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Headphone enthusiast thread! - Page 75

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57 Corvette
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Canada5941 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-30 14:36:00
May 28 2011 03:43 GMT
#1481
Gah, my HD 222s broke last week, just a few days after a kid in my class bought some HD 595s, and I am so jealous.

I need to find those 428s I wanted in the first place...
Survival is winning, everything else is bullshit.
Myrmidon
Profile Blog Joined December 2004
United States9452 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-28 03:49:16
May 28 2011 03:46 GMT
#1482
On May 28 2011 12:38 SixGun wrote:
Yeah, I know Bose aren't the best and overpriced (I actually own Beats, but Best Bu employee discount . But also, I'm not that big an audiophile. I know what sounds bad and what is good, but I figure below $100, it's all similar


Well, $75 isn't much below the normal market price for them. I've used some Bose IEMs a while back (a gift from someone who ended up not using them much), and they weren't that great. I forget which model it was though. They weren't bad, but they certainly weren't worth their price. After a few months of use, an accidental hard tug one day was all it took to break the cable. I guess I could have tried fixing them, depending on where the wire tore, but it wasn't really worth the trouble.

I'd strongly disagree about most things under $100 being of similar quality, and especially of similar sound signature, build quality, comfort, microphonics, etc. There are plenty of things that distinguish different sets.



edit: if somebody bought some legit Sennheiser HD 995's, I'm sure others would be jealous.
+ Show Spoiler +
I think you mean HD 595.
Quesadilla
Profile Blog Joined October 2007
United States1814 Posts
May 28 2011 03:51 GMT
#1483
I'll stress it again, you can't top triple-driver custom-mold IEM's, no freaking way.

Love my ES3X's.
Make a lot of friends. Wear good clothes. Drink good beer. Love a nice girl.
sleigh bells
Profile Joined April 2011
United States358 Posts
May 28 2011 04:58 GMT
#1484
On May 28 2011 12:38 SixGun wrote:
Yeah, I know Bose aren't the best and overpriced (I actually own Beats, but Best Bu employee discount . But also, I'm not that big an audiophile. I know what sounds bad and what is good, but I figure below $100, it's all similar

imo the shures and the klipsches in that price range are better than bose
Sup son? ¯\__(ツ)__/¯
SixGun
Profile Joined April 2011
United States40 Posts
May 28 2011 05:08 GMT
#1485
But are they as comfortable? Cause I'm using them for college, so it'll be an hour or all nighters of music and studying, so comfort was a big factor.

But I still haven't opened them, and I have 30 days. Can I have some examples of better IEMs for that price range?
ieatkids5
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
United States4628 Posts
May 28 2011 05:47 GMT
#1486
Check the top of page 73 for some iems i recommended. the panasonic one is out of your price range, but the hippo vb and meelec a151 are miles ahead of those bose ones.
Myrmidon
Profile Blog Joined December 2004
United States9452 Posts
May 28 2011 05:52 GMT
#1487
As always, take reviews with a grain of salt, but this may give you some other ideas:

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/478568/multi-iem-review-170-iems-compared-etymotic-resarch-hf5-acs-custom-eartips-added-05-26

Comfort really depends on the design, your ears, the shape of your ear canals, and the tips used. You can always try different tips.
uriel-
Profile Joined August 2007
Singapore1867 Posts
May 28 2011 11:03 GMT
#1488
On May 28 2011 14:08 SixGun wrote:
But are they as comfortable? Cause I'm using them for college, so it'll be an hour or all nighters of music and studying, so comfort was a big factor.

But I still haven't opened them, and I have 30 days. Can I have some examples of better IEMs for that price range?


The Shure SE215 for 99$ have great comfort factor and are very well received for an engaging and dynamic sound at the sub 100 price point. I will take them over the Klipsch S4 any day (overpowering muddy bass is not my cup of tea), and they are much more likely to score with the average listener compared to the analytical RE0s.

On May 28 2011 12:51 Quesadilla wrote:
I'll stress it again, you can't top triple-driver custom-mold IEM's, no freaking way.

Love my ES3X's.


Perhaps you can with...sextuple driver custom molds!

I wish I had customs I'm more than satisfied with top-level universals but customs are like another world.
Nysze
Profile Joined July 2010
United States111 Posts
May 28 2011 12:32 GMT
#1489
Hey these are on sellout.woot.com today for $25

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Portable/Headphones/Steel Wheels SE-MJ71-K

Can anyone tell me anything about the quality? I've been looking for a nice pair of headphones for a while but I'm dead broke. I really want something with nice bass, but also crisp high, I know that's a lot to ask for cheaper pair though...

All I could find where a few reviews on amazon, but non of them where convincing

http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Wheels-Classic-Headphones-SE-MJ71-K/dp/B003VIWIHG
Well butter my biscuit
Fyodor
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Canada971 Posts
May 28 2011 22:56 GMT
#1490
On May 28 2011 21:32 Nysze wrote:
Hey these are on sellout.woot.com today for $25

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Portable/Headphones/Steel Wheels SE-MJ71-K

Can anyone tell me anything about the quality? I've been looking for a nice pair of headphones for a while but I'm dead broke. I really want something with nice bass, but also crisp high, I know that's a lot to ask for cheaper pair though...

All I could find where a few reviews on amazon, but non of them where convincing

http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Wheels-Classic-Headphones-SE-MJ71-K/dp/B003VIWIHG

Koss KSC75 is a known value at that price point.
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
mockturtle
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States220 Posts
May 29 2011 16:42 GMT
#1491
Can anyone help with my Audio GD Sparrow?

Volume is insanely high. I have AT ATHA900 which is just under a comfortably loud volume when the Audio GD is at minimum. AKG K271mk2 is a little bit better but I'm still using both at between 7&8 o clock. This is under Windows 7 64. If I use the volume mixer to lower the volume, it has no effect on the master. If I use it for individual programs it DOES work, however, I can't really rely on that because I will blow out an ear drum if a new program makes a sound.
Myrmidon
Profile Blog Joined December 2004
United States9452 Posts
May 29 2011 17:38 GMT
#1492
On May 30 2011 01:42 mockturtle wrote:
Can anyone help with my Audio GD Sparrow?

Volume is insanely high. I have AT ATHA900 which is just under a comfortably loud volume when the Audio GD is at minimum. AKG K271mk2 is a little bit better but I'm still using both at between 7&8 o clock. This is under Windows 7 64. If I use the volume mixer to lower the volume, it has no effect on the master. If I use it for individual programs it DOES work, however, I can't really rely on that because I will blow out an ear drum if a new program makes a sound.


I guess this is what happens when you get a device that does (claims to do) 10V rms output (28.28 V peak-to-peak) and doesn't have a gain adjustment switch. That'd be like 135 dB SPL with your ATH-A900. Actually, that's slightly above the max input power rating to the headphones, so be careful to the headphones as well as the ears.

So if I'm reading you correctly, the normal master volume control does not work? I guess the device prefers to take in the full-scale 16 bits digital representation and thus locks the volume to the max so it can get the highest range signal to the DAC. I'm not sure if you can do anything more in software that you haven't done, but hopefully somebody else would have a better idea.

One thing you could do is add an impedance adapter between the headphones and Sparrow output. Ignoring the 1.5 ohms output impedance of the Sparrow for now, something like 120 ohms will reduce the voltage to your ATH-900 (40 ohms) to 40 / (40+120) = 1/4 of the original. The ATH-A900 has a fairly constant ~40 ohms across all frequencies, unlike many headphones that have impedance that varies a lot over frequency. So at 1/4 the original voltage, you'd get 1/16 the original power, for 10*log10(1/16) = -12 dB volume. Increase the impedance and you get less volume.

This is a kind of ham-fisted solution, but it will reduce the volume. Note that this will also change the sound a bit. In the very least you'll have lower damping factor, though that's of arguable importance for driving certain headphones. The AKG K271 has higher impedance at the mid-bass region (100 Hz), so adding impedance to the source with the adapter will essentially give it a mid-bass EQ boost--more precisely, it will turn the volume down on other frequencies more so than the mid-bass.

On a side note, slightly changing the sound may not make it necessarily sound worse. After all, that's a design principle of the Sparrow itself.

There are other things you could do, but they are more complicated. And I don't think you'd want to do something like run the output of the Sparrow into another amp.
Ursad0n
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States523 Posts
May 29 2011 17:45 GMT
#1493
I've been using Sennheiser 448 or something that I got from a friend who said that he got them cheap but idk how good they are in the grand scheme of things
You make it sound like there's a correlation between what should happen and what actually happens. I mean, life is chaotic and it's often unfair. I know it is for me.
mockturtle
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States220 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-29 18:58:53
May 29 2011 17:45 GMT
#1494
I feel like this is some sort of bug in the driver or something, considering how hard it is for me to find people with similar complaints despite seeing people talk about having similarly low impedence headphones.

*edit, i actually found a reference on head fi to someone using it with a pair of IEMs! wtf!

I guess I have an OSX Comp and Windows XP comp as well as audio and coaxial out options in my entertainment center.. maybe will give those a shot as well now that I think about it.

edit: in osx and windows XP volume control also does nothing and is similarly loud, so clearly a design feature

Or are you saying that the amp is just not compatible with the headphones I have?

editx3: ok, tried using coaxial and optical input from entertainment center, same results. seems that this dac/amp just isn't good for super sensitive headphones, i guess? doesn't make any sense to me that i've seen people talk about its performance with IEMs and other similar headphones.
Myrmidon
Profile Blog Joined December 2004
United States9452 Posts
May 29 2011 19:06 GMT
#1495
On May 30 2011 02:45 mockturtle wrote:
I feel like this is some sort of bug in the driver or something, considering how hard it is for me to find people with similar complaints despite seeing people talk about having similarly low impedence headphones.

*edit, i actually found a reference on head fi to someone using it with a pair of IEMs! wtf!

I guess I have an OSX Comp and Windows XP comp as well as audio and coaxial out options in my entertainment center.. maybe will give those a shot as well now that I think about it.

edit: in osx and windows XP volume control also does nothing and is similarly loud, so clearly a design feature

Or are you saying that the amp is just not compatible with the headphones I have?

editx3: ok, tried using coaxial and optical input from entertainment center, same results. seems that this dac/amp just isn't good for super sensitive headphones, i guess? doesn't make any sense to me that i've seen people talk about its performance with IEMs and other similar headphones.


Yeah, what I wrote earlier was just guesses based on what you reported and what's on their website. It really seems to me like the gain setting is aimed towards the high-impedance low-sensitivity headphones. "Compatible" is not the word I'd use, but yeah. I think Fyodor mentioned he has some audio gd products, so maybe he knows what's up.

I'm likewise very confused by people talking about its performance with IEMs, based on what you're saying about the volume controls. Maybe they're just turning the volume down to almost nothing. But at the bottom of the dial you have a good chance of getting channel imbalance issues between L/R with analog volume controls based on potentiometers like it has.
mockturtle
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States220 Posts
May 29 2011 19:27 GMT
#1496
Audio GD's website has a channel imbalance section that reads:
"Less than 1DB (Start at 8 o'clock)". I would say that maybe, maybe, on the K271 mk2 I could get it up to 8 o clock without burning a hole in my ears.

I suspect the channel imbalance is why I've been getting fatigue very quick w/ the phones.

I've emailed them but haven't heard anything yet. This really gives me a frowny face =[
Myrmidon
Profile Blog Joined December 2004
United States9452 Posts
May 29 2011 19:47 GMT
#1497
Maybe it's the sound itself and not channel imbalance. Have you noticed channel imbalance? Try putting a test tone in one ear and then the other and give a listen, if you haven't already. Or just use the Windows control panel sound test thing.

The website says it uses a topology with no feedback (!!!). They're at least very upfront saying that such a design won't "please the meters" i.e. the output should be measurably inaccurate compared to the source material. The claim is that this can make the sound better, which of course is subjective so I won't dispute that, particularly not without hearing it. There are other popular amps using such a design.
mockturtle
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States220 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-29 19:59:10
May 29 2011 19:55 GMT
#1498
Definitely channel imbalance at the bottom. Hard to tell for sure at the border where I do my listening (with the 271s which are a little less sensitive). I have some slight biological channel imbalance of my own so I have to turn around the headphones to check
Zax19
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Czech Republic1136 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-29 20:16:20
May 29 2011 20:13 GMT
#1499
Outside/quality listening: SH HD25-1
At one appartment, TV, PC, regular listening: SH HD438
At another appartment, PC, regular listening, used for the outside in the past: ATH-SJ5
First hi-fi earbuds, I still have them somewhere: SH MX50 Sport

Source: Sansa Fuze(a bit broken, I'll have to get something new)/ laptop

(I'm all about listening while outside, but I'm not extreme enough to carry amplifiers and such)
Really Blizz, really? - Darnell
sheaRZerg
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
United States613 Posts
May 31 2011 18:30 GMT
#1500
Hey, I am considering buying a Grado SR-60i as a lot of what I've read elsewhere seems to suggest they are about as good sound quality as I can find for that price...

I am however a little worried about the durability (they definitely don't look like the most substantial things ever built). I tend to carry headphones around in a stuffed backpack.

Has anyone had these for a while and attest to how well these should hold up under those conditions.

Thanks.
"Dude, just don't listen to what I say; listen to what I mean." -Sean Plott
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