Hi everyone,
I want to do a sort of review or assessment of the kind of sound(s) or outcome in my listening habits that happened to me in the very few first days of my ownership.
I was delighted with the sound of my beloved K501 so far. My only regret was why a couple of recording companies or very specific CDs sounded so laser defined, edged and hot mastered, aka, a bit too much on the treble band. But they are very few and far between. Some of them are very well known (too close-miked or/and distortion at 0dB) and some of them, strangely for me, very well praised around in reviews without taking into account how painful was the violin, brass instruments, trumpet, horns, etc.
With luck, the violin will just sound as right as the medium allows (CDs). With some body, warm wood sound when playing towards the bottom of the scale but, in the highest pitches, well, they will lose all the colour or timbre and only can render a pure pitch. It happened to me also with voices, chorus, bells, etc.
The trumpets and horns will sound interesting and not painful, more like stones in a metal can than subtle farting two metres away from you. But colour? Timbre? Forget about it.
My K501 usually helps the CD player (a Linn Akurate CD) in offering as much neutrality as they can but together they will process the sound in a very particular way: ancient recordings or hot ones will be painful without remorse. The sound in the CD should be neutral, not very hot, can be loud if it is warm. My own constraints apply here: boomy or syrupy, over-mastered or cloudy, very distant, etc, can cause rejection. But, successfully, I built a small library of wonderful recordings if I understand when the CD was made/mastered and when the recording happened. So far so good, there is a ton of performances to choose. My beloved Beethoven and some deeply moving Brahms concertos and symphonies help me to smooth my rough day at my work when everybody goes to sleep and the city around choose to stay silent for a very few hours. At night, with almost every device unplugged or switched off and no sound from outside, the sounds of an open headphone creates the experience I sought after.
So far, so good. Two ‘buts’: every good recording sound quite similar in a sense of triggering the same pleasure or emotional reaction. They shouldn’t I believe, but they do regularly. They sound similar albeit I can figure out differences if I want or pay extra attention. And, maybe, they should be a way or killing too much treble in those particular recordings that I know deserved to be enjoyed (I have one particular Beethoven Violin Concerto in mind but also modern HIP orchestras and Arvo Part recordings). I can do better or look elsewhere to ‘tame’ those laser etched CDs.
So I was prepared to do a bit of investment in a DAC of sorts. Some new source that I can enjoy without too much hassle. So I could carry on enjoying my current set up.
I can’t avoid the amp or the cables. The amp is a Lehmann Audio Linear. This unit has switches in the bottom to select the gain between 0dB-10dB-20dB. After trying for a while all of them, I settle in 0dB. The other two were or too bright (20dB gain) or not natural enough versus the zero setting (10dB). So I am using the pre-amp inside as a buffer stage I think. It’s fine, it works. Obviously, driving the K501 or the Beyer DT770-250Ohm I have to turn the volume almost all the way up. No problems.
So I was in the mood of doing a purchase with a clear objective.
And I waited. Before long, one day I pass in front of one of the nice small shops that survives in London that has many headphones to try. All the big boys there, I mean, not the biggest models, but the usual good ones from different brands. I can try my mobile phone with music on some of them or try the default demo device they provide with some samples. I tried both, just for fun.
A mistake. And a surprise.
The Senn HD600 was correct as usual, nice, polite, a bit distant, a bit ‘look at the good sound I can produce, pity you will never go around the corner and hear the real thing in front of you’. Underpowered? I don’t think so. It’s the best Senn signature sound that I witnessed many times before. Nice maybe but not for me. I need more expression and a headphone that helps with that. My Beyer can help, sometimes, if the music really really calls for it.
So I was enjoying my Beethoven and Brahms. But not so much Mahler. Or Bruckner, or other people afterwards. Bartok, Stravinsky. Hummm. Mellow, sweet sound or bombastic and funny with a controlled but an excess of vitality worked. Rimsky Korsakov, Orff, Holst, Rodrigo, Tchaikovsky. All of them worked.
But I was happy.
Then I tried the K712 Pro they had in Demo. Made in Austria unit, serial very low, seven hundred something only. Very clean and not very scratched or damaged. ‘good condition’ I will put if it were for sale. It wasn’t. They had another brand new sealed unit, made elsewhere and serial sixteen thousand something.
I could only test the demos, not a direct connection to my ugly device with my usual music on it (the same I was accustomed to listen in my main system described above). What a good luck I had.
The classical music piece (together with rock-pop-jazz-R&B-etc.) was simple and smooth. And then that orange sound arrives. Orange like cooper, orange like the metal ringing of an ugly dumped big bell, orange like the vibration to the infinite of the lips inside the echo chamber of a brass instrument. It was a trumpet. A trumpet that has the colour of a trumpet. First time in my life that I can hear that. And I saw myself in my comfy sofa and Mahlers, and Bruckners, and Wagners around me.
That day at home I was regretting my good luck. I found the money and asked for the specific unit I tried, the used demo one. ‘We don’t sell used!’ told me one person in the shop. I gave up. I went the next day. Full of people I asked and asked. I felt a bit embarrassed. I couldn’t explain what happened to me there before. “The new one is the same!” I play the card ‘the new ones are not made in Austria’ and ‘they have change the speakers and now the new units sound different’. I don’t care. I don’t know. I wanted that unit, just in case. They called a manager by phone. They sold me the unit in its original box, with a very small discount. The only new or ‘replaced’ item inside was one of the cables: the straight orange one. They were nice with me. I was the stupid man.
Until I reached home with my precioussss.
It took me two whole days to find the right time to try them with the recordings I hope now I will enjoy more. Long story short: It worked with Mahler and Bruckner as I suspected. Beethoven and Brahms remains the same or felt as ‘simplified’ versions of themselves.
The headphone does a kind of effervescence sound that enlightened and amplifies the pleasure in complex or very complex orchestral music as if they are having an easy job managing those sounds without constraints, free and with over confidence. The result is sort of a ‘resample’ or oversampling of the music. Also there is more info at the bottom without being showy or creating a boomy sound. But as a whole they are showy, they bring spectacular renditions out of massive orchestras. With ease. They have more or less the lovely mids of the K501. But everything is happening upper mids and low treble I think. There is a bit of too much energy, only a little bit, more ‘glare’ that painful bright sound. But how they manage many different timbres and some in the highest pitches with ease is wonderful. You hear more and the very low level is there too, even more than K501, no matter how low the sound is, so no luck with older recordings and noise. And no luck with hotter recordings either.
But now I have Mahler and Bruckner. And Wagner is fun as hell. I tried a little bit of my previous Beethoven and Brahms and so far they remain ‘untouched’ as an emotional experience. That’s very good. Maybe there is sadness in losing some excitement with some recordings/interpretations or even compositions as the headphones render them simpler. I don’t know how.
I hope my not very sort story/review will help somebody out there.
Oh, I forget: yes, clarinets, trumpets, brass... incredible. But no luck yet with violins at full range. Really they shall be the very limit of the CD medium. And I didn't try choral, Arvo Part, or other very high pitched performances.
