[disastermouse]

what did you not like about the o2? I thought the o2+ODAC was considered the holy grail for ~$300.

Grainy, lack of power, and clipping in high gain.

 

[Darien]

can anyone with hd650 tell me a song where they can hear the singer swallow? maybe even an adele song or whatever...and tell me at what time you hear them swallow? i want to use that as a reference to my upgades lol. i can hear adele breathe in in rolling the deep, but i want to get to where i can hear her swallow. 
 
edit: nvm, hearing her breathe isn't anything special cus i can hear her breathe on cheap sony headphones too :/

 

[ktm]

Adele recordings are terrible. Her recording engineer should be shot.

 

[Darien]

right on lol, i saw someone review the h650 on amazon from 2004, that said she was able to hear saliva in the throats of vocalists, and it didnt seem like she had any fancy amp/dac - and pretty much all her other reviews were for lipstick and stuff.... and i figure its 12 years later now, so surely a 300$ magni/modi2 should get at least if not more than what she experienced right?
 
tbh i like how these sound with my e10k, though i can see how its a little grainy up top, but the bass sounds excellent! hoping the modi/magni uber 2 will iron it out enough for me.

 

[coastal1]

Why don't you just save up until you can afford something nice. Save up say 500.00 and you have a real nice schiit stack. I don't think anyone here is looking down on anyone. Considering your budget, the 650's may not have been your best choice.

 
Yeah, when I got the HD650 earlier this year as my first venture into good headphones, I didn't quite understand that the HD650's ability to 'scale very well' meant you have to get some pretty decent components to start to hear their potential.  I just got a Cavalli Liquid Carbon and am loving that with the 650, so much that I'm considering selling my BH Crack and being done with headphone amps for a while.  Oh well, at least this hobby is less expensive than stereo.

 

[ubs28]

   
Yeah, when I got the HD650 earlier this year as my first venture into good headphones, I didn't quite understand that the HD650's ability to 'scale very well' meant you have to get some pretty decent components to start to hear their potential.  I just got a Cavalli Liquid Carbon and am loving that with the 650, so much that I'm considering selling my BH Crack and being done with headphone amps for a while.  Oh well, at least this hobby is less expensive than stereo.

The HD 650 even drives excellent out of my portable amplifiers. You don't need a beefy high-end amplifier. They are easy to drive. I heard how the HD 650 sounds on the HDVD800, so that's how I know.
 
Well, speakers are super expensive yes. You got amplifiers for $70.000+.

 

[mbusby]

Amp-wise, both a Magni and the new Polaris have worked well for the HD650. The Polaris offers lots of settings to help tune the sound, though obviously not as much as an Ember or other easily rollable tube amp. The Polaris is magical with my HE-500. I haven't put in much time with it with my HD650s yet.

 
I use Polaris for the Mad Dog and Ember for the HD 650 (using a 6SN7), both fed by an iDSD. Lately I have also been using the Mad Dog with an iDSD/iCAN combo with good results.

 

[castleofargh]

VERY...VERY SIMPLE....you turn the volume down! You'll need to turn the volume down more. You can get sufficient volume at 40% on the volume dial, as you would at 60-70% on a lower power tube. Does that make any sense?!?!

so you get an amp with more power so that you can't use the power and get your volume knob into some potential channel imbalance? not sure that's a winning move.
unless you have more demanding headphones, I don't see the point a some 2W amp with a hd650. that amp might be great for other reasons, but so much extra power that can't possibly be used, no point, only the probability of higher noise floor from the added gain.
 
 
Quote:

 

what did you not like about the o2? I thought the o2+ODAC was considered the holy grail for ~$300.

Grainy, lack of power, and clipping in high gain.

some like it, some don't, I won't argue about taste, I hate celine dion when she didn't even steal my car or anything. on a purely subjective point of view(true or not IDK), I've heard several amps that sounded more "energetic?", I don't want to misuse "dynamic" to express this idea because dynamic has a real meaning and it's not it, but I guess most of you guys get my idea. and I got one with a knob that has some annoying channel imbalance (but I solved that one with a multimeter and patience).
I happen to like the O2 for the same reason I like the hd650, I find it relaxing without being too smooth or too warm. but I perfectly understand how the ember or others can look more appealing despite probably inferior fidelity. taste will be taste.
 
about clipping on high gain, it's a case of RTFM that doesn't exist. 

not your fault but there are plenty of explanations about that on nwavguy's blog and in headfi's very own topic about the O2. it's a topic with many very knowledgeable guys ready to help.
when I bought mine, I had done a few calculo-guessing about the gain I would need given the 2V of the odac and asked for unity gain and 2.5X, because that's what made sense with the hd650, 0 for normal use and 2.5 to get the hd650 well driven even if I was to ever push it to around 115db (in practice even 0 is loud).
that amp was made to try and serve many different purposes, one of those was to be used with super weak portable sources, the high gain choice made sens in that particular usage. when using some old ipod with less than 0.5V from the line out, pushing the gain was very legitimate. not with a desktop DAC of 2V or more where it's super easy to clip the signal with such a gain choice.
 
anyway I won't get money for selling the O2 and there are plenty of great amps for many uses, transparent or colored, tube or not... 
the point is to use them properly for what they were built to do and hope to be happy about it ^_^.

 

[Darien]

has anyone here tried pairing a schiit product with a non schiit product? like would a magi 2 uber be a good mate for an odac?

 

[DavidA]

  has anyone here tried pairing a schiit product with a non schiit product? like would a magi 2 uber be a good mate for an odac?

Shouldn't be a problem, I think most/many mix and match DACs and amps.  From what I can remember about the O2/ODAC it was a neural sounding.  I've never tried a Magni2uber but the original Magni is a little on the bright side IMO.

 

[i luvmusic 2]

  so do you guys think the emotiva dc-1 will be good enough for me considering i cant spend more money than that? when ya have a lot of money it's easy to look down on others with less and ask "why can't you just save up for a thousand dollar setup??" but there are other things i have to buy with the money i have, like food.
 
otherwise should i return the 650hd and get something else? what else would be good for a lower budget? cus i didnt like the sharpness of the 598hd hurt my ears, and i hear beyerdynamic sets are more harsh....what should i get instead of my 650hd if i cant afford those high end gear? was looking at the fidelio x2, but the qc stuff is so effed up to get a good pair right now...what else can i do?

 Why not try a VINTAGE RECEIVER(Mine is PIONEER SX3700 and KENWOOD KR-A3060)they are not expensive just don't look at higher end VINTAGE it will cost you arm and a leg.I can only speak for KENWOOD and PIONEER because these are what i have and i preferred these combo over all my dedicated headphone amps for the DAC i used AUDIOENGINE D1 and TEAC UD-HO1.

 

[raybone0566]

has anyone here tried pairing a schiit product with a non schiit product? like would a magi 2 uber be a good mate for an odac?

I do it everyday, works like a charm.

 

[raybone0566]

The HD 650 even drives excellent out of my portable amplifiers. You don't need a beefy high-end amplifier. They are easy to drive. I heard how the HD 650 sounds on the HDVD800, so that's how I know.

Well, speakers are super expensive yes. You got amplifiers for $70.000+.

This what most people say who don't own a beefy amplifier.

 

[whirlwind]

 

The HD 650 even drives excellent out of my portable amplifiers. You don't need a beefy high-end amplifier. They are easy to drive. I heard how the HD 650 sounds on the HDVD800, so that's how I know.

Well, speakers are super expensive yes. You got amplifiers for $70.000+.

This what most people say who don't own a beefy amplifier.

I used a MAD Ear+ HD amp for my HD650 for a long time...the amp was made specifically for the HD650....it sounded wonderful, absolutely wonderful.
 
I now have an OTL amp, and the HD650 sounds better...all across the spectrum...just a bigger sound.   

 

[SirMarc]

 Why not try a VINTAGE RECEIVER(Mine is PIONEER SX3700 and KENWOOD KR-A3060)they are not expensive just don't look at higher end VINTAGE it will cost you arm and a leg.I can only speak for KENWOOD and PIONEER because these are what i have and i preferred these combo over all my dedicated headphone amps for the DAC i used AUDIOENGINE D1 and TEAC UD-HO1.

Not a bad plan, I use one of the expensive ones lol, a Sansui 9090, and it sounds ridiculously good with the 650's. An added bonus, is you can hook up a turntable because they all have phono stages...