Not sure how well that one works but it seems recommended often. I ran a schiit stack. I see tubes recommended often for the HD6XX but haven't tried them. I don't think there's a wrong answer, just all about what you like best!

I will recommend trying the oratory1990 EQ. I really enjoyed it.

The DF really slaps. Great detail and resolution.

Ouch, bad luck.

Someone that made of fortune on GME or AMC or BTC buy this man a Christmas miracle! I would do it if I had ever been able to get in on any of my many market insights.

Those are some of the midrange NAD integrated amps, should be okay. But I've owned the C375BEE which was their TOTL integrated for a bit and I saw significant improvements going to different stereo units like the MC225, KSA150 and the 4B. If ever you're in the Montreal area I would invite you to blind test this chain with what you consider a sufficient headphone amp.

I mean…yeah I was tempted on eBay by these too, but seeing so many broken ones online gave me a reason to doubt their reliability.

So are you looking at Monolith 887 now?

What about the THX balanced that’s so sweet?

I don't have Drop THX AAA 789. I do have its little single-ended brother Drop THX AAA One. Still under warranty. Fingers crossed it will continue to work well.

Here is my take. The issue is entire consumer market. Most consumers buy products for value (cheaper the better). Besides a small minority, most are not willing to pay more for quality.

The result is that manufacturers and merchant just focus on building the cheapest product. $250-$300 for THX AAA 789 was a greate deal. I am sure there wereshort cuts. Such as using cheaper components, reduced quality control, reduced testing, etc. And result is likely slightly higher failure rate. Hard to say what that failure rate is. Is it 1/100, 1/1000, etc?

And there is no guarantee that cheap product will fail prematurely. Or high-end premium product won't fail. So on average, most consumer still wins with the value products.

XTC by JM audio editions

They are getting ready for new homes

https://www.jmaudioeditions.com/product-page/copy-of-new-inventory-xtc-closed-back

Thanks for the rec. Went down a huge rabbit hole and got some. 24 hours later and I'm in love.

Yeah I might get the HD-820, after EQing the HD-8XX i don't think the HD-820 can be as bad as people say after EQing

I had one from audio gd I never turn it off and it never had issue.

yeah when the HD-660S were priced higher everyone "hated" them now that they are the same or even less than the 600-650's everyone likes them now.

I heard that their products sound fine, but they're built like Schiit.

A Fiio E10K, drives this thing with the knob on 3.5 of 8. Do you think I should consider a better amp/dac for them? Maybe a tube amp?

Here is a little background info: I am driving this off of my fiio E10K. First impressions are positive, build quality is really good, they are comfortable and very lightweight. Sound is good but I‘m not blown away, clarity is better than my Grado GW100 by a bit, I really do notice that in busier parts of songs. Bass performance is fine, would have liked a bit more sub bass. Vocals are good, soundstage decent, slightly wider compared to my GW100. Overall sounds great to me (could be a bit more of that sweet deep bass)

Update after 1 week of use: I‘ve listened to them a lot and have been able to hear more and more of these small details that make songs exciting again. While they didn’t exactly „Wow“ me at first, they certainly have many times by now. Vocals in some songs sound so natural and realistic, imaging is so precise and you can differentiate each and every instrument from another. It‘s really a whole new experience. Even though the soundstage isn’t extremely wide, they are super airy, it’s like music is floating into my ears instead of being played inside of them. Everything has it‘s own space, even though the whole stage isn’t huge. I love them. Now I just need a portable dac / amp to enjoy them with my phone (I‘m currently eyeing the tempotec sonata hd v, seems to have enough output power and all the features I need)

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In the words of Kite Man, hell yeah.

>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.

This doesn't follow though. If the headphone amp is attenuated to a specific voltage output, the part that gets to the headphone is the same. Voltage at amplitude and frequency oscillates the driver to make a certain sound by causing the driver to move at a specific speed to a certain point of excursion. The amount the capacitors are being utilized would affect the amps ability to handle the current/the voltage it provides, but if that were an issue, you'd have less power or the power would clip/distort severely. Speaker amps, at a given voltage, are almost always less clean power than a headphone amp.

>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.

This also doesn't follow. If an amp is able to provide equal voltage at a given frequency, it won't have this issue you are describing. Add on that DR is a function of signal and noise so the thing that determines that will be the amount of voltage the amp can provide. If both can provide the same voltage, and the device isn't also outputting a lot of noise, the dynamic range would be the same at a given voltage. Also, capacitors don't have to be fully charged. The prevent fluctuations in voltage delivery due to inconsistent flow of electricity. See this video. If this were an issue, your amp would cut out intermittently. Also, voltage swings being limited is the same as voltage out being limited and is the same as the clipping issue I addressed earlier.

>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.

It is about being able to supply power. That is what amplifiers do, they amplify the power given to them by the DAC. They should do so completely transparently. I believe you hear the difference you think you hear, but I don't agree that it is because of the amp. That is touched on in this video. You like what you like, you can't argue preference, but proper testing needs to be done to see if what you are hearing is due to the reason you think you are hearing it. Currently, I would argue that it is not.

>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.

This isn't how to match volume. Use a multimeter that is accurate in the audible range or an oscilloscope. This is especially true if the headphone is the same and being A/B tested through a transparent switcher. Since you are using the same headphone, what matters is the voltage out.

>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.

I disagree. There are a lot of cheaper speaker amps that are better than the touted audiophile gear.

>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.

And it is perfectly fine that you feel that way and I wish you luck in finding your perfect setup but none of what you have shown is an objective thing you can say other people should follow because it hasn't been properly tested. If getting that set up makes you happy, then go for it.

>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 do understand how thick their diaphragm is, but that is also why their sensitivity numbers are what they are, which is ridiculously low. But that is already taken into account when you refer to the loudness that the amp can push the headphone to.

>I have done significantly more testing than your skepticism would ever allow you to believe, all volume matched and tested properly.

This is incorrect. Your testing was not proper.

Cool, enjoy your Sundara.

Great soundstage. Good imaging/separation.

But sound is dry and analytical. And vocals is just passable and recessed. I had Sundara for close to 1 year. Then upgraded.

EPOS was spun off from Sennheiser in 2020, so I wonder if that might have some role in the different prices. Maybe Sennheiser is obligated to unload it’s stock by the end of the year so is fire selling, maybe they’re older models from before the spin off, or… maybe it’s just happenstance.

>Granted it wasn't blinded

This is a huge issue though. For a short anecdote on that, I recommend watching the ~1 minute story from this video. There are several parts before and after that explain why this happens and why non-blind testing can't be reliably used. I recommend people watch the whole video if possible, but that one anecdote from the video is a pretty good one. The speaker is basically the guy when it comes to how hearing works.

>What 100W speaker amp did you use, and what headphone amp did you compare it to?

I don't recall the exact model but it was a NAD one, I think a bit older than their current one. Rated for 100W into 4 ohms. Headphone amps were SMSL SH-9, also used a JDS Atom, which is the 1w amp I mentioned being sufficient. I also had a Topping A50 that I used which has likewise the same.

was it 365 Days?

Nice picture!!!

The vast majority of 'power conditioners' are basically 4-way extensions inside a rackmount unit. You basically get a surge protector, an EM filter, and maybe a rack light or a little voltmeter.

The only way to actually 'condition' your power is to use an inline sin wave UPS. Fortunately these have become inexpensive these days, so do that, rather than pissing around with a Furman.