The All Purpose Advice Thread

Typo, I meant Moby not Mojo. To many nicknames swirling around my head lol. I corrected the post for clarity.

Thanks, for the advice, I was actually just thinking I should try USB before I make any decisions. My MCP has Toslink and USB, I preferred Toslink on the D100 but It's a really dated USB implementation by todays standards. I'm also using cheap Monoprice optical cable...

 

Interesting, that analogy makes a lot of sense, and it kind of fits with what I'm hearing.

Definitely will give it some time. I've had the D100 in my main rig for 2+ years now so for better or worse I'm definitely used to its sound signature. And the first thing I did with the Moby was put on a playlist of tracks that I particularly like on the D100, I'm actually already discovering some things that didn't sound so hot on the D100 are sounding better on the Moby.

 

Can you recommend a standalone amp that's better than the chord mojo?

 

What are your constraints ?
Most amps discussed on these pages are better.
Be specific.

 

For? Need to know more about your setup to be able to make a good recommendation.

 

In conjunction with my Focal Elear. They are easy to drive, i was wondering if there are any benefits to having a desktop amp instead of my Chord Mojo amp.

Reason being, i don't need portability all the time.

I have the HD 800 as well which I don't really like the sound out of my Chord Mojo. Wondering if the sound signature is not for me or whether I need to get a tube amp to get the full effect.

Asking you guys because you guys are hardcore enthusiasts so please don't hit me if i say something stupid ><

I've had the HD 600 + Valhalla 2 amp before which honestly is not a good combo to my hears.

wondering if the valhalla 2 would be a good idea to pair with the Elears/HD 800?

I don't think it would be good with the Elears as they are warm enough already.. but I don't know.. opinions?

 

For an amp for the HD800 I would recommend looking here: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/best-amps-for-sennheiser-hd800.330/

Not sure exactly about the Elear, hopefully someone with one can chime in who has experience with them and possibly one of the amps that also works well with the HD800.

 

Thanks! I might go the Valhalla 2 route again for the HD 800 but I don't think it would work very well with the Elears.

since the Elears and the HD 800 are polar opposites, I guess there isn't a "do it all" amp for both of them

 

Yes there is. If you are willing to spend some money. There are EC, DNA, Cavalli pricier offerings and why not even a Torpedo 3. These should be all pretty nice with both hp-s.

With budget options you are going to need to choose one or the other. For the price range of Mojo look for jotunheim, Vali 2
and go check out Hans' budget tube amp thread.

There is the possibility that you might never like HD800 out of any amp, there is no guarantee.

 

picking amps seems to be more of a pain than picking headphones :S

and I guess if i don't like the HD 800 out of the mojo, chances are I just don't like the headphones. Bummer I guess.

 

Soo, this being the general advice thread and all- a long shot:

Has anyone heard the Icon Audio HP8 MKII? @Tyll Hertsens seemed to quite like it, and it's awfully cute... I'd love to hear comments from the usual suspects.

 

Coax out from your X5 might be worth a try as well. It could be better, or worse, or just different, but again, it's an easy thing to experiment around with.

 

Anyone have a recommendation for a balanced switchbox for amps? Have a Gungir and 3 balanced amps, looking to cleanly switch between amplifiers. Thanks!

 

Hey guys! I just modded my Pioneer SP-BS22-LR as found here. I also figured out a decent temporary speaker stand - longboard wheels! Now - my room is not treated at all, but it's my bedroom and the bed definitely helps a bit. The sound right now is pretty awesome, I find it more involving than my Asgard 2 -> HD650. Both setups are being fed with my Modi Multibit. I'm just really floored by the sound these things are making now - it's a whole new league. Anyways, I am getting a UMIK-1 calibrated from cross-spectrum once they get more in stock, and I am feeding the speakers with this amp. Now - I am wanting to upgrade my amp one day, would like to get/make good speaker stands, and treat my room. Which of these should I do first? The speakers are just on the longboard wheels on my desk, as the speakers are for near-field listening. Thanks!

P.S. Sorry I'm so bad at organizing my thoughts - I just kind of type as I think - stream of consciousness or w/e.

Edit: Amp recommendations are also welcome! I mainly want to build one so if there are any good kits or anything that'd be awesome. Not sure I can get much under ~$200 though.

 

If I had listened HD800 from the Mojo for the first time, I would have never bought a pair for myself.
Imo Mojo should be skipped with anything that has extended, honest treble or is bright. Which HD800 is kinda both of.

For HD800 alone I dare not to recommend you to flat out buy an expensive amp and hope for best.
Best advice anyone can give you is that you try some amps before you commit to buy.

 

I don't think I would have a clue as to what to recommend to someone who doesn't like the sound of hd600s from Valhalla 2. I would be doomed to failure.

 

As an amp for full-sized headphones? "Most of them".

Yeah, with no indication of what he doesn't like about the sound, we'd have to cross-examine him to drag the info out, as he hasn't bothered to actually make the effort to specify what he lacks or what he wants. Having to beat information out of people to help them gets tiring, really fast.

(Wild guess, HD600 and Valhalla 2.. the big thing it's missing as a combo is bass slam. However, I'm not going to bother trying to offer a solution, as the effort should be on both sides.)

@TsKen needs to do a little thinking and ask a proper question, rather than expecting others to do all the work!

 

Sorry everyone! I didn't mean to cause any confusion. My mistake, i'll do more thinking on my own before I post a question in the future. Absolute laziness on my part.


@kattlefjaes I am just recalling from memory because it's been 6 months since I heard of the combo. But you are probably right that the bass slam was missing which made the combo sound very... boring. I should have written down my impressions but from what I remember, going from the Magni 2 to Valhalla 2 was an overall upgrade in technicalities but it sounded more boring. Maybe I preferred the bright signature and the sparkle of the Magni 2 over the Valhalla 2?


The HD 800 are definitely the headphones I'm looking for but I will be investing too much money since I would have to spent another $1000 on the amp/dac to pair the hd 800 properly. I did the superdupont mod on my HD 800 with just olive tips and it tamed the treble of the headphones which made them much more listenable.. But I don't feel like the mojo is very good with the hd 800. it just makes the treble sharper and hard to listen to. Running it off my HTC 10(I know you shouldn't drive the HD 800 with a phone) was actually a more pleasant experience since the sound signature of the htc 10 is more warmer and it sounds more dynamic.

I can just imagine Valhalla 2 would be a great combo with the HD 800 but I don't really want to pour $1K into a amp/dac combo when I already have the Focal Elear/Mojo combo.


I think I will just stick with my Mojo + Elears for now until I can go somewhere to demo high-end audio equipments. Unfortunately where I live, there are no stores to demo high-end audio equipments so most of my buys have been blind buys relying on the opinions of others. But I will do more research on my own, In the future I am planning on getting the HD 800 with a good amp(if I can ever find a place to demo them).

but I digress, ranting I guess.

Thanks for the help everyone! Everyone has been very insightful. Apologies if I said something stupid in the above.

 

@TsKen Hah, at least I was close

The Mojo isn't really a very good headphone amp- it's an OK DAC under certain conditions, but I wouldn't ever use it for full-sized headphones, especially not decent ones.

Being blunt- the HD800 and Elear are expensive headphones, and you shouldn't be surprised if you need to spend a fair bit to drive them to sound their best. Valhalla 2 really isn't an outrageous amount of money, or too extravagant for your headphones. A lot of people with either would be using much more high-end amps, and a better desktop DAC, too. So buckle up and mentally prepare.

If you were starting from scratch, I wouldn't have had you buy an Elear and a Mojo- they're not a good match, not are mojo and HD800.

You have the right idea about listening for yourself- that's a good idea. Maybe do some research first, to help you narrow down what you want to listen to and for, though. This is probably a decent start:

http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/best-amps-for-sennheiser-hd800.330/

Sorry if the answers felt like a bit of a buffeting. You have some research and rethinking to do. However, you do have two pairs of pretty good headphones- it can only get better from here!

 

I agree on your comment about the Mojo. I originally got it for the portability/pairing with my Ether C. At least with my Ether C, the pairing was pretty magical but a bit of a disappointment with my other headphones(Focal Elear, HD 800), including my IEM(Andromedas).

It might be a good idea for me to sell my Chord Mojo and get a actual Amp/DAC combo instead. I think I will just stick with my Andromedas + HTC 10(since they are such a fantastic combo together) for my portability option.

How do you justify owning multiple TOTL headphones?

Ideally I want to sell my Focal Elears/Chord Mojo and get a really good amp for the HD 800 and just call it my end game but I think it would be pretty hard to sell the Elears since they are still pretty new to the audio community. I wonder if $849 for the Elears and $450 for the Mojo would be a good asking price.

but I digress... I think I'm going to go for the HD 800 route even though I would be losing a lot of money.

Many people including the thread you linked me to have recommended the Vali 2 for the HD 800. I might go for the Vali 2 + Modi Multibit route and hopefully that will please my taste since I have no way of demoing them. Also I wish I am better hands-on with mods but the only mod that I can do is the superdupont mod. I'm sure there are many more mods to make the HD 800 sound better.

I can't believe i'm actually doing this and liquifying most of my gear.. But honestly.. from personal experience, i've always had a positive experience from taking advice from SBAF as opposed to Head-fi. I'm not trying to suck up to you guys as this is from my experiences from taking SBAF advice vs Head-fi advice. I listened to a few of you and I randomly took a gamble in the Andromedas(highly recommended here) and it was the greatest experience ever.

Then I took advice on Head-fi regarding the chord mojo and ignored the advices here, and here I am selling my audio equipments(including the Elears who according to people on Head-fi is suppose to pair well with the Mojo).

Here I am back at square one I guess. I wonder if Valhalla 2 would be the better choice than the Vali 2.