That AGD (NFB 5) just happens to be there - I'm hardly ever using it these days. It's good for what it is, but in my setup it has been superseded by Lynx Hilo.
Regarding re-cabling - I did it myself, so that can't be too hard. Although removing the original mini-xlr wasn't what I would call easy...
In the end it paid off: balanced mode powered by the V281 must be the pinnacle of what these cans are capable of. If there is one thing that has not improved in this setup, it would be the headband bumps
Just thought I'd mention that I finally tried my Q701 with my new Project Ember tonight. I've had the amp for a week or two, but my Q701's have been on gaming duty and I just got a new HD650 and HD700 on Black Friday.
Verdict? It sounded fantastic! I can't recommend the tube amp enough with these headphones!
The Ember is probably overkill for the Q701, by the way. Garage1217 has cheaper amps with less power that will work fine for the Q. I got the Ember to drive my power-hungry HE-4. Project Starlight, etc. I'm not sure which would be the most appropriate but yeah.
(Oh and for the record, I don't like the HD700, selling those. And the HD650 is a really magical headphone with the tube amp as well. I'll definitely be keeping that one! @Zorrofox and @fuzzykiwi were right about that headphone!)
The only thing I don't like about these cans are their lack of ability to play loud without congestion and distortion. If these could only play at loud enough volumes where I can hear the full dynamics of an orchestra without strain or hip hop beats without clipping, these would easily go up in value to double the price in my book. I like them a lot and they are certainly far better than my old K701 that I despised for being too bright.
Agreed, they can distort way before they get loud. The upper midrange can "shout" at you, but the sound is not full at all, and yes dynamics gets chopped real quick, once you raise the volume. The real problem is bass. While with bass boost at low and moderate level they sound nice and full, as you raise the volume the tonality shift very quickly, and driver distortion can be observed easily along with strained thin tonality. I use the IFI Ican, which should be able to produce the Q max rated input into 62ohms, same goes with the Fiio E12, which actually has even more power.
Well, without any bass boost they do sound full out of the schiit vali and they have lost the upper midrange congestion that they had out of the box before a few days of seriious burn in but still they dont play loud enough before distorting. The Vali has about double the maximum power rating at their average impedance so I am confused. Is the maximum power rating bogus? should I give them Lyr power to make them sing without distortion at loud levels or am I screwed in the sense that I have already maxxed out the volume these can take. For the person that commented about the earsplitting volumes with the Lyr, did you try bass heavy music or anything with extreme dynamics?
Well, without any bass boost they do sound full out of the schiit vali and they have lost the upper midrange congestion that they had out of the box before a few days of seriious burn in but still they dont play loud enough before distorting. The Vali has about double the maximum power rating at their average impedance so I am confused. Is the maximum power rating bogus? should I give them Lyr power to make them sing without distortion at loud levels or am I screwed in the sense that I have already maxxed out the volume these can take. For the person that commented about the earsplitting volumes with the Lyr, did you try bass heavy music or anything with extreme dynamics?
Well my experience with the Q701 and K712 is that power rating doesn't necessarily matter in how good they sound, they generally sound better on powerful systems but not always, the AKG K7 series is all about synergy, they are extremely fickle headphones. My comments about the Lyr 2 is with bass heavy music as well as music with a powerful dynamics. Some of it could be they simply need more burn-in, I remember my K612 which shares an identical driver but different impedance and different voice coil distorted quite badly in the bass a bit before the thing burned in, now the bass doesn't distort at all on the headphone even on the systems that used to distort it badly.
Many (not all) DACs lack DSP headroom so for dynamically compressed recordings a small amount of unnecessary extra distortion occurs when played without at least a little digital attenuation. It doesn't matter where, could be in the transport or a DAC digital volume control, -5db is more than enough for any sane music, but the digital attenuation helps the reproduction of inter sample peaks >0db during upsampling.
Keep in mind that you may be using a very powerful amp, but you actually aren't driving full power into the headphones.
If you did, then two things would happen:
A: You would quickly go deaf as the volume level would be very loud
B: You would blow the headphones
Many (not all) DACs lack DSP headroom so for dynamically compressed recordings a small amount of unnecessary extra distortion occurs when played without at least a little digital attenuation. It doesn't matter where, could be in the transport or a DAC digital volume control, -5db is more than enough for any sane music, but the digital attenuation helps the reproduction of inter sample peaks >0db during upsampling.
I thought this as well since my DAC was an HRT "microsteamer" so I bought a standalone DAC. A Parasound ZDAC, which has a robust power supply and a proven DAC design. Things did improve some but let's face it, this is a gross amount of distortion we're talking about not something you can only measure on some fancy gear but can never hear. This isn't clipping either, it's probably the opposite, since this is an open design there is nothing to control the driver not to "flap".
When the phone is in within it's linear capability it sounds fantastic however, but they simply can't deliver real life concert hall level sound, not even close. BTW I did perform the bassport mod a while back, and I think it's quiet a bit better that way, also I had them for almost a year, so burning in isn't an issue. I actually played music on them for almost a week while I was away at work so about 10hr's a day at moderate level, before I put them on for a serious listening. I have 4 different amps, 3 of them are desktop ones, and have 3 more headphones as well, but they are lower impedance and closed design. None of them show any distress on the same recordings and using the same amps and DAC.
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