Hey all,
I've been eyeing the HD595's for a while now and have noticed Amazon dropped the price on these to
$139.99 USD (they were $165 a few days ago). After reading the entirety of this thread, they seem like the right cans for me so I went ahead and ordered. I'm pretty eager to try them out to say the least. There are a few things I read that I found a little puzzling:
Some people have said you need a decent amp to drive these to their full potential. Obviously, that's a given for most headphones but considering the age of this thread, I'm guessing they meant the older 120-ohm version of the HD595's? Which leads me to this question:
I recently purchased a new computer and am currently using motherboard audio. I was looking to upgrade to a soundcard when I saw this:
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=FiWODUF4uhiJVJKD&templete=2
It's a soundcard with a built-in headphone amp. And it's selling for an eyebrow-raising price of $30.00 on newegg. With the $10 mail-in rebate, that makes the final price $20. What's even more striking is the fact that apparently, Xonar's are some of the best soundcards on the market with quote "over 150 awards". According to the reviews I've read (read all of them), this card is legit and the real deal. The only thing is none of the reviews go into much detail about the headphone amp itself. Like, it would be nice if we could get a A/B comparison between a un-amped soundcard and this. The only thing I read is it's a Texas Instruments' DRV601RTJR "amp" and it can handle up to 150 ohms of impedance.
Anyone care to share some thoughts on this? It sounds like a no-brainer upgrade to me; a little more oomph to my new HD595's would be nice.
Also, does anyone else think it's a little impractical to re-cable the HD595's? I mean, I know copper prices have gone up but it's still by far the most plentiful and used element on Earth. iunno, I just feel like they are charging a heck of a premium for copper cables. With the amount of money you spend on a cable job, you could practically upgrade to a higher tier of Sennheisers (like the HD-600 series). I mean wouldn't that make more sense? Call me a idiot but, aren't the 600 series universally accepted as being "better" then the 500 series?
Anyways, like I said I'm very eager to test out these 595's. They seem like a hugely popular headphone and at $139.99, that's a real bargain. I'll drop a review off sometime next month.