[00birdy]

Not sure if you saw my post about just buying a TubeDac11 but I should be able to post more about it with the beyer's later this week.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/603086/review-grant-fidelity-tubedac-11

http://shop.grantfidelity.com/Grant-Fidelity-TubeDAC-11-D-A-Converter.html

Too many people here arguing about if audiogd's were good or not so I went in another direction.. for $350 this thing gives you all the inputs, all the versatility, and an excellent DAC + AMP combo all in one.  It sounded expensive at first but the fact is you can pay over $200 for a good amp or a good dac, and you'll still need to buy the other one.  

 

[zeinharis]

Quote:

The HE-500 is going to cost about as much as the AMP and DAC I need to Power the Dt 880, seeing as the 880 is a cheaper can I think it would be better to buy and Amp the 880 b4 even attempting to buy the HE-500 and THEN have to get a Good amp for it. Or I would hope the Amp I get for the Dt 880 600 would as able to also drive an synergy with the HE-500 better to! 
 
ANd this ofc is like 5-6 months dwn the line, Proabably in the Spring whne I get another check from College! 
 
Looked at the  Audinst HUD MX1, looks nice I like the Coxial out from the USB, the only real Issue I have with it is lack of USB ports on my pc xD but that's a quick fix

 
I see, i've never try the audinist before but reading the review i got to say it's pretty good bargain, whether it's HE-500 or DT880/600 ohm i'm pretty sure you'll gonna love with what you pick

 

[Makiah S]

Quote:

 
I see, i've never try the audinist before but reading the review i got to say it's pretty good bargain, whether it's HE-500 or DT880/600 ohm i'm pretty sure you'll gonna love with what you pick

I decided upon the Audinst HD Mx1 with a Hifiman Ef-5
 
The Audinist is said to be a VERY transparent DAC which is going to be nice for pairing it with the Ef-5 which is a Tube/SS pair'd amp. Yea I might want a better Tube amp but for the Price. The Ef-5 has PLENTY of power to really drive the cans I think. The Alo AUdio Pan AM was also suggested to me, any one elese have any $500 Tube amp suggestions
 
Although I like Hifimans DAP, I want thier Orotho Can the HE-500 so I'm pretty confident their amp will Synergy nice with mah DT 880 600, which I do plan to buy next spring <3

 

[Killface]

Just picked up some DT 880/600 and am loving them so far. Waiting for my schiit amp and dac  to come in - should be thursday but who knows with the storm. 

 

[daniel521]

Hey guys, I had a question about the DT990, and I know this is not the right thread for this but I didn't find a dt990 thread. I thought this would be the next best place to ask this. Basically, after a LONG time researching, I am in doubt between the Hifiman HE-400 and the DT990. I wanted to try both out, but the only way I could do that is to audition at home by buying both from a place with a return policy. The problem is that I don't own an expensive amp to drive the dt990 600 ohm, so I would have to get the 32 ohm version and drive it with the fiio e17 (or possibly the e11 + an HRT MusicStreamer II). Is there a huge difference in quality between the 600 ohm and 32 ohm version?
 
These are the things I wanted to know:
 
1) If I were to audition the DT990 and compare it with the HE-400, I would have to get the 32 ohm model. Would it be fair to judge the DT990 based on the 32 ohm model, or would I need the 600 ohm to really judge it? Would the 32 ohm model at least indicate if I enjoy the sound over the HE-400's sound?
 
2) If I end up enjoying the DT990 more, is it worth going for the 600 ohm model? I would have to spend a lot of money on a good setup, where I could drive the DT990 out of a fiio E17. Also, if I get the 32 ohm model, I would be able to take it with me when I travel and listen to them in hotels or something like that. If I get the 32 ohm, I do plan in getting a tube amp later on though. Is the 600 ohm model really worth the extra trouble?
 
Thanks,

 

[Chris J]

Well....................I can tell you 'phones like those will sound better if you use a better amp than the E17.
 
Don't get me wrong, the E17 is a nice piece of kit, but my 600 Ohm DT880s sound better thru a better amp..........for example, my La Figaro 336C.
And if you want to use a tube amp in the future, get 600 or 250 Ohm Beyers.

 

[asmoday]

Quote:

Just picked up some DT 880/600 and am loving them so far. Waiting for my schiit amp and dac  to come in - should be thursday but who knows with the storm. 

 
Congrats on the new toys!!! 
What Schiit gear did you get? 
 

 

[AlexRoma]

Quote:

Not sure if you saw my post about just buying a TubeDac11 but I should be able to post more about it with the beyer's later this week.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/603086/review-grant-fidelity-tubedac-11

http://shop.grantfidelity.com/Grant-Fidelity-TubeDAC-11-D-A-Converter.html

Too many people here arguing about if audiogd's were good or not so I went in another direction.. for $350 this thing gives you all the inputs, all the versatility, and an excellent DAC + AMP combo all in one.  It sounded expensive at first but the fact is you can pay over $200 for a good amp or a good dac, and you'll still need to buy the other one.  

 
I must admit, you've made a great choice. If I were you, have to chose a <500$ DAC/AMP, It would be TubeDAC-11 indeed. Lost of good options, musical and low distortion Cirrus Logic CS4398 DAC, overall great(est) value for the money in <500 league...
 
I hope you'll be happy with your purchase and share your impressions too.
 
At least other contenders like AudioGD NFB/FUN or Audiotrak DR. DAC2 haven't pleased me enough. Going with TubeDAC 11 I would have pleased at least my curiosity. 

 

[00birdy]

Just got it up and running about half an hour ago.  And by that all I mean was I plugged in the power cord and plugged in the optical cable.  In windows 7 it was as simple as right clicking the volume icon, pointing to playback devices and selecting SPDIF as default output.  Not even a driver was needed or anything.  I wish I was more of an expert but I will preface by saying I'm just a beginner so I can't give you a super detailed review.  This is my first amp and the Beyer's are my first step into audiophile 'phones.  Before that I had only owned some $60 sennheiser eH350s.   I also only have about 50 hours on the headphones too so that won't help my case either.

After initial listen my reservations about amps quickly disappeared.  I thought I might hear clipping, wouldn't hear a difference, or that it would be kind of a pointless mod like a high flow air filter on a car.  Right now I can only describe the sound as crystal clear.  Switching from unamped to amped the biggest difference I noticed was how much the bass cleared up.  Without the amp it was pretty muddy in comparison.  I think the tubedac11 has done very well at working with the Beyer's as many people have said the bass/mids are kind of poor on the DT 880 model.  I probably won't be spending any more time listening without the amp but I'm sure there are several other key differences as well; this was the most obvious one in about 5 minutes.  (these units receive burn in at the factory and I also bought this one second hand so I'm guessing around 50+ hours on this unit)

 I'm already noticing differences in the music I know very well so I'm going to have to relisten to alot of my favorites.  I also notice that alot of my 320kbps mp3 files are showing big variations in volume output?  This may just be the way the track was mastered, but some are significantly louder than others.  Sort of like when you're watching TV and every commercial is a different volume.  I never really noticed this as much before but it seems to stick out now switching from song to song.  I have the dial at 12 o clock which is somewhat loud but still very comfortable.  I'm also noticing alot of flaws in recordings.  Here's a song I had listened to about 15 times and never noticed it.  around 0:41 you can hear a tear or skip in it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qES5dn0mmp8   Now I know what people mean by hearing all the flaws.  It becomes very noticible.  It will be obvious as I'm pointing it out to you but for some reason I just never noticed before. 
I'm sure I'll have more comments later but these were the most noticible observations right off the bat for me having listened only less than an hour so far.

 I think it helped me knowing beforehand not to expect drastic differences as someone here had pointed out the following to me;
Headphones: 50%
Amp: 15% (unless you have an odd personal tuning like massive basshead, then this may be a little more or less)
DAC: 10%
Source File Quality (below 320 vs reference): 20%
Source File Reference Bitrate(16/48 FLAC vs anything above 16/48): 3%
Cables: 2%

 

[Chris J]

Just got it up and running about half an hour ago.  And by that all I mean was I plugged in the power cord and plugged in the optical cable.  In windows 7 it was as simple as right clicking the volume icon, pointing to playback devices and selecting SPDIF as default output.  Not even a driver was needed or anything.  I wish I was more of an expert but I will preface by saying I'm just a beginner so I can't give you a super detailed review.  This is my first amp and the Beyer's are my first step into audiophile 'phones.  Before that I had only owned some $60 sennheiser eH350s.   I also only have about 50 hours on the headphones too so that won't help my case either.


After initial listen my reservations about amps quickly disappeared.  I thought I might hear clipping, wouldn't hear a difference, or that it would be kind of a pointless mod like a high flow air filter on a car.  Right now I can only describe the sound as crystal clear.  Switching from unamped to amped the biggest difference I noticed was how much the bass cleared up.  Without the amp it was pretty muddy in comparison.  I think the tubedac11 has done very well at working with the Beyer's as many people have said the bass/mids are kind of poor on the DT 880 model.  I probably won't be spending any more time listening without the amp but I'm sure there are several other key differences as well; this was the most obvious one in about 5 minutes.  (these units receive burn in at the factory and I also bought this one second hand so I'm guessing around 50+ hours on this unit)


 I'm already noticing differences in the music I know very well so I'm going to have to relisten to alot of my favorites.  I also notice that alot of my 320kbps mp3 files are showing big variations in volume output?  This may just be the way the track was mastered, but some are significantly louder than others.  Sort of like when you're watching TV and every commercial is a different volume.  I never really noticed this as much before but it seems to stick out now switching from song to song.  I have the dial at 12 o clock which is somewhat loud but still very comfortable.  I'm also noticing alot of flaws in recordings.  Here's a song I had listened to about 15 times and never noticed it.  around 0:41 you can hear a tear or skip in it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qES5dn0mmp8   Now I know what people mean by hearing all the flaws.  It becomes very noticible.  It will be obvious as I'm pointing it out to you but for some reason I just never noticed before. 

I'm sure I'll have more comments later but these were the most noticible observations right off the bat for me having listened only less than an hour so far.


 I think it helped me knowing beforehand not to expect drastic differences as someone here had pointed out the following to me;
Headphones: 50%


Amp: 15% (unless you have an odd personal tuning like massive basshead, then this may be a little more or less)


DAC: 10%


Source File Quality (below 320 vs reference): 20%


Source File Reference Bitrate(16/48 FLAC vs anything above 16/48): 3%


Cables: 2%

You will find different CDsare mastered at different levels, different LPs are mastered at different levels.
Doesn't matter where you get your music from, you will always be adjusting the volume control as you swap CDs or whatever source material you are listening to.

 

[Makiah S]

Quote:

You will find different CDsare mastered at different levels, different LPs are mastered at different levels.
Doesn't matter where you get your music from, you will always be adjusting the volume control as you swap CDs or whatever source material you are listening to.

Yeap that will always be the case, and here's another tip... remastered is usually louder than the orignals [that's been my experince]
 
but volume adjustments are no big deal, glad your enjoying it
 
I want to get an E17 for my 880 250, but optimally I'm going with a Hifiman EF-5 Tube/SS Hybrid. I might try a Bottled Head Cracked with Speed Ball if I can get it... but the EF-5 will be my intro into tubes <3 I'll get a better amp when I'm not so poor! 

 

[bruce108]

On another tack, has anyone tried the Beyer 600s with the Millett MiniMax? This is a hybrid (tube preamp, SS output stage) assembled from a kit. Tubes for it come in three gain levels. The most powerful of these (12x) gives me excellent sound from the Beyers, certainly comparable to my Little Dot MkIVSE and in some respects maybe better.
 
Anyone else? At the price, this has to be one of the best bargains around. There's a vast thread here in the DIY section, but you can pick them up fully assembled sometimes for around $200.
 
Any New Yorkers out there, commiserations from springtime Australia.
 

 

[zeinharis]

Quote:

On another tack, has anyone tried the Beyer 600s with the Millett MiniMax? This is a hybrid (tube preamp, SS output stage) assembled from a kit. Tubes for it come in three gain levels. The most powerful of these (12x) gives me excellent sound from the Beyers, certainly comparable to my Little Dot MkIVSE and in some respects maybe better.
 
Anyone else? At the price, this has to be one of the best bargains around. There's a vast thread here in the DIY section, but you can pick them up fully assembled sometimes for around $200.
 
Any New Yorkers out there, commiserations from springtime Australia.
 

 
Wow that's great!!, thanks for the recommendation

 
Edited : I forgot to ask you, how does it sound when it paired with the DT880/600 ohm??

 

[BackwardPawn]

Hi all,
 
I'm having an odd problem with my DT880s.  I just got a new headphone amp and enjoyed it for all of two days.  There's two volume pots on the amp and I noticed that the left one had to be slightly higher than the right, but didn't think much of it.  Then last night, I go to listen to some classical to relax before bed and the left channel had about half the volume of the right channel.  I tried the headphones on several other amps and on those I couldn't even get sound out of the left.  At first I thought it was blown, but then I tried it on my PMP and everything was equal and sounded as good as a PMP could make DT880s sound, so at least I know the drivers are alright.
 
But everything else I've used it with either varies from having no sound on the left to having a fraction of the balance on the left.  What do you think?  Do these just need to be recabled...plus why would my PMP have perfect balance when everything else is out of wack.  It makes me think the issue is at the connector end, rather than the headphone end.  Thanks.
 
BP

 

[Bojamijams]

Are you using an adapter for the PMP that you don't use anywhere else? Or vice versa?