[Armaegis]

Very very briefly. Sounded pretty much as an LCD-2 should. Very strong and thumpy.

 

[aamer23]

Just got HA 200 this afternoon, just realised that i can run it as mono blocks now I need a balanced DAC. If the recording is good then it drives the music. it is fun, I find it to be dynamic limited by the headphones (v-moda XS). very transparent, fast with great rhythm. 

 

[Armaegis]

Don't forget that if you get another to use as monoblocks, then you'll have to recable the headphone as well (and in the case of the XS you might have to do some more extensive changes).

 

[aamer23]

need to find a cost effective balanced dac first, then the right cans ( Alpha Dogs, TH 900, TH 600 and or Audeze 2.2)
then we will get an second HA 200 (Insha'Allah God Willing), however, the XS are good however they need gentle soft music that does not push them dynamically

 

[aamer23]

The XS are normally used with 3.5 mm jack into the left cup, however the right cup has a 3.5 mm jack socket which can be used connect to another set of headphones so 2 people can listen at the sametime, I wonder if i could have a custom cable made with 2 X 3.5 mm jack to 2 x 3 pin XLR would this work into a HA 200 mono block set up ? as it might take a while to get to the cans i would like to have

 

[Rem0o]

  The XS are normally used with 3.5 mm jack into the left cup, however the right cup has a 3.5 mm jack socket which can be used connect to another set of headphones so 2 people can listen at the sametime, I wonder if i could have a custom cable made with 2 X 3.5 mm jack to 2 x 3 pin XLR would this work into a HA 200 mono block set up ? as it might take a while to get to the cans i would like to have

You would have to open up the cups and recable the drivers for balanced operation. However, going balanced with the XS would be a waste of time/money since they obviously don't even need 1/10 of the power available.

 

[aamer23]

Ok, opening the cups and rewiring XS Too much hard work. so back to the dilemma which cans to buy Alpha Dogs, TH 900, TH 600 and or Audeze 2.2, THanks for the advise 

 

[Armaegis]

  need to find a cost effective balanced dac first, then the right cans ( Alpha Dogs, TH 900, TH 600 and or Audeze 2.2)
then we will get an second HA 200 (Insha'Allah God Willing), however, the XS are good however they need gentle soft music that does not push them dynamically

 
A pro audio dac will probably offer one of the better cost/performance ratios. Personally I have an Echo2 which I think is quite good. Entry level should run you... $150-ish. I think I saw a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 on the sale forums a couple weeks ago, which should be around a hundred bucks used.
 
For the cans, it really depends what sound you're looking for. I lean more towards planars these days, but that's just me.

 

[Armaegis]

So I had a really stupid scare the other day. I had taken down my head-fi station because we needed the table for a dinner party. Upon setting everything back up, I couldn't get any sound. Checked the power cords, yup plugged in. Double check all cables, yup all good there too. Turned the dials all up, turned my dac to max, and all I got was a faint distortion. Tested the dac output on something else, no problem there. Tried a different dac through the amp, no sound. Tried the other amp, no sound. I had a brief panic that maybe in some horrible coincidence I had blown out my amps simultaneously, but what are the chances of that?
 
After a few more minutes of looking around, I realized... the power cord was plugged in to the power strip, but I forgot to plug in the IEC end to the amp.
 
Duh!

 

[aamer23]

HeHeHe done that before too 

 

[aamer23]

when using the HA 200 with JRiver what I heard after stopping the track was low hiss which then
disappeared after a few seconds is this normal, I have never used a headphone amp before.

 

[Armaegis]

I've never had that when stopping a track, although I do hear a declining hiss when I unplug my dac, but that's from the capacitors discharging and is from the dac not that amp.

 

[aamer23]

very freaky, yesterday the SQ was very hard and brittle everything sounded very compressed and today, much improved. the HA 200 does it have a favorite pair of cans or are any cans that i need to avoid. XS's are good but you cannot push them hard

 

[Armaegis]

I think it pairs exceptionally well with the HD800, while Project86 feels they do better with planars like the HE-6. i don't think you can go wrong with anything. Perhaps the only thing to be aware of is the moderate output impedance, which will muck with headphones that have a low nominal impedance but high peaks at the resonant points; basically the Senn HD5xx series comes to mind... but actually I tested that with an HD598 and I thought it was fine, it just had a bloom in the midbass range.

 

[aamer23]

HD800 are around 1500 USD and from what I have read they are very sensitive to the front end and are very difficult to please. my front end is PC win 8.1 JRiver > Bifrost Uber > HA 200 from what I have read not good enough for the HD 800. I am leaning towards Mr Speaker Alphas. If i was going to spend 1500 then the Fostex TH 900 are number one on the list for me (I think I am having a mid life crisis type thing want every thing in red

)