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Originally Posted by rrahman /img/forum/go_quote.gif
My lcd2 sounds like trash out of my iphone or meizu, but divine out of my asus and concerto. While my edition 8 sounds good out of my iphone and great out of the concerto.
When I said the edition 8s are more forgiving of sources, this is what I meant. I was trying to say that while the edition 8 improves w/ better sources the effect isn't as dramatic as with other headphones. I think this is where the edition 8's true value really lies, as a portable and extremely versatile headphone.
Being an ultra-efficient headphone, I'd have to agree that the Edition 8 does indeed sound good out of a variety of components. I've had to plug them directly into my Macbook Pro a few times when I was in a pinch and they certainly didn't sound terrible. Most other headphones I've owned have sounded like crap unamped by generally sounding flat, lifeless, and lacking in volume. (all of which can be contributed to not being sufficiently powerd) In that regard, I'd agree that the "garbage to gold" factor isn't as great with the Edition 8 (hey, that rhymes!) as it is with many other high-end "audiophile" cans.
However, that doesn't mean that a quality rig isn't any less important. After rolling various equipment, including the aforementioned Concerto, I've found that the Edition 8 does, in fact, scale extremely well in terms of adopting the sound of individual components. Given their ability to reach for microdetails and reveal flaws that I feel eclipses much of the competition, I've found that "upgrading" components produces at least as much of an SQ change to the overall presentation as I've experienced with other headphones and, in some cases, more so. Even something considered a "tweak" like changing the interconnect between my DAC and amp several times was like changing sources. (I still don't believe in ultra-high end USB cables, mind you)
Sticking with the Concerto, I will start by saying that it is a good amp that I'm sure would pair very well with a variety of headphones. However, I didn't feel that it was a "great" compliment to the Edition 8 unless the content ran through it was restricted to lower-tempo and/or flowing music like the majority of classical. When fed something multi-layered or compositionally complex, however, the Concerto seemed to be an extreme foil to the Edition 8's capabilities. For example, I've found Clark's
Rainbow Voodoo to be a great test track in terms of transient speed, soundstaging, grain, and treble harshness. Its combination of dissonant textures, dramatic shifts in soundstage size, dynamic tonal placement, uptempo percussive tones, and sporadic syncopation is a recipe for destruction and one can't help think that Chris Clark himself is somewhere wringing his hands menacingly at the prospect of audio systems imploding as you listen to it. The Concerto, admittedly, failed this litmus test. The soundstage stayed on the narrow side for the duration with little to no sense of dynamic space, dissonant attacks sounded loose with unnaturally shrill peaks, and imaging turned into soup as the melody was faded to the left channel while the right predominantly served up the rhythm with underlying percussion hits anchoring the piece. The best word I can use to describe the overall presentation is "confused." All things equal, subbing my PPAv2 for the Concerto solved all of these issues. Every. Last. One. With the 627 opamps, the tone is every bit as neutral as the Concerto while sorting tonal placement with pinpoint accuracy. The natural dissonance of the track is conveyed effectively without any sort of loosness or peaks that would lead one to believe something not present in the original content is being added nor, for that matter, is anything being subtracted by "smoothing." While not as good as the PPAv2, even running directly out of the Apogee Duet 2's headphone output gave a definitively more controlled presentation overall than running through the Concerto. Again, I'm not saying the Concerto is a bad amp by any stretch, but it does have its limitations in terms of application... but I digress.
It's a given that I don't have as much experience as many on this board, but the quality disparity between the two amps with some content is astronomical when paired with the Edition 8. If the headphones I'm utilizing were less revealing I'm certain the performance gap would be much less pronounced. That's why I consider it to be a headphone that "scales well" to the equipment used, but it most certainly adheres to the same laws of diminishing returns that every headphone does.
