tfarney
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2008
- Posts
- 1,257
- Likes
- 16
First, the history:
Last year, I was putting together a system to play in the den/kitchen area of the house so I could have tunes going while cooking, etc. It was not really meant to be a serious, critical listening system, but still, I wanted it to sound good. At one point, I had a set of nice used bookshelf speakers (Cambridge Soundworks Model 6s) in transit, and my very nice vintage dual mono Harman Kardon integrated was in the shop getting cleaned, some fresh caps, etc. I heard from the repair guy. His mother was in the hospital and I wasn't going to see my HK for a few weeks. But the speaks were on the way...
I didn't want to wait to try them out, so I just ordered one of these cheap Panasonic HT receivers I'd read about on the net. Built with Texas Instruments' class D digital amps (bought from some Dutch company a couple of years ago), they were getting raved about by users all over the net. Besides, the vendor was giving a 30 day trial. I figured than in the likely event that the Panny didn't live up to its internet hype, I could send it back when the HK came home and lose nothing but the shipping.
When the HK came back, it only spent about 2 days in the signal chain. That cheap Panny, with digital audio coax straight out of a Toshiba DVD player pretty much blew it away. I don't understand how it works, really. I've read that the signal stays digital until just before it is put on the speaker terminals, that there is no DAC, per se, that basically, the whole amp functions as a high-current DAC. I won't pretend I understand any of that, but I know the thing really sounds good.
It never really occurred to me to use it as a headphone amp, though. I did plug some cans in there once or twice, and it sounded good, but I didn't pay that much attention because I was focused on cooking and playing the speakers, not headphone listening. Since then, I've ripped my CDs to a hard drive and spent a LOT of time listening to them, right out of my Mac laptop's headphone jack, into my Senn 580s, in spite of all your advice. Well, the other day my back was hurting, so I unplugged the laptop, grabbed the Senns and headed for the den where I plugged into the Panny and played a cd.
My, that sounded good. Really good. I'd been spending a couple of hours a day listening to my Senns lately, but it didn't sound like this.
Knowing that hifi is ripe with imagined wish fulfillment, and that I'm not immune, I decided an A/B test was in order. This morning, I found the time to do it. I carried the Mac and external hard drive out into the den, pulled up a chair, set the volume levels to audibly equal and started going back and forth between the two:
1) Apple lossless file>iBook G4>Senn HD580s
2) Toshiba DVD player>digital coax>cheapo Panny receiver>Senn HD580s
The test track was Babylon Sisters from the Citizen Steely Dan set, because it has it all: Big, punchy bass, kick drum and tom toms, lots of air and space around the instruments, rich, reedy horn solos, a chorus of very dense (not the girls, the mix) background vocals, and a few bells and small cymbals on top. I hit pause, went back and forth a lot. Listened to passages several times each. Here's what I heard:
Moving from the Mac's soundcard to the Panny -- The first thing you hear is the sheer size of the bass. I hadn't really noticed it sounding small out of the Mac, but now it does. The bottom end in the Panasonic is just plain bigger, and with a lot more impact on the note's attack. It's not that it's muddy or mushy from the Mac, but it sure doesn't have the girth or smack to it that it has through this stupidly cheap receiver.
The next thing you notice is that everything else is bigger. Not as dramatically so, but there seems to be more space between the instruments. I've always kind of shaken my head when I read about "sound stage" in cans. I mean they're cans, right? There is no way they can lay the music out in front of you on a "stage." And they don't, but listening through the Mac, while I never sensed much of that "3 blobs" sensation people talk about, everything seemed to stay pretty close to my head. Through the Panny it's spread out much further and the layers of distance between the elements are palpable.
The last thing I noticed, and this is the most disturbing, is after listening to the track through the Panny, when I went back to the Mac, sounds in the upper mids (those background singers) and trebles (bells, cymbals and such) seem to have a rather sharp edge to them. And those background singers seem a bit mushed together. This is disturbing because rather than it simply being something that is lacking in the Mac's presentation, it is something added. Something not good. A distortion of some kind. I don't know if this is "grain," or the famous jitter I've been wondering about, but it's definitely there. And don't get me wrong; the Senns don't sound bad straight out of the Mac. They sound good. And they would have continued sounding good if I hadn't gotten this little glimpse of Valhalla. Now I want an amp for the home office even more than ever. But I may have the clean, neutral presentation thing covered with this Panny. I may have to go for tubes next. Or maybe I'll just buy another one of these things for the office!
I know you all love pictures with reviews, though I'm warning you - It isn't pretty. Here:
That's right. I'm singing the praises of a headphone amp that was built in China as a 5.1 HT receiver. And it's hopelessly cheesy, with user interface like a bad cell phone. I don't often mention that I own one of these in audio circles because people look at me like a tree has grown from my nose (yes, I see you looking at me that way now), but there it is. A dirt-cheap (easily found for <$200) Chinese HT receiver as high-end headphone amp. Go ahead. Tell me I'm nuts; I can handle it. When I read it I'll be sitting on the couch in my den, lap top in lap, listening to my new headphone amp....
Tim
Last year, I was putting together a system to play in the den/kitchen area of the house so I could have tunes going while cooking, etc. It was not really meant to be a serious, critical listening system, but still, I wanted it to sound good. At one point, I had a set of nice used bookshelf speakers (Cambridge Soundworks Model 6s) in transit, and my very nice vintage dual mono Harman Kardon integrated was in the shop getting cleaned, some fresh caps, etc. I heard from the repair guy. His mother was in the hospital and I wasn't going to see my HK for a few weeks. But the speaks were on the way...
I didn't want to wait to try them out, so I just ordered one of these cheap Panasonic HT receivers I'd read about on the net. Built with Texas Instruments' class D digital amps (bought from some Dutch company a couple of years ago), they were getting raved about by users all over the net. Besides, the vendor was giving a 30 day trial. I figured than in the likely event that the Panny didn't live up to its internet hype, I could send it back when the HK came home and lose nothing but the shipping.
When the HK came back, it only spent about 2 days in the signal chain. That cheap Panny, with digital audio coax straight out of a Toshiba DVD player pretty much blew it away. I don't understand how it works, really. I've read that the signal stays digital until just before it is put on the speaker terminals, that there is no DAC, per se, that basically, the whole amp functions as a high-current DAC. I won't pretend I understand any of that, but I know the thing really sounds good.
It never really occurred to me to use it as a headphone amp, though. I did plug some cans in there once or twice, and it sounded good, but I didn't pay that much attention because I was focused on cooking and playing the speakers, not headphone listening. Since then, I've ripped my CDs to a hard drive and spent a LOT of time listening to them, right out of my Mac laptop's headphone jack, into my Senn 580s, in spite of all your advice. Well, the other day my back was hurting, so I unplugged the laptop, grabbed the Senns and headed for the den where I plugged into the Panny and played a cd.
My, that sounded good. Really good. I'd been spending a couple of hours a day listening to my Senns lately, but it didn't sound like this.
Knowing that hifi is ripe with imagined wish fulfillment, and that I'm not immune, I decided an A/B test was in order. This morning, I found the time to do it. I carried the Mac and external hard drive out into the den, pulled up a chair, set the volume levels to audibly equal and started going back and forth between the two:
1) Apple lossless file>iBook G4>Senn HD580s
2) Toshiba DVD player>digital coax>cheapo Panny receiver>Senn HD580s
The test track was Babylon Sisters from the Citizen Steely Dan set, because it has it all: Big, punchy bass, kick drum and tom toms, lots of air and space around the instruments, rich, reedy horn solos, a chorus of very dense (not the girls, the mix) background vocals, and a few bells and small cymbals on top. I hit pause, went back and forth a lot. Listened to passages several times each. Here's what I heard:
Moving from the Mac's soundcard to the Panny -- The first thing you hear is the sheer size of the bass. I hadn't really noticed it sounding small out of the Mac, but now it does. The bottom end in the Panasonic is just plain bigger, and with a lot more impact on the note's attack. It's not that it's muddy or mushy from the Mac, but it sure doesn't have the girth or smack to it that it has through this stupidly cheap receiver.
The next thing you notice is that everything else is bigger. Not as dramatically so, but there seems to be more space between the instruments. I've always kind of shaken my head when I read about "sound stage" in cans. I mean they're cans, right? There is no way they can lay the music out in front of you on a "stage." And they don't, but listening through the Mac, while I never sensed much of that "3 blobs" sensation people talk about, everything seemed to stay pretty close to my head. Through the Panny it's spread out much further and the layers of distance between the elements are palpable.
The last thing I noticed, and this is the most disturbing, is after listening to the track through the Panny, when I went back to the Mac, sounds in the upper mids (those background singers) and trebles (bells, cymbals and such) seem to have a rather sharp edge to them. And those background singers seem a bit mushed together. This is disturbing because rather than it simply being something that is lacking in the Mac's presentation, it is something added. Something not good. A distortion of some kind. I don't know if this is "grain," or the famous jitter I've been wondering about, but it's definitely there. And don't get me wrong; the Senns don't sound bad straight out of the Mac. They sound good. And they would have continued sounding good if I hadn't gotten this little glimpse of Valhalla. Now I want an amp for the home office even more than ever. But I may have the clean, neutral presentation thing covered with this Panny. I may have to go for tubes next. Or maybe I'll just buy another one of these things for the office!
I know you all love pictures with reviews, though I'm warning you - It isn't pretty. Here:
That's right. I'm singing the praises of a headphone amp that was built in China as a 5.1 HT receiver. And it's hopelessly cheesy, with user interface like a bad cell phone. I don't often mention that I own one of these in audio circles because people look at me like a tree has grown from my nose (yes, I see you looking at me that way now), but there it is. A dirt-cheap (easily found for <$200) Chinese HT receiver as high-end headphone amp. Go ahead. Tell me I'm nuts; I can handle it. When I read it I'll be sitting on the couch in my den, lap top in lap, listening to my new headphone amp....
Tim
