Super Best Audio Friends

I'm posting this because a few people asked. First of all, if you are an objectivist, go away. This project employs a microphone capsule that doesn't have a flat response. It's also a transformer coupled (NOT transformerless) design with a single active component, a JFET, where I intentionally chose a resistor to bias the JFET for higher second and even order distortion.

I had been looking for a large diaphragm transformer coupled microphone, particularly a vintagey sounding one, for some time now. The problem is that they don't make 'em anymore. Well, they actually do. But the problem is that we would have to cough up around $4000 for Neumann U47 FET. That's bullshit. I know Neumann is a respected name in microphones; but I f'ing hate them. Over the decades, they've cheapened their microphones while keeping their prices astronomical. It's for the mystique, the brand name. @Psalmanazar and I talk about studio gear every now and then and we joked about recording studios may have a Neumann on hand just for the cachet, but in reality probably use other microphones.

For this project, I pretty much used the parts from the micparts T-47 kit (https://microphone-parts.com/collections/microphone-kits/products/t47-microphone-kit) with the exception of the capsule which came from @Soliloqueen. I can't down turn playing with creations from fellow members, encouraging them to make good shit. This capsule is intended to be similar to the K47 capsule of the U47 which has a bump in the presence region (it's intentional) and is still under development.

This is going to mostly be background on why I even bothered getting the d90se, a story if you will, that maybe will resonate with others. If you just want to know what I think of the dac, skip to the end, but the tldr is that it sucks.



I've kind of been in what I would call the "audiophile" end of the pool as far as my equipment goes for quite a few years at this point. I never bought things based on measurements. I bought them with an eye on the measurements, but based on what I had heard at meets and at home, with the impressions of members I trust, and also what I thought of the engineering of the product in question.

This has led to some excellent purchases on my part. The loaner programs here and at Changstar back in the day have also been invaluable, thats what led me to discover my love for the Gungnir DS. Trying all this gear, and reading impressions here is what allows you to find other members with similar tastes as yours, and even if they have different tastes in gear, you can learn to triangulate what you might think of the gear in question and whether it is worth persuing for your rig.

Recently a member posted a link to an article to headphones.com titled evaluating-sinad-why-its-not-important.

This thread was shut down by the mods (I didn't do it but I approved) because these types of threads end up as the usual shit slinging. In the end, no one will change their mind, and there will be little talk about science or where the reality sits. There are a lot of good reasons why SINAD doesn't matter (it matters a little, but not much, and once past a certain point, it really has little correlation to sound quality). The headphones.com author cited masking and audibility thresholds. This is one of them which I have already cited, but in a much simpler way. In retrospect, I do think it's wise to keep repeating SINAD does matter. Perhaps every month I should post one reason why it doesn't matter? Well, for this month, I will make one simple argument:



SINAD does not matter because people cannot hear it.
By this, I specifically mean that Amir at Audio Science Review cannot hear bad SINAD.

I know, I know. We are long overdue for a more formal review (as formal as it gets here) of an ampsandsound amp. I've wanted to get to one for well over two or more years now - since that last mini-meet we had at my place when I was still in California. Time sure goes by fast. I'm sure one day I will be back in California because my aging parents are trying to bribe me to be closer to them.



I've heard ampsandsound amps before (at that prior meet and others), but refrained from commenting much because different ears, different preferences, and different setups. As many others who have been into audio for a length of time and owned fairly stable systems: it's like cooking. Good ingredients help, but ultimately it's how those ingredients are selected and put together. The only way for me to make a proper assessment is to get one of them ampsandsound amps into my house, with my sources, my headphones, and my local power. (Yes, amps do sound very slightly different - better that is - in South Texas - I shit you not).

4 New Campfire iem’s Impressions: Holocene, Mammoth, Satsuma, Honeydew
iem loaners courtesy of @Bloom Audio
Gungnir A1 -> Drop 789 with Sigma 11 LPS (Loki set to bypass)



The Holocene and Honeydew are the standouts here and the only ones I can recommend, though with reservations. Less reservation with the Honeydew and foam tips, but the treble exaggeration bothers me. It won’t bother most people though.

Don't worry, I'll get to the good stuff this weekend (the Amps and Sound Ovation). For now, we get this piece of entertainment. The K5Pro was of interest because a member mentioned that while it's not great in technicalities, the headstage is good. Good is that it's inside one's head, or that the plane isn't at one's ears. I can confirm this. The headstage is the best thing about the Fiio K5Pro. It's open and spacious. Actually almost as open as spacious as one of those EC DHT amps with the high-frequency AC filament heaters.



Unfortunately, that's where the fun stops. The amplifier in the K5 isn't incompetent. However, it's a bit below average (in all other respects except headstage) considering what is out there today. The highs are bit glarey and sometimes a bit sharp. The lows are murky. I don't know what's in the K5, but the presentation is slightly insipid. Think of it as a Magnius sort of presentation, same murky bass, glarey highs, but leaner and less warm. Or think of it as a Topping L30, but brighter and more difficult in the highs, less overly forgiving. Wait, think of the K5Pro as being similar to those default headouts from the RME ADI Pro. Yup, that's it: meh. Something's gotta give if you want expansive headstage for cheap.

Allow me to introduce the LTS v3 (formerly LTA) headphone. It is a beauty! Reminds me of the Sony Qualia 010! Allow me to post one of my janky photos here (ignore the super fake Google background blur - it's so bad that it gives me a headache).



The V3 I believe uses a 2" Peerless headphone driver which is widely available. The driver is angled in the frame and positioned similarly to the HD800/Qualia/SA5000. I would describe the sound as light on its feet, fast, zippy. I have not played with all the configuration options yet. Out of the box, the frequency response is neutral. There is some early bass roll-off (expected given the design of the cup and the driver) and if I wanted to nitpick, maybe a small narrow dip in upper mids and a small narrow peak in the highs. I think most will find the LTS V3 tonally lean or bright because of the bass roll-off combined with what seems like very flat bass response (most dynamics seem to have a small bump in the midbass, but not here).

he headstage is not particularly wide which may turn off some people. This is not a problem for me because I dislike wide headstages. However the headstage is quite deep, especially with the drivers hanging low and to the front of my ears, which is my preferred way of using the LTS V3. So yeah, headstage is narrow but deep! Like how real speakers properly set up the stage in front, except it's headstage instead of soundstage.

This is for the original Mjolnir, aka MJ1. The MJ2 has a thread here. Now, the original Schiit Mjolnir came out in early 2012. It was marketed as “end game performance at a mid level price.” Since then, in 2015, the Mjolnir 2 was introduced with the similar output stage, but now with a tube voltage gain stage, kind of making it a hybrid. In 2021, this was discontinued indefinitely because of parts availability and slow sales.



So for an amp that lived between 2012-2015, it makes this amp nearly vintage or ancient in terms of headphone hi-fi sub-market. However, once this hi-fi sub-market began to explode in the mid 00’s, it seems we have eschewed product after product, amp after amp, after DAC, after DAC, and many of us still use headphones that were designed and released in the early 2000’s. (HD600 - 1997, HD650 2003). Not to mention that most hi-fi stuff in the 2 channel world has a much longer life cycle, and even longer in the higher end pro-audio world and in the upper end hi-fi; and the reason that is because most of those products throw a bunch of technology so it is already packed full of quality and features, or it serves a purpose or fills a gap and now a staple product (SM58/SM7, SL-1200 etc.). But going back to 2-ch, there is still a whole lot of hi-fi in some of that vintage gear and even some of it going for major major buckaroos (JBL, Adcom, Sansui, Pioneer, Dual, Scott, Advent, Luxman, The Fisher, and a host of others including even PS Audio). I know many that still run amps, speakers, and even turntables from the 60’s and 70’s and still swear by them. Why not headphones? Why not headphone gear?

I don't think I will get to everything today, maybe in the next few days. What we have up are the following:

1. @rhythmdevils modded HiFiMan HE560
2. @rhythmdevils modded Fostex T50RP
3. @ext1's JAR HD600

First up is the HE560. I took these to work and listened to them for days at my work desk. Here is the funny thing: I thought they were modded HE5s with the fast transient response, tight sound, and clarity. Well, that is until I realized that I wasn't getting that last little bit of low level information which I knew the HE5s were capable of extracting. Then I noticed a touch, just a bit, barely noticeable plasticky timbre... I took the headphones off, examined them, and then realized the gray HE560 letter on the black. Haha!

I came into this review expecting a very different sound than what I hear with the AirPods Max. I expected a fairly laid-back sound with a tuning not too unlike the 2016 to 2020 Audeze Era or the STAX SR-007, but with a bass boost.


Instead what I got was a brutally honest, revealing and neutral midrange and treble, but with still the same bass boost. The midrange tuning of these headphones is so spot on to my own tastes that it's almost scary. Seriously, the midrange reminds me more of my modded HD800s than my UERMs or, frankly, any other headphone does. I have no clue how Apple arrived at their target, but I know it's not a Harman midrange tuning (albeit the bass is very close to Harman tuning). Either way, hats off to the engineers who came up with the tuning. Think HD600, but kinda smoother somehow?.

I guess I will throw in my two cents with respect to the version 2 of the HD8XX. To be clear, I've been slightly involved in the tuning process for them. The prior HD8XX was pretty good already; but understandably I think people wanted more than a tweak; and the folks at Drop I'm sure wanted more. Something more evolutionary rather than a mere tweak. Well this is it. Well over tens ago, maybe around twelve, there was a rumor going around that Sennheiser would release a successor to the HD800. That this HD800 successor would not be bright, but be voiced like the HD650 or even the Audezes, but have the technicalities, fine detail, soundstage, etc. of the HD800. Instead we got the HD700. Yup the HD700. The colossal piece of this was that combined the worse aspects of the HD650 and HD800.

Well finally, I honestly believe that we have it! This the truly the HD800(S) for the folks who do no like the tonal signature of the HD800(S), but appreciate everything else it can do. During my time with the sample (one of many of which this turned out to be the production version), I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Wait I thought - this possibly can't be anything based on the HD800(S) - it's not bright at all!

Drop x Sennheiser HD8XX v2 Frequency Response

Some of you may remember my AmpCamp amp project posted here in a recent thread in August. Part of that project was to build up a pair of GR-Research X-LS Encores as speakers. Some of you may remember the photos of the cabinets in the ACA thread, well, those were damaged irrevocably in shipping, so the cabinet maker made me up a pair in "birch red" to match the Dynaudio Special 40s.



Once I had the cabinets lined with No-Res, the crossover and drivers installed, I have to say for an ~1.2 cubic foot standmount, these speakers are heavy! The cabinets are very stiff and also well-damped. I have beefier pair of speaker stands coming for them. My cost including built, veneered and stained cabinets, and speaker premium crossover parts and $45 sheet of No-Res: ~$915. This included the trick components in the crossover, like the Miflex copper caps (which are pretty pricey).