Hi all,
So I broke in my SE530s over the weekend and then finally sat down to listen in depth this morning. I must say up front that I really wanted to like this combination. I had recently on a whim tried my Etymotic ER4Ps with the Yamamoto and liked the results a lot. Compared to my usual ATH-W1000s the sound was more bright and alive and immersing. Only maybe a little too bright sometimes, so I thought I would try out the SE530s from Shure to tame that brightness.
It worked but too well! The SE530s are such warm full sounding phones that combined with the Yamamoto amp, they are a little too warm for my taste. I tried EQing them and that helped, but after switching back and forth several times I just found the Etymotics more involving in my setup.
The Se530s definitely had more oomph in the bass department, but I have been playing around with using an Aura Cushion,, a kind of self-contained bass shaker, or as I think of it, a subwoofer for headphones. If I use the Aura Cushion very sparingly like one should use a regular subwoofer in a speaker system, it fills in the bass of the Ety's very nicely. And the sound isolation of the Ety’s is also helpful here as the Aura Cushion does add a bit of sound to the room as well as vibrating your body directly. When I tried the Aura Cushion with the W1000s it muddied the sound a bit as I was hearing the Aura as well as feeling it. With the Etys the sound is very clean as long as I don’t get carried away with cranking up the Aura, although that can be kind of fun for a novelty effect just like cranking up a subwoofer can be a fun diversion on certain kinds of music. And if somebody really likes that room shaking bass effect, this combo does allow you to rock out without starting a war with your neighbors.
As for the question of tube hiss, I experimented some more and found that the Yamamoto is actually extremely quiet. The hiss I was hearing was coming in from my source, and I traced it back to the computer I use as a dedicated music server. I have been able to clean it up by adding some power conditioning (Blue Circle Noisehounds and Graham-Stetzer filters) to the circuit the computer is on, and now I only hear a very faint hiss when the volume is cranked all the way, even with the 108db Etymotics. At very high but normal listening volumes there is no audible hiss.
So the bottom line is that I am going to keep my Etymotics for serious listening and also my ATH-W1000s for a change of pace, or for listening at my work computer across the room. The SE530s are going up for sale this morning.
For reference, here is my complete setup as of now:
Dedicated Dell music server with Vista basic and Burwen Bobcat using a special preset (Analog 14) that Dick Burwen sent me when the others sounded a bit artificial with headphones. (Dick has now told me that the Analog 14 is almost exactly the same as the new Bobcat Basic that is included with new versions of the software- I can't tell them apart)
Trends UD10 USB converter (I have the Aura cushion hooked up to the headphone out of this unit) with battery power pack
DIY Monica DAC with external 12v battery
Burson Audio Buffer (works especially well with the Monica DAC)
Signal Cable Silver Reference ICs
Yamamoto HA02
Etymotic ER4P (or the ATH-W1000)
Extras: Graham Stetzer Filters and Blue Circle Noisehounds for quieter power
Quantum Symphony Pro
Aura Cushion for a visceral subwoofer like effect with headphones.
