[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsferrari ...the driver control I am talking about it how quickly does the driver react to a change in the signal. This is hugely dependent on the amplifier used and how quickly the amplifier can pump in the current through the coil to get the driver moving with respect to the signal.

How quickly the driver reacts to the electrical signal is beyond the amp's capacity, but amps themselves have different reaction speeds, defined by their HF extension. So in fact the amp with the higher bandwidth will deliver the more accurate signal, not the one with the higher power reserve (again: provided that they operate in a healthy range) -- that's of course a simplification, since there's also harmonic and intermodulation distortion which have to be taken into account, and moreover the bandwidth may in fact be academic considering the CD format and the bandwidth of the human hearing (although sometimes the ultra-high bandwidth of a component seems to have a beneficial effect nonetheless).

It would have been more adequate to state that the SA5000 needs an amp with a synergetic signature. But that's something which applies to every headphone -- just that more neutral sounding headphones are less critical in this respect...

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[kartik]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsferrari Qualia and for a non-sony headphone - K1000 without the imaging...but better Bass. I think the K1000s are nice but incredibly hyped.

There is a reason for the hype. It is dead. Like all dead artists, it is appreciated after its demise. (Except of course the messiah of headphones(the HE90) which was miraculously resurrected.)

The lesson in this, of course, is to announce the end of the production line of the SA5000. Which will send it back to the top of everyone's favorite headphone list. All headphones have three times in the lifecycle when they are incredibly popular. 1. When they are launched, 2. When they are discontinued, and 3. When someone restarts a revival campaign.
Most high-end phones are remarkably good and the differences between each them is fairly subjective. It really comes down to personal preferences at this level.

 

[jjcha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsferrari I think the K1000s are nice but incredibly hyped.

Hmm, gotta disagree here, matey. I still stand by my statement that every serious head-fi'er needs to own these cans for a period of time. They might not stick to them, as preferences are different, and they are such picky cans, but they merit serious consideration.

Heh, I feel like a cheezeball bringing this up - but what electronics have you tried them out of? I think the T-Amp is okay, but what really sucked me into the K 1000 was when I put a X-10 in the rig for a while. But even beyond that, I can't help but think I'm only getting 80% of what the K 1000 can do.

Best,

-Jason

 

[applebook]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kartik Most high-end phones are remarkably good and the differences between each them is fairly subjective. It really comes down to personal preferences at this level.

Finally someone who makes serious sense.

 

[PATB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsferrari I think the K1000s are nice but incredibly hyped.

Yup, the posts around here make them sound like the Orpheus, so I agree wholeheartedly

 

[gsferrari]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjcha Heh, I feel like a cheezeball bringing this up - but what electronics have you tried them out of? I think the T-Amp is okay, but what really sucked me into the K 1000 was when I put a X-10 in the rig for a while. But even beyond that, I can't help but think I'm only getting 80% of what the K 1000 can do

Didnt we discuss that I have an ASL AQ1005DT? I bought it in excellent condition for a song...with some rather nice 300B tubes to boot.

The T-Amp is still great and I use it in my cube at work

I definitely need to try a bunch of amps...I want to go to my Aunt's to try her Burmester power amp and Classe' power amplifiers...

 

[shplorgh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsferrari I want to go to my Aunt's to try her Burmester power amp and Classe' power amplifiers...

 

[mysticaldodo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hungrych

Same here too.

Its cool you have a relative who has the same interest. My mom thinks I'm crazy

 

[drarthurwells]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aerius Significantly better resolution, particularly in terms of instrument harmonics, which I feel the SA5000 fails at. Another member (can't remember the name ATM) said the SA5000 is a very "on-off" headphone, in that details are either shoved in your face or completely deleted, I found that to be very true. Take a solo violin. The SA5000 shoves the scratchy rosin noise of the bow on the strings in my face, but the harmonics of the violin's body are mostly absent. Lots of string sound, not much body sound. The wood resonance sounds are simply gone. Similar effect with pianos. Very clear hammer striking string sounds, but decay is unnaturally short from the lower midrange on down and once again the sounds of the piano's body are mostly absent. It's good at transients but sucks arse (IMO) at body and decay. It is not tonally complete, a lot of harmonic details from the midrange on down are missing. PS-1 will get all those missing details which I mentioned above. Yes it will be boomy for people accustomed to the HP-1000 sound of super-tight super-fast bass, which IMO is rather unrealistic. Either of them will resolve more harmonics & low-level details than the SA5000, so yes, they are higher-resolution headphones. Now if you're talking about neutral, well, that's a whole other can of worms.

Art: Yes, may be true if you use a SS amp. SS amps focus more on the tone edge more than the tone body, as consitent with their harmonic overtone emphasis relative to tubes. SS amps generally have some leanness of tone compared to tube amps since most tubes focus on the body of the tone rather than the edge of the tone, IMO.

I find that the SA5000 more accurately show this difference, and differences among tubes used in a tube amp, than other headphones. This is high resolution.

I also believe the increase in tone body of headphones other than the SA5000, with SS amps, is due to coloration of these other headphones relative to the neutrality of the SA5000. Such coloration shows in the tone body rather than in the tone edges. You can hear realted coloration easily when you use a headphone of lower impedance than is best for your amp. Add some tone body and liquidity while giving some unnaturalness to tone timbre.

I control the tone body of the SA5000 by tube selection of my amp. Using one Shuguang 6N8P as the input tube and two Electro Harmonix Gold 6NS7 ytubes as the output tubes in my Bada PH12. I get an incredibly natural timbre with just the correct amount of tone body and great tone edge definition simultaneously. The MOSFETS give me the SS definition, deep and well defined bass, and transient impact and dynamics, while the tubes give me the correct richness of tone body (compared to SS alone).

The SA5000 will accurately reveal the tone leanness of SS amps, giving a brightness to the sound that is reflective of SS amps. Less accurate headphones will color the tone towards more richness and warmth with SS amps.

 

[xand1x]

Quote:

Originally Posted by drarthurwells Art: Yes, may be true if you use a SS amp. SS amps focus more on the tone edge more than the tone body, as consitent with their harmonic overtone emphasis relative to tubes. SS amps generally have some leanness of tone compared to tube amps since most tubes focus on the body of the tone rather than the edge of the tone, IMO. I find that the SA5000 more accurately show this difference, and differences among tubes used in a tube amp, than other headphones. This is high resolution. I also believe the increase in tone body of headphones other than the SA5000, with SS amps, is due to coloration of these other headphones relative to the neutrality of the SA5000. Such coloration shows in the tone body rather than in the tone edges. You can hear realted coloration easily when you use a headphone of lower impedance than is best for your amp. Add some tone body and liquidity while giving some unnaturalness to tone timbre. I control the tone body of the SA5000 by tube selection of my amp. Using one Shuguang 6N8P as the input tube and two Electro Harmonix Gold 6NS7 ytubes as the output tubes in my Bada PH12. I get an incredibly natural timbre with just the correct amount of tone body and great tone edge definition simultaneously. The MOSFETS give me the SS definition, deep and well defined bass, and transient impact and dynamics, while the tubes give me the correct richness of tone body (compared to SS alone). The SA5000 will accurately reveal the tone leanness of SS amps, giving a brightness to the sound that is reflective of SS amps. Less accurate headphones will color the tone towards more richness and warmth with SS amps.

I was there at the hamilton meet when he was listening to the SA-5000. I'm pretty sure he was using his own custom tube amp. Also, there was a PPX3 Slam at the meet, so I would also assume he listened to it on this one as well.

 

[Ferbose]

Hype around K1000?
I have listened to K1000 and K701 side by side. It was clear to me that K1000 is technically superior, as well as everyone who listened to them at a recent meet. There are simply not many headphones out there that can claim to be technically superior to K701, and each of them deserve some fanboy-ism.

SA5K and K701 seem to be on the similar technical level. But to my ears SA5K is too bright and lean. Sure it has lots of bass and speed, but I don't appreciate its sound signature. K701 and DT8880 sound somewhat similar, with SA5K on the bright side and HD650 on the dark side. Grados are even brighter than SA5K, but Grado's flavor is quite different from SA5K. Choosing between SA5K and K701 is obviously a persoanl preference issue and highly music dependent. It is hard for me to imagine using K701 primarily for rock and SA5K primarily for classical, bu that's just me.

 

[aerius]

Quote:

Originally Posted by drarthurwells Art: Yes, may be true if you use a SS amp. SS amps focus more on the tone edge more than the tone body, as consitent with their harmonic overtone emphasis relative to tubes. SS amps generally have some leanness of tone compared to tube amps since most tubes focus on the body of the tone rather than the edge of the tone, IMO.

95% of the listening was done on either my custom built tube amp or a PPX3 Slam, both of which use 6SN7 tubes, and we had a selection of tubes at the meet.

Quote:

I also believe the increase in tone body of headphones other than the SA5000, with SS amps, is due to coloration of these other headphones relative to the neutrality of the SA5000. Such coloration shows in the tone body rather than in the tone edges. You can hear realted coloration easily when you use a headphone of lower impedance than is best for your amp. Add some tone body and liquidity while giving some unnaturalness to tone timbre.

We've been over this before. When other headphones sound like the live performance and the SA5000 doesn't, it's the latter that's coloured. When I was there at the concert and mixing/mastering session, I know how the music is supposed to sound like. When other headphones recreate a reasonable approximation of the performance while the SA5000 does not, it means the latter is flawed. Period. End of story.

Quote:

I control the tone body of the SA5000 by tube selection of my amp. Using one Shuguang 6N8P as the input tube and two Electro Harmonix Gold 6NS7 ytubes as the output tubes in my Bada PH12. I get an incredibly natural timbre with just the correct amount of tone body and great tone edge definition simultaneously. The MOSFETS give me the SS definition, deep and well defined bass, and transient impact and dynamics, while the tubes give me the correct richness of tone body (compared to SS alone).

The 6N8P is a dry solidstate sounding tube. The Electro-Harmonix fares a bit poorly in low-level detail & harmonics particularly in the midrange. Unless the MOSFETS magically balance it out, you won't get anything close to neutral sound out of it.

Quote:

The SA5000 will accurately reveal the tone leanness of SS amps, giving a brightness to the sound that is reflective of SS amps. Less accurate headphones will color the tone towards more richness and warmth with SS amps.

Lots of headphones will accurately reveal the tonal leanness of SS amps. But the SA5000 is one of the few which still manages to sound lean and tonally incomplete on tube gear, even blatantly tubey & rich sounding tube gear. It'll probably require an amp using a stack of Ken-Rad and RCA VT-231's to overcome the leanness and bring the treble back in line.

 

[drarthurwells]

For the record, I now think the HD600 with Cardas cable is the best headphone I have ever heard - superior to Stax electrostatics in overall realism.

The 650 with Cardas cable has too much coloration, and less clarity, compared to the HD600 with Cardas cable.

The K701 lacks the 3-D imaging of the SA5000, but the K701 has more tone body than the SA5000, but less detail and less 3-D imaging. The SA5000 is also bright. The K701 does not have the etched 3-D imaging of either the SA5000 or the HD 600.

I rate them now as:

1. HD600 (stock 600 or 650 cable has some glare and lean tone body though - these problems are ovecome with the Cardas cable).

2. K701 or HD650

3. SA 5000 (love the detail and imaging though)

 

[donunus]

650 with cardas more colored than 650 with cardas what??? hmmm Are you saying in your thread that the hd600 is now your favorite can with cardas cable???

By the way, have you heard the audio technica ad2000? I wonder what you will think of those against your favorites

 

[vcoheda]

what an odd bump?