Hey Jeff,
Thanks alot. To answer your questions.
Quote:
Ok, one more time. Since the headphone amp analog component is the same unit as used in the store. What were the differences?
1) Headphones? Or did you buy the ones that were also demo'ed in the store? As I recall, you had HD800s. Those phones are going to be very revealing and open even before they are "broken in", so unless you have a damaged set of HD800 or cables (and especially if you actually brought home the demos), I just can't see it being the headphones.
2) You had analog cables on your source side at the store. Cables are typically measured in how much or how little they degrade the signal. Adding cables in this case just couldn't make the signal that much better than the tiny connections between the DAC and Amp sections of the HDVD800.
3) You were not using the DAC in the HDVD800 (which, of course means that you were not using any of the digital input circuitry on the HDVD800 either) It seems very odd. The HDVD800 appears to have a very good DAC in it. I suppose that there is always a possibility that the DAC itself or it's digital interface that you are using has something wrong with it. But when it sounds so "good" as it is (maybe not terrific but it is functioning), that would be an odd failure mode. Just doesn't seem as likely.
4) You are not using the same digital recordings as at the store. This also doesn't seem to explain the difference because you should still be able to hear some "air" on other decent recordings that you have access to that would be similar to the recordings at the shop.
Which leads me to the last 2 things I can think of:
5) The "transport" mechanism that you are using for your source is completely different than in the shop. The CD player has the advantage of having its master clock inside the same box with both the DAC and the CD transport itself which can assist a bit in jitter control. I think I remember you saying that at home you are using a computer as your digital source. If your home source is producing a lot of jitter it could potentially produce a reduction of focus. Also if you are set up to operate your USB in Adaptive transfer mode instead to Asynchronous mode, you jitter could be a bit worse than just using TOSlink or another S/PDIF interface. Are you using an audio program designed to bypass some of the generic OS audio handling processes on the PC? I know that on my iMac, this DOES make a difference for me.
6) This last item is rather subjective. Sometimes, you can have a sound A that seems nicer than sound B even though sound B is more accurate. I learned this many years ago with intermodulation distortion. On some amps, the distortion would add a very low level and subtle extra sound or hash that would occur synchronously with the real sound coming from the recording. I've also seen this in some cases where jitter related artifacts are present. They would add extra "body" to the sound that could make it more "rich" and "Musical" to listen to. But that "richness" was from artifacts not in the source recording. It wasn't until I noticed that when I got that "richness" and extra body in the music, the sound stage would tend to collapse due to the true sounds of ambience in the recording being overrun with a fake kind of "ambience" created as a result of jitter or intermodulation distortion. I know that this isn't quite what you were describing, but it might be something to think about.
So if you can't get your hands on that CD player to check it's output both from its analog and digital outputs, I'd do some reading and revisit how your computer system is set up to output the digital tracks that you have stored on it.
Again hope this gives you some ideas.
- Jeff
First difference was the recording. I have asked for the album but there hasn't been a reaction yet. At home I have listened to hundreds of recordings of good quality and good recordings.
Second difference is that the dac of the cd player was used (Music Hall, CD35.2, cost 800 Euro's), not the dac of the HDVD800.
The set (HD800 and HDVD800) however is exactly the same except for the fact that it is burned in now and it wasn't in the shop (in the shop it was used for 3 hours). I thought it sounded to clinical/mechanical and artificial so I asked if they could let it burn in. I expect that from burning in the sound would get more detail, depth, seperation etc., not less, right?
I think I heard the potential of the HD800 and I was impressed (taht's why I bought it). But I was also dissepointed because of the clinical/artificial sound. But I thought that would go away after burn in, wich it did (unless the artificial sound came from the dac).
5) Yes I'm using a computer. I dont't think I have trouble with jitter. Since very clear recordings have no noise or anything that you're not supposed to hear.
I'm using WASAPI in Foobar.
There is a clear improvement (in depth, detail and openness) when turning the volume up (logically), but it's too loud to listen to for longer than 10 minutes. The difference it makes doesn't come close to what I heard in the store.
Btw everybody that had the opportunity to listen to the set, said they didn't think it was worth the money at all. Most of them said that there is way to little feeling of space/depth. This is also something I was expecting to be alot better.
I don't know if balanced could make the difference or that there is indeed something wrong with the set. Personally I think the difference I hear is because of the different dac. The difference in price between HDVD800 and HDVD600 is about 200E/$. So if that means the value of the dac is 200E/$, the DAC I listened to in the shop was 800E, that makes for a 600E more expensive dac.
I am sending the set back to the store. I've asked if listening with balanced cables is possible (no respons yet).
Thanks alot Jeff. 
