[jibzilla]

  I'd stick with your 02 amp and look into changing your dac. 
 
Your current setup and just buying a pair of HD650 the music will sound totally different. Changing the "speakers" will make the most drastic change in SQ.
 
You may find buying even buying a used Musical Paradise MP-D1 24Bit USB Asynchronous Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) would transform a more drastic musical change to the HD800 vs buying a Valhalla.
 
Many ways to skin a cat. As far as amps go I'd say there's a definite change in SQ. However there are alot of things in the chain of events so you can manipulate other things to get the sound your after. 

 
For the hd800 I would say the amp makes the biggest difference. At his budget bottlehead is the way to go. You really need a totl chain for the hd800 though and the hd600 and 650 scale incredibly well. Just me but I would take a 650 and Mainline over a 800 and Crack. That way when you save up enough for a totl source you won't have to sell the amp. Crack/hd800 is good but after you hear a hd800 and Mainline, DSHA-2, Stratus, Teton etc. the Crack will be quickly sold.

 

[Swolern]

I have the HDVD 800 incoming and looking to pick up a balanced cable for the hd800 pairing. Are there any advantages of the CH800S vs other 3rd party balanced cables?

 

[kapanak]

I have the HDVD 800 incoming and looking to pick up a balanced cable for the hd800 pairing. Are there any advantages of the CH800S vs other 3rd party balanced cables?

Other than believing in magic, no, none at all. In fact, I'd go as far as say the XLR connector on the CH800S is superior to all other offerings. HOWEVER, I would wait a month to buy as the HD800S start to ship, since right now you'd have to pay $300 or more for the official cable, but soon, you can probably pick up an unused one from another seller here for $100-$150

 

[lovethatsound]

I have the HDVD 800 incoming and looking to pick up a balanced cable for the hd800 pairing. Are there any advantages of the CH800S vs other 3rd party balanced cables?

Other than believing in magic, no, none at all. In fact, I'd go as far as say the XLR connector on the CH800S is superior to all other offerings. HOWEVER, I would wait a month to buy as the HD800S start to ship, since right now you'd have to pay $300 or more for the official cable, but soon, you can probably pick up an unused one from another seller here for $100-$150

I've had the ch800s balance cable since it came out,and it's a great cable,but a while ago i demoed some cardas clear cable and decided to buy some.Now look i to thought all this talk about cables making a magical difference was rubbish,snake oil,BUT the truth is these 2 cables do sound different,they present music,sound stage in different ways.I now use the cardas clear all the time now,but it isn't cheap.so it depends on how much money you want to spend.

 

[AlanU]

   
For the hd800 I would say the amp makes the biggest difference. At his budget bottlehead is the way to go. You really need a totl chain for the hd800 though and the hd600 and 650 scale incredibly well. Just me but I would take a 650 and Mainline over a 800 and Crack. That way when you save up enough for a totl source you won't have to sell the amp. Crack/hd800 is good but after you hear a hd800 and Mainline, DSHA-2, Stratus, Teton etc. the Crack will be quickly sold.

The amplification choices are huge!!!!
 
In many cases the SQ of the entire headphone rig starts from clean AC  power, source then moves along to the headphones.
 
I do find that the source is extremely important.  Having a "OK" DAC with an upgraded headphone amp still requires the details to amplify. If the source is lacking the amp will not make up for the lack of foundation of music. 
 
The thing about tube amps is that it's the playground for tweaking and achieving greater longer note decay in the music. There is so many ways to manipulate the sound of music.
 
Whats so interesting about this world of headphones is that some may spend a pretty penny on a Chord Mojo and feel they've found audio nirvana. Another person would buy a wooden box with a mess of wires in the Bottlehead Crack and also feel they've found musical bliss. 
 
When I purchased a external tube rectifier setup (power supply) for my tube dac it was like I bought a new amplifier (when i use this setup for either my headphones or 2 channel)  and DAC. This is where I find many tube amplifiers using a small tiny 5u4g (being sarcastic  since it's a decent medium sized tube) compared to my power supply that uses 300B's or  274b(many other tubes) and both 6v and 12V vacuum tubes. I'm currently using vintage 1616 tubes.  Infact this dac setup with external power supply prevented me from buying a new amplifier for my 2 channel.
 
So many ways to play in the audio world. When I swapped different DAC's with my modest 02 amplifier that alone was a major change. However nice thing about DAC's is that once your happy it will very likely perform nice with most headphone amps out there .....total assumption of course

 

[Zoom25]

   
I am doing great.  My WA22 has upgraded tubes.  Nothing super fancy, just Kenrad 6SN7, Tungsol 5998.  I've tried other combo but for some reasons, I prefer these for the genres to which I listen.

For fun last night I decided to bring out my Marantz PM6004 to try it with the HD 800. This was the first time I've done it since the Emotiva and planars days. Unfortunately, I didn't have my speaker tap adapters, so I just used the built in headphone out. The headphone out and the speaker taps share similar sound signature, so it wasn't a big deal. Even though the transparency, blackground, and detail retrieval was not at the same level, it was actually still really fun to listen to.
 
The Marantz has warm mids and thickens the bass. The overall speed decreases as well by a bit. But despite being technically bad, it was actually involving. It's this kind of experience that always keeps tubes on my mind. LOL I still have no idea what those tubes mean and drive/power/rectifier stuff. Glad you found a setup that's still working for you. BTW what was the pre-amp you were talking about in the past? Was it a tube pre-amp?

 

[blacknile]

On another forum people are suggesting that without  balanced signal chain only 30%-50% of the HD800 potential is reached. Do people on here agree with this figure? It is rather higher than I expected I have to say.

 

[Swolern]

Only 30-50%! Wow! I need to hurry up with my balanced setup!! I need to find this out for myself.

 

[elvergun]

  On another forum people are suggesting that without  balanced signal chain only 30%-50% of the HD800 potential is reached. Do people on here agree with this figure? It is rather higher than I expected I have to say.

 
 
Nope. 

 

[Dadracer]

Not from my experience either. I'd say balanced operation gives an added 10% or even less to the HD 800 performance.

 

[Swolern]

Not from my experience either. I'd say balanced operation gives an added 10% or even less to the HD 800 performance.

Well in the grand scheme of diminished returns 10% is still fairly large IMO.

 

[elvergun]

Well in the grand scheme of diminished returns 10% is still fairly large IMO.

 
He did say 10% or even less.  I would put it at less than 5% with my equipment. 

 

[shultzee]

Not from my experience either. I'd say balanced operation gives an added 10% or even less to the HD 800 performance.

I agree with Dadracer.   I have run my 800's both ways and 10% seams about right.   However, that last 10% is pretty dang good.

 

[Dadracer]

I'm not complaining by the way.

 

[Swolern]

He did say 10% or even less.  I would put it at less than 5% with my equipment. 

I read what he said. All depends if you look at the glass half empty or half full.