Pharmaboy
Headphoneus Supremus
oh, you'll be in for a shock once your headphones run balanced from this amp and activates all engines.
I love the bass part and how tight, tactile (though this is much more the trait of the headphone) and hardhitting it gets, together with the grand stage and "insight" into the music.
It made me appreciate the Denon's much more. Despite losing out in a few technicalities compared to the HD800 they're fire and forget headphones, offering better compat. with music, especially all kinds of electronic. EDM is pure joy with them now that they are beastly amped and don't have the peaks of the TH-900 I used to own.
Yesterday a nice piece of luck happened: a very helpful local Head-Fi'er loaned me his balanced cable purchased from ZMF for his Eikon. So all of a sudden, I can listen to my ZMF Ori (wonderful headphone!) in balanced mode on the V281, also on a new Liquid Carbon I just started burning it. I've been on a crazy deadline for days, so just managed 5" ear-time on each amp via balanced out.
DAMN!! The Ori sounded really good via SE, but it's quite different (better in just about every way) via balanced. The V281 is a pure monster amp--endless power & finesse at the same time. It's going to take me quite awhile to figure all the good things it does for my Ori balanced (more listening tomorrow night, hopefully).
The biggest surprise came from the LC. It sounded terrible via balanced cable when I first turned it on yesterday (cold & not burned in at all). But just 20 hours later it sounds totally different. This hot little box (it does run hot) controls the power-hog Ori like it was nothing, and the bass is shockingly good--right up there w/the V281 (the bass champ in my experience). If the LC sounds this good at 20 hrs burn-in (Cavalli recommends 150 hrs), I'm in for quite a thrill-ride...
(balanced is really amazing)