

 

[leeperry]

 
Quote:

1 ) C'est dommage. But we don't hold it against you.
 
2 ) Ah. How about one of the NAD RP18s (Kevlar or Mylar). Or, going the other way, perhaps a YHD-3 or YHE-50, if you can find one. I confess that I've never heard any of the things you hear in the HP-1, so I have no idea if these headphones will give you what you want. I'm simply concentrating on the "fun factor" and crossing my fingers. Does anyone else have suggestions for leeperry?
 
I definitely agree with the last two bits. The few times I've heard one of the Neo Orthos, I became convinced they were a full step beyond anything I had, but that the tradeoffs, the tuning and tweaking, had just begun. The high price makes the Neo Orthos viable at this stage, but also raises expectations very high. It also opens a wide price gap-- wider than the performance gap-- between the Neos and even the priciest vintage orthos, and many people will default to vintage who don't care for the diy approach, which creates dissatisfaction. The gap needs filling and it looks as if some upcoming product from HiFiMan is designed to do that. If any of the major players is moving in this direction, they're being very quiet.
 

1) Merci, c'est très gentil à toi
 
2) Yay, these are über-rare vintage orthos...impossible to find IRL, apart from a miracle at a flea market or a greedy seller needing cash badly.
 
Yep, I'm quite surprised by how amazing this sintered HP-1 sounds to me

....a long time ago, moonboy told me that he'd prefer a cheap phone off a failrly high-end source/amp than the opposite. The more I've been frequenting head-fi, the more I've been upgrading my rig and I have to admit that indeed the rig matters more than the phone IME...a good rig will throw a stunning 3D SS and a very controlled sound(especially in the bass department), the phone will only require a proper HRTF coherence and a pleasant FR to make it fully appealing

 
I mostly listen to 70's US deep funk and 70's jamaican roots/dub reggae, and this phone just hits the spot right on the head! DNB is still very pleasant too, and so are surround movies for that matter.
 
Either way, I see a lot of second hand Hifiman's on the forum...HE-4, HE-5LE, apparently the former has a V-shaped FR? And the latter still seems like a good candidate somehow.
 
But I guess the only real option to cash-in on a LCD-2 rev2, but when the rev3 will be out it'll destroy its resale value hah

 

[rhythmdevils]

Quote:

Game changer as in a mass-market low cost ortho?
I don't believe that the smaller(<50mm) orthos have enough resolution to really challenge current TOTL headphones.
 
 

I think the T50rp could be just as resolving as the LCD-2 with the right damping scheme.  I've seen the light in the t50, I've gotten a taste, but as usual I haven't been able to eat a full meal yet.  Lame analogy...
 
Quote:

 
I definitely agree with the last two bits. The few times I've heard one of the Neo Orthos, I became convinced they were a full step beyond anything I had, but that the tradeoffs, the tuning and tweaking, had just begun. The high price makes the Neo Orthos viable at this stage, but also raises expectations very high. It also opens a wide price gap-- wider than the performance gap-- between the Neos and even the priciest vintage orthos, and many people will default to vintage who don't care for the diy approach, which creates dissatisfaction. The gap needs filling and it looks as if some upcoming product from HiFiMan is designed to do that. If any of the major players is moving in this direction, they're being very quiet.
 

I agree.  So my take on the neo orthos is that they have some superior aspects, mainly I'm guessing it's new materials like thinner diaphragms and that is evident in their SQ.  But I also don't think they are dealing with the quirks of the technology all that well at least compared to the price and technical improvements.  I honestly think my YH3 is dealing with these quirks in a more wholesome, resolved way than the LCD-3 esp given their driver.  I'm not going to say it sounds better, but as a complete package, I do think certain aspects sound better.  Enough that it makes me weary of the price tags on the neo orthos.  And it's enough to see how much potential there is in the technology. 
 
Or maybe in tuning orthos you wind up seeing them in so many different states- you hear them sounding airy, bright, detailed, warm, lush, rich, sexy bass, etc and so you want to think it's possible to have all of those at once in one super balanced ortho, but maybe there are tradeoffs and it's not possible to have some of those at the same time.  Me, I think it's possible to have it all. 

 
As for Leeperry, RP18 FTMFW!!
 

 

[leeperry]

 

Leeperry, RP18 FTMFW!!

Yah, sure...where? ^^
 
I'm still in honeymoon w/ the sintered HP-1 so I'll slowly wait to find more of them and then they'll go into those Takstar TS-671 shells that are currently gathering dust on my desk. Using sa5k earpads, AcoustiPack foam and newplast, that'll make me plenty happy I'm quite sure

 
The new orthos carry too much of a FOTM status to me....and going fosters would allow me to use single entry cables, I so frigging hate dual entry cables...so that'd kill all birds at once basically

 

[gurubhai]

Quote:

I think the T50rp could be just as resolving as the LCD-2 with the right damping scheme.  I've seen the light in the t50, I've gotten a taste, but as usual I haven't been able to eat a full meal yet.  Lame analogy...
 

I am just waiting for my dessert

 
Quote:

 I honestly think my YH3 is dealing with these quirks in a more wholesome, resolved way than the LCD-3 esp given their driver.  I'm not going to say it sounds better, but as a complete package, I do think certain aspects sound better.  Enough that it makes me weary of the price tags on the neo orthos.  And it's enough to see how much potential there is in the technology.

My HP50 is the best stock ortho I have seen balance & damping wise but it just doesn't have that 'big' sound that something like a NAD or a T30 has.
 

 

[rhythmdevils]

Don't tell anyone but when I had the LCD-3 here I still reached for the lowly YH3... 

 

[JadeEast]

Quote:

... I still reached for the lowly YH3... 

 

[leeperry]

Those yamies have magic to them, that's fosho!
 
I now understand what ppl meant when they said that a piece of audio gear could be "over-analytical"...sometimes you just wanna have fun and act as a joe sixpack...not as a mastering audio engineer who dissects the sound for problems. My worst memory for this is the Manufaktur DT770 600Ω: dead boring, no headstage, and it would make slight defects literally explode to my ears...this music has gotten through the ears of many audio enginners, I don't want to dissect it any further kthx

 
BTW, anyone's got tips to make a new headband for the HP-1? I've seen links but they look pretty complicated, besides I would use thick high grade black lambskin...I'm not sure if I should cut a slit in the middle like on the cd3k? put a thin layer of plastic in-between in order to make it stiffer? I guess I'll have to experiment

 
EDIT: http://home.hccnet.nl/joop.nijenhuis/headwize/rhp1be.htm

 

[ludoo]

A few possibly interesting observations gathered yesterday from my boss, who owns a high end audiophile speaker system -- magneplanars, tubes etc -- and is a recent ortho convert. He just received a new Burson hp amp and did a few listening tests with a variety of Yamahas (HP1/3/50 from different vintage) on both the Burson and my DIY hybrid amp, and was initially *very* puzzled by the huge sound difference mixing phones and amps.
 
The HP1 and the more recent samples of the small Yamahas sound very good on the Burson, lush warm sound with some midbass hump and wide soundstage, while on my amp they sound congested and are impossible to damp properly as anything you add tips them into overdamping. The older samples of the small Yamahas have the opposite behaviour: they sound bloated, slow and dark on the Burson, while they are fast snappy, transparent but with a narrower soundstage on my amp.
 
After puzzling over his impressions for a while, we formulated a hypothesis that the amp damping factor is the critical factor: a high damping factor allows the amp great control over the looser membrane of the older Yamahs, but makes the newer more tensioned ones sound congested; conversely, a low damping factor makes the older phones slow and dull by allowing too much movement, but is perfect for later versions. My boss verified this by looking at the Burson amp specs, which is designed on purpose with a low damping factor (high output impedance) in order to give a warmer sound.
 
This gives further proof -- at least imvho -- to the theory that Yamahas progressively changed the tension in their phones over the years. And more importantly it makes personal impressions and tests hard to generalize, as the sound is influenced as much by the amp characteristics as by the phone and damping scheme themselves. And if you are not using an amp, well you are on the wrong forum...

 

[leeperry]

 

it makes personal impressions and tests hard to generalize, as the sound is influenced as much by the amp characteristics as by the phone and damping scheme themselves.

 
I came to the same conclusions when reading wualta's impressions on the HP-1: http://gilmore2.chem.northwestern.edu/ubb/showpost.php?fnum=1&tid=7245&pid=56075&fpage=1
 
Either he's had a dud, Yam changed the drivers along the way, I've got a golden sample or the amps being used can drastically change their sound. This said, my sintered HP-1 sounds similarly amazing off the Stello Eximus DP-1(discrete design) or the Asus Essence One DAC(2xLME49600 on the HP out). I ran a shout-out again yesterday and its holographic headstage, midbass slam and sexy mids really put me in awe. The aniso HP-1 doesn't do any of these, the SS is narrower, the bass is tighter but boring and the mids are too polite.
 
That kinda worries me because I'm seeking more sintered HP1's for transplanting purposes, and I sure would like them to sound as good as the one I currently own

 
PS: This said, I still have a hard time believing that they had such KILLER sounding phones in the mid 70's....it seems to me that the industry has been going backwards ever since.

 

[dBel84]

Yes Ludoo, this is an all too real observation. Like you, I use amps with very low output impedance, always have. I recall spending a lot of time getting one of the YH2's tuned to where I liked it , then at a meet it didn't sound as good as I walked around trying different people's rigs. This occurred again at RMAF when I used my YHD2 as my reference. I cannot say that I have noted the variation in the spectrum that you speak of, but perhaps this is why I have never yearned to own an HP1, finding the HP50 to be so much more appealing to my ears. ( and for this I still thank you )
 
There was a very "frustrated" response from the Quad representative in stereophile recently relating to damping factor of amps and the importance of proper matching of speakers to amplifiers. I suspect that the effect is much more pronounced in traditional speakers but your experience has valuable lessons for us all. 
 
There is however, the very real variation between drivers as the most recent YH2 I have is nowhere near as capable as the one I passed along to a budding orthoist. 
 
..dB

 

[vid]

Haven't yet experimented more with the paper-against-driver-and-ear thing, but I did try angling it between 'up' and 'right' (45 degrees), which seems to have resulted in a slightly clearer sound than 'up' while still giving its bass boost. I really like it.
 
I dug up the HOKs just now after a few days' pause, and I think I may have become an ortho convert to some degree. I really like the mids, and the aggressive sound (good attack) the HOKs can produce is very nice. In fact I should be on my way to a date with the gf right now, yet I'm still sitting here listening to old East German headphones.
 
They're not perfect the way I have them modded right now (and they were quite bad stock). They need lots of additional EQ to reduce the muffled sound, and the bass isn't much, and the imaging is bad, but... I like 'em.

 

[rhythmdevils]

I don't think I ever posted pictures of my open-ish back HP1.   It's not visually perfect as it's drilled by hand, but I made sure to have the same number of holes distributed in the same pattern and area on both cups.  I also have a stock YH1 here, and as far as I can tell there are no real downsides to adding the holes except for maybe a bit less lower bass, but not much as far as I remember.  They give the treble and midrange more air, increase imaging and soundstage, and you can maintain bass by lining the back with felt.  The holes also help with resonances because instead of bouncing off the back, they are eliminated or very much reduced.  So the result is that you also don't have to use as much damping and wind up with a more open sound because of that as well. 
 
In the end, I still couldn't get the upper mid presence to my liking on these or the stock pair.  So I may have overlooked something because I was focused on fixing the upper mids to my liking. 
 
Does anyone who's familiar with the Yamahas want to try them out before I sell them?  I'm considering a little loaner trip to test drive the open back idea and see what others think.  Wualta, or DAC or dBel or any of you guys?  I'll be shipping a bunch of stuff soon.