kool bubba ice - I remember looking into the DT48 when choosing my first set, but something steered me away, though at the moment the reason isn't coming to me. I might give them another pass over when I'm shopping again (can't be too far off
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Adam - thanks for the clarification. I'll take this into account when planning my next build.
Thought I'd update:
I recently acquired a pair of YH-100's, which were sold to me with the caveat: "Don't expect them to sound good until you get them a good amp". Sound advice, but while my SSMH is still in the works, I thought I'd give them a try through the HP jack on the dock from my powered PC speakers. To give a general idea, this thing has ample power to drive the Yammies to full volume, but I think that's where its merits as an amp end. However, even with this, the Yammis sound pretty darn good! Yes, there's congestion, and I think I'll need to play with the damping, as the sound is a bit dark, but already I can see (hear?) glimpses of the right sort of sound.
The main merit of these that I can hear now is the separation of vocal timbre: in polyphonic works from the Codex Specialnik (performed by the Hilliard ensemble), the voices do not blend into a single vocal behemoth! They're not as separate as I'd like, but it's encouraging that, given the source, I'm able to hear even this.
So, I think I'll say for now that the recommendation seems to have been spot-on, and I'm a hopeful (if not yet fully happy) camper. Once the SSMH is done, I'll post more detailed impressions.
Aristos: I did try the 225's with the same set-up for comparison, and the main problem is the upper frequency boost, which pushes everything else into the background. I've heard that this improves greatly with good amplification, so I'll hold off saying anything more until I can provide that. For now my verdict is that without a decent amp, the 225's aren't suitable even for energetic small-scale works.