xD

Damn it just keeps getting cheaper, I’ve read a lot of bad things about it but at £35 it’s definitely gotta be worth it

My setup is fairly easy to A/B, I volume matched the BHA-1 output and the 4BSST2 output using my MiniDSP EARS (essentially find the level of software attenuation to speaker output that matches headphone out at 100% software volume). Granted it wasn't blinded, but it's pretty obvious and even easier than telling DACs apart ime (which I've successfully done blinded).

I also think the actual amp you use plays a role. What 100W speaker amp did you use, and what headphone amp did you compare it to? I did hear some pretty crappy speaker amps that did not compare favourably to headphone amps, for example cheaper class D stuff which distorts a ton.

Well for one I spent $50,000 on speaker amps and literally every single one of them provided almost no benefits whatsoever until I asked for advice from someone with more experience than this entire subreddit combined and got a Parasound A21+. The other part of why it happens is that proper speaker amps have a huge amount of power reserve in their capacitance and dumping the amount of power needed doesn't come close to their maximum power so you're never starving the capacitors and losing dynamics because of it. The HE6 is incredibly high on current demand for a headphone and that drains capacitors really fast, fast enough that it severely gimps the amount of dynamic range due to the voltage swings being lower because of the capacitors never being fully charged and ready to discharge on headphone amps. I didn't spend $50k on speaker amps and another $50k on headphone amps only to settle on the Parasound because I'm imagining shit. I sold off every one of the amps I tried because they didn't do anything special, it's not about amount of power, it's about the ability to sustain it without keeping the capacitors in a constant scavenge stage where they're trying to recharge and never delivering their full voltage swings.

I know how to test gear, I understand volume matching and have decibel meters and even a measurement head to measure volume with a pad seal. The differences are very real and immediately noticeable, they are not subtle, anyone can hear them immediately. The problem is making a blanket statement that they need a speaker amp, but that is only half of it, they need a GOOD speaker amp and several speaker amps I tried even over $2000 MSRP absolutely sucked and provided nothing over a run of the mill powerful headphone amp. It was also immediately noticeable on the Parasound that the Hifiman HE-adapter was lowering the quality over plugging directly into the speaker taps. I have spent more time trying to perfect an HE6 chain than most people spend nitpicking audio gear in their lifetime and I don't even feel like I'm close to the end but I do know for certain that if all I had was the 789 and A90 I originally had when I first purchased the HE6, I would get rid of the HE6 because without being driven well, they aren't anything special, but when they are, I prefer them over basically every single TOTL headphone, including the 1266 TC, Utopia, D8000 Pro, Empyrean Elite, haven't owned the Susvara but have demoed then at shops on my own gear and they are incredible and I'll eventually buy a pair but they aren't the dynamics kings like the HE6, and several others in the summit-fi realm. A lot of people don't understand that they have the thickest planar diaphragm in existence and all that mass is really hard to push and even harder to push to full excursion, it takes a very fast slew rate and and capacitance to dump power fast enough to make them worth owning. The diaphragm mass is why they can slam so hard. I have done significantly more testing than your skepticism would ever allow you to believe, all volume matched and tested properly.

Did you not read my previous components? I tried. It doesn't make a difference at equal SPL. Which is in line with how amps and headphones work. Have you properly tested to make sure you are hearing what you think?

Defo SHIT, but some people say skit

> If your only argument is "because I heard it"

Have you?

The 240 series is really great. The vocals sound like they're directly in the center of your head. I just bought a vintage ad for these headphones on ebay.

One of my packages came with a piece of foam that has holes punched into it, so I just keep the tubes in there. Extra ones just stay in the boxes they came with.

Annoying scratchy volume pot which I disassembled the whole unit, cleaned the pot and had great results... for about 3 weeks until it came back. Otherwise performance is great, but feel it should do better on that pot.

Except I have because I also hooked them up to a 100w speaker amp with and without the adapter. It isn't up for debate because your view on this makes no sense. How is it that a speaker amp helps the sound? Explain it in detail, because there is no reason a speaker amp would help them sound better other than louder.

I can explain why it doesn't help the sound. If you can do the same on why it does, we can have a conversation. If your only argument is "because I heard it," then we don't because I doubt you did proper testing.

I have a Monolith THX AAA 789 and it seems to work great, however I have heard the DROP version isn’t the greatest.

Mine was fine apart from the knob giving the amp considerable channel imbalance, which is unfortunate even at its price tag. Thankfully mine was still under warranty. I described the issue to customer support and they just sent me the full refund back, which was cool.

Edit: too bad you basically become a stranger to the customer support once your warranty comes to its end. If I,m buying something as stationary and single-purpose as a desktop amplifier, it would be nice to at least be able to have it repaired.

You haven't heard what the HE6 can do off of a proper speaker amp so you don't know what you're missing. It's not even up for debate, your 1w amp isn't doing them the justice they deserve.

Mine died about a month after release and drop replaced it. The best thing I ever did in my audio journey is get rid of that piece of shit. Not a single amp I've owned since has sounded anywhere near as bad as the 789. It's a wholly shit amp with extremely poor detail and control in the subbass. They fucking suck.

I've had mine for a couple years and have had no issues whatsoever. TBH its the first issue ive heard over this amp as its known for being reliable, clean and detailed. Sorry you had that experience.

u/uqil one thing I might mention that I had one issue with the THX 789 and that I didn't realize it had an AUTO OFF SWITCH on the back and it confused the hell out of me at first when I'd leave the amp on and Id come back to find it turned off a short time later.

I would check to make sure your auto off switch is disabled if you are having issues with it turning off randomly. It took me some sleuthing to figure out what was going wrong.

They’re the same, I just bought 2 pairs

I would advise anyone with electronics they care about to use a power conditioner. Computers, active monitors, any audio gear with a plug that can carry 60 cycle hum.

Yes thank you I’m aware of this phenomenon. That doesn’t cancel out the considerable amount of reports.

FUCK! Guess who just blew his 789 moments after making the comment. I accidently peaked the PC volume so the amp turned off and now I can only barely hear the music with max output on a sensitive headphone. The headphones are fine so I'm surprised the amp would die. Need to look into if it can be fixed. I repeat, FUCK!

I wear glasses.

One possible issue is comfort. I find headphones with large earcups and low-medium clamping force. To me, this is needed for good comfort even without glasses. And does not bother me when I wear glasses.

The worse experience I have had is with on-ear headphones. Earpads push and pinch my ear against eyeglasses frame behind my ear.

Second possible issue is with bass. With closed-back headphones, seal is important for bass. So glasses will break that seal, reducing bass.

With open-back headphones, this is typically not an issue, because there is no seal to begin with. To confirm, just listen with and without glasses and compare the bass.

>Anyone running pro audio gear in a studio uses power conditioning.

But this is not a pro audio product, it is a consumer product meant to be used by consumers. It is an issue because the competition doesn't have this problem and at no point should a company expect people to know and use power conditioners for their audio when most of the time they aren't needed. They don't advertise or advise consumers to use one.

>It very well still may be the Drop amps, by design.

Definitely possible.

If the difference between broken gear and working gear is a 100$ Furmann, its not a big issue. Anyone running pro audio gear in a studio uses power conditioning.

Using one can eliminate in-house power issues. It very well still may be the Drop amps, by design.

My only regret with my Woo stand is that I didn’t buy the double

I connect directly by using a banana plug to 4 pin XLR adapter cable, to which I plug my headphones in. Just need to be careful with volume.