derbigpr
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2011
- Posts
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I decided to upgrade my headphone amplifier from Fiio E9 to Pro-ject Headbox SE II. I went for it mainly because I wanted 2 headphone outputs and separate volume controls...
I paid 300$ for it with the discount (its 350 usually), and so far I'm not fully satisfied with my purchase. It might be worth mentioning that its the new version. Although it doesn't say its a new version on their website anywhere, and it looks the same externally, the dealer said its a new version with some minor improvements over the older ones, apparently.
Before I start off, let me just say which gear I'm gonna use.
I have a soundcard Asus Xonar D2X which is connected to Headbox SEII with decent quality RCA cables.
Headphones I'm using are the Sennheiser HD558.
Here are some of the specs from the manual:
Power output: 700 mW / 30 Ohms, 110 mW / 300 Ohms
Headphone connection: >30 ohms
Signal to noise: 115 dB at full output
Frequency response: 20 Hz - 20 kHz / -0,03 dB
THD: 0,003%
Gain: 12 dB
Output voltage: 16V / 1000 mA
Out of the box:
Ok, first of all, this thing is HEAVY DUTY. Its really really really well built. Its completely made of metal, it has an aluminum front panel, and the rest is made of steel. The volume knobs are made of plastic, but they are really solid, smooth to operate, and smooth to touch because they're covered with a thin layer of rubber-like material. It has 4 small silicone feet, and it feels very planted on the desk, it definitely won't be pulled around by cables.
With its dimensions of 10,5 cm width, 8 cm height and about 15 cm length, its only slightly bigger than Fiio E9, but the difference is weight. While E9 weighs a little over 400 grams, Headbox SEII is well over 1 kg, so when you hold it in your hand, it really feels like something that could come handy for self defense in case you had burglars in your home.
Also, it looks very nice, it looks much better in person than on the pictures. The front panel is like black aluminum, really smooth looking, minimalistic design, with nicely detailed silver letters and a nice blue LED in the middle. This thing definitely doesn't look cheap.
It has 2 6,3 mm headphone jacks in the front, output / input RCA jacks in the back, and a power jack.
IGNORE THIS PART UNLESS YOU HAVE LOW IMPEDANCE HEADPHONES!
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Listening impressions:
When I first plugged it in and started listening, I was greatly disappointed. If you buy this, don't use it before burn-in. It just doesn't sound right, and I'm one of those guys who thought amp burn-in is a bunch of crap. For the first 5 minutes the only thing that went trough my head (except the terrible sound) was how I'm gonna get my money back. It sounded terrible, and I mean REALLY terrible, without any exaggerating, worse that out of the Logitech z2300 PC speakers headphone jack. Almost no bass, mids sounded thin, highs were piercing (and that's with pretty warm sounding Sennheisers) and there was a lot of sibilance, but the biggest problem, it sounded like left and right channels were randomly getting louder / quieter, never heard anything like that. I though it was faulty so I checked the RCA cables, but all was well. So I took my headphones off, and left the amp to work for a few hours.
About 2 hours later, I came back, turned the volume down completely, put my headphones on, and slowly in fear I turned the volume knob to about 40% and put the Chris Issak - Wicked game (its one of my favorite songs for testing new equipment) on . And, there definitely is a lot of improvement, but its still not it, it still feels like its broken. Bass is now here, maybe a bit more in quantity and quality compared to Fiio E9, mids sound full, and highs are not piercing anymore, but they still sound very snappy and nervous, and there is still some sibilance in songs I'm very familiar with, and I KNOW there's no sibilance with Fiio E9 or Logitech Z-2300. So, I'm gonna leave it burning in over night, and see what happens in the morning.
Oh, and one more thing....It doesn't seem to be packed with power. I mean, it runs my HD558 to very loud levels, but I need to turn the knob to 2 o'clock to get my normal listening volume and all the way to 4 o'clock to really make it loud. Now, considering HD558's are only 50 Ohms and very easy to run, It makes me question whether this amp really has as much power as on the paper. It makes me question whether it will able to run the Beyerdynamic DT990 (250 ohm or 600 ohm) that I'm planning to buy soon. It has more power than Fiio E9, but it definitely doesn't have even nearly as much power as the Logitech Z-2300 output, which to me is staggering, since those speaker are half the price of this amp, and the sound coming trough that headphone jack is currently better than from this amp.
Good thing is, it can run 2 headphones at the same time, and turning one volume knob doesn't affect how the volume or sound of the other output at all, as if the two jacks are connected to separate amps inside.
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Okay, if you're still reading, it means you have high impedance headphones, in which case, this is a good amp. The reason why it sucks with HD558 is because of high output impedance of 30 Ohms, and low impedance of headphones, which makes them very hard to run.
I bought new HD650's, and they work very nicely with this amp. Plenty loud, nice bass, nice and crystal clear sound, without any distortion even at max. volume. I would say that this is a very neutral amplifier with a hint of brightness, since HD650's sound fairly bright out of it, in the sense that high end frequencies pop out of the sound more than low end frequencies do. Its not exactly a warm sounding amp, its very analytical, precise and cold sounding, my guess is it wouldn't sound good with something like Beyerdynamic or AKG headphones, but with Sennheisers (high impedance ones) it's like a perfect match. Its neutral, but leaning to bright side, very detailed, with nice debth, nice clarity, precise and with controlled bass.
So, as a conclusion, if you have 250-300 dollars to spend on an amplifier that is going to be used for high impedance Sennheiser headphones, go for it. There might be better deals out there, but this is a good enough amp to satisfy most people. If you have low impedance headphones or headphones that are bright in nature, look elsewhere, because your setup will be too bright with this amp or wont work properly at all in case of low impedance cans.