@ruthieandjohn
I have followed your posts on the Grado thread and am familiar with the meticulous work you have done on rating the various Grado models. I find your rankings to be very close to my preferences.
I am curious to know which iPod you are using.
I have had my SE846 for about two weeks and initially used them with my desktop set up (Schitt stack...Modi-Loki-Magni3). I found the SE846 to be just as I expected...and very much to my liking. Excellent bass, perfect mids, subdued, but very nice highs. The OI of the Magni is according to Schitt <0.2 ohms.
Using with either of my iPods (30Gb Video and 160 Gb Classic), I did not find the sound to be as sweet as it is from the Magni. Directly out of my iPods, I found the sound to have less presence of the bass and highs...the overall sound signature being almost muddy. I have not done any sophisticated tests...just using my ears...same ear tips used on both setups...medium Westone Star tips. It was my understanding that the OI of the iPods (definitive information is not easy to come by) is approaching 5 ohms, and not very compatible with the SE846 given its low 9 ohm rating and high sensitivity.
I have also used them with my iPod - LOD - JDS Labs C5 (OI about 2 ohms). With this setup, the sound was about the same as coming directly out of the iPod...perhaps a little closer to my expectation...but still not as good as with the Magni.
I have since purchased an iFi iEMatch and have a further improvement to very near what I hear out of the Magni, either directly from my iPods, or via the C5. I would be very interested in your impressions of the SE846 directly out of an iPod.
I too find myself using my SE846 more at my desk ever since i started working from home earlier this year. I agree with you, the SE846 really is sensitive to output impedance.
I originally got an IE Match to use with my Dragonfly Cobalt and didnt really like how it changed the sound of the SE846 (though worked fine with my SE535s and SE425s). It did resolve the hissing I was getting on my Cobalt on Android but I discovered Android resampling was the issue and UAPP fixed that for me.
At my desktop, I was using it with a Grace m900 (.08 ohm) which sounded even better to me than the Cobalt. Unfortunately, the Grace m900 has an issue (makes a popping noise when sample rates change) when I feed it out of the digital outputs of my Node 2i. Customer support confirmed they get the same behavior and that it is likely a firmware issue so I got in on the last Drop for the Aurender Flow (.06 ohm I believe) to try with the SE846. I resisted the Drop for a long time but my curiosity finally got the best of me.
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