Jump to content

Post Pictures Of Your Headphone Setup


Recommended Posts



When I was deep in the game few years ago I had almost 40+ headphones and over a dozen of then flagships modern and vintage. I've cut down that number to less then half now as I've gone back to speakers and building or modding amps, dacs and transports.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm mainly a speaker man but when the wife is home and I need a listen I pull out the HPs. My Sennheiser 700 probably my top model but I more often listen to the Beyerdynamic DT 770 with the closed back. That way when the wife's a-rattl'n the pots and pans I hear little of it.

Because my use is minimal I can't justify more expensive phones though I would like a pair.

Link to comment
Share on other sites



  • 2 weeks later...

Recently picked up this lovely Darkvoice 336SE from an SNA member. They seem to work an absolute treat with my Rotel RH-930 (a relatively scarce vintage "back electret" headphone - for vintage electret heaphone spotters, this is an OEM version of the Toshiba HR 810).

 

post-107035-0-36111000-1422622705_thumb.

 

post-107035-0-71084500-1422622776_thumb.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

^ tell us a bit more about the Rotel cans. They look pretty cool and in good nick.

What vintage?

 

The Rotels are probably late 1970s / early 1980s. 

 

I quite like old electret headphones when they show up - they are currently available at bargain prices.  Electrets were electrostatics for the masses in the 60s-80s - they were not, as I understand exactly "cheap", but they were substantially less costly than a set of electrostatic headphones. An electrostatic requires charge to a very thin diaphragm; the electret designs, on the other hand, were "pre charged" but required a thicker diaphragm, thus losing some of the qualities that make an electrostatic design appealing. The Toshiba "back electrets"  attempted to get around some of the technical limitations of the electret design, resulting in a better sound (some say closer to the sound of electrostatics, although I can't confirm this). You can find some basic information on the electret and back electret headphones  here: http://wiki.faust3d.com/wiki/index.php?title=Electret_Driver_Principle. 

 

This Rotel is basically a rebadged Toshiba HR 810. The 1/4"  plug housing contains matching transformers to suit 8 Ohm, 300 ohm and 1k ohm impedance, which is useful for matching with different amplifiers (and interesting in context with the Darkvoice, which is a output transformerless design). They really sound quite magic - warm, fast, exquisite treble detail. 

 

 

Very nice setup. The amp and cans look tops.

 

Thank you!

Edited by mkaramazov
Link to comment
Share on other sites



When I was deep in the game few years ago I had almost 40+ headphones and over a dozen of then flagships modern and vintage. I've cut down that number to less then half now as I've gone back to speakers and building or modding amps, dacs and transports.

 

And how many headphone amplifiers? Could you have a party with everyone wearing headphones?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Modded Darkvoice 336se

Greg Szekeres mosfet head amp (pieces)

Modded Little Dot MK VI+ (in pieces)

Modded Xiang Sheng 708B (real sleeper with HD600/650/800 headphones

B22 passive and balanced

Stax SRD 7sb mk2 (connects to integrated)

I'll list the rest and some pics when I'm on my desktop, typing on mobile is tiring..

Link to comment
Share on other sites



My headphone system:

 

post-107277-0-86599400-1423569960_thumb.

 

DAC soon to be replaced with two DIY DACs. The headphone amp is DIY The Wire BAL-BAL, the box at the bottom is just a few different linear power supplies (some on my own PCBs others on The Wire PSU PCBs) for both my headphone amp and some other measurement tools (ADC, 1kHz low THD osc etc) that I'm making for measuring/tweaking DIY projects. DIY Canare interconnects going from single ended to balanced input on the headphone amp while I'm using this SE output DAC.

 

I've used both headphones through both The Wire and the O2 headphone amp in this system. The biggest difference there is that The Wire has a balanced output. 

 

Chris

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dig the rack, custom made or ?

 

Nope not custom made, it is sold in separate pieces, the acrylic base and different length of stainless steel silos which you can customize.

 

FYI to all, I will be very impressed for those who can detect all 4 without me telling you that there are actually all together 4 'amplifiers' in the picture. :lol:

see if you can find it... :thumb:

Edited by meraias
Link to comment
Share on other sites



is it markedly better? (as in SQ)

I'm the wrong guy to ask for subjective impressions hey ... too much (amps and other parts of the sestup aren't the same) changes to really attribute the difference to the wiring type. I believe that the balanced connection is the 'right' way to do things so when I can that's how I'd prefer them to be.

 

The 'The Wire BAL-BAL' amp can be wired for either SE or BAL output so I could in theory build a switch box to switch between those two modes and then trial it on both AD900 and the HD600, but ... motivation for me to build that is pretty low, got other things to build/listen to!

Edited by hochopeper
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

When I'm home, I never use headphones.

When I'm traveling and working at work, I use this;

ac518e8b4df8d0c695944ac9ca693398.jpg

Just an iPhone 5 with Spigen hybrid bumper and GlasTr screen protector and Dita The Answer dynamic driver IEMs (w Furutech plug mod to fit through a range of phone bumpers).

Music is simply sync'd from my iTunes collection (a mix of iTunes Store and cd ripped files stored as Apple lossless).

The quality is surprisingly good, aided to a large degree by the stunning Dita phones.

Tip for iPhone users; turn off all your background apps when listening, ESPECIALLY facebook . Makes a big difference to the sound you get (putting your phone in airplane mode also helps).

I ran some B&W P7s from the phone but sold them as the Ditas are as good or better in many respects. Seriously.

Edited by Winno
Link to comment
Share on other sites



  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.




×
×
  • Create New...
To Top