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    Review and Measurements of SMSL SP200 THX HP Amp

    It was sarcasm. And I just realized that I misread the graph, Y-axis is V, not dB. My audiophile bat colony is cautiously optimistic about the frequency response.
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    Amp recommendation for Hifiman HE-560

    I've used my HE560 (v2) with my Atom, and it's more than enough. Same for my 789, so then it would stand to reason the SP200 and upcoming Monolith would be fine too. Or really, any amp in your price range with low noise and distortion. Side note, the Monolith Portable also has no issue with...
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    Review and Measurements of SMSL SP200 THX HP Amp

    -0.1 dB at 100 kHz? I dunno, seems like there's room for improvement.
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    Review and Measurements of New Topping D50s DAC

    TMJ, too. I haven't collected evidence to back my opinion with, mostly because I'm not qualified to do so, but given how common each of these afflictions are, I'll bet there's a considerable number of people affected by this combo who don't realize that their tinnitus symptoms can be helped by...
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    Dac to go with Atom Amp?

    I'll say. I paid $250 for my original D50 and I still stand by it as a great purchase. Yours has marginally better performance, plus Bluetooth, for less money. I do wish that there was a separate power state LED for Topping units that rely on OLED, just a little dim one like the 789. So we...
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    Review and Measurements of Grace Design Balanced DAC

    Doesn't matter if it says microphone cable, that's just one application. As for which are good, they're mostly equal in that regard but non-name-brand connectors can vary in quality (snugness, strain relief, housing finish). I prefer making mine with Canare cable and Neutrik or Amphenol...
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    Review and Measurements of Massdrop THX AAA 789 Amp

    If your HD800S wasn't that loud, then you have nothing to worry about. At 102 dB/V, your headphones would be deafening (119 dB SPL) by the time the output voltage of your Atom even made it to the clipping point of the 789 input in high gain. And you would have a ways to go beyond that before you...
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    Review and Measurements of Massdrop THX AAA 789 Amp

    The 789 has SE PASS connectors are wired in parallel with the SE INPUT. Think of it like a set of internal Y-cables... SE INPUT L and SE PASS L are ganged together, likewise with SE INPUT R and SE PASS R. So what you did is no different than plugging the Atom output into the 789 input. I doubt...
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    Review and Measurements of Massdrop THX AAA 789 Amp

    Something to check when using those Fostex headphones is how secure the headphone-side plug is. Those twist-lock 3.5mm connectors tend to un-twist sometimes, and then you run the risk of having them come a bit loose. Which as far as I know could trigger the overcurrent protection if the plug's...
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    Monoprice Monolith THX 887 Balance Headphone Amp: New Champ?

    789 is fully differential, even if some sections aren't truly balanced. There are zero drawbacks to this, per my understanding, this method has the same CMRR as you would expect from a "symmetrical" balanced signal.
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    Monoprice Monolith THX 887 Balance Headphone Amp: New Champ?

    Wow. For two reasons: Great performance All the 789 buyer's remorse in this thread If you bought a 789, you're good to go. Why would you sweat now? I have two of them, and they're just as good today as they were when I bought them.
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    USB audio interfaces interest

    Just set a friend up with an Audient ID4. Prior to that, he was borrowing my RME Babyface, which I had to take back because I'm traveling soon. On paper it's a bang-up deal for a small audio interface, and he's more than happy with it, though it's not purely the headphone and line outputs...
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    Review and Measurements of Massdrop THX AAA 789 Amp

    That's what I thought too, which is the behavior I initially described - user can set the output reference level to either 13 or 19 dBu, and the volume is shown in decibels relative to that level.
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    Review and Measurements of Massdrop THX AAA 789 Amp

    I read the manual before I posted. So the thing I got wrong was about the ref level, since it is auto set instead of user-set, then? Why not just say that? ;)
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    Review and Measurements of Massdrop THX AAA 789 Amp

    You guys already got my money when I bought a Babyface. And again when I bought a UCX and UFX II That's how I described the operation... Before you corrected me. o_O "So with ref level of 13 dBu, and a volume of -4.5 dBr, we have an output of 8.5 dBu (13 - 4.5 = 8.5)."
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    Review and Measurements of Massdrop THX AAA 789 Amp

    So volume is shown at dB relative to max output regardless of the Ref Level? That changes the numbers required to get in the neighborhood of 2.1 Vrms. -10.5 dB or -4.5 dB would do it, then, depending on whether the XLR or RCA outputs are in use. Ref Level is only relevant when using the auto...
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    Review and Measurements of Massdrop THX AAA 789 Amp

    That's my thinking, too. If using the headphone amplifier built into the ADI-2 DAC, having auto ref enabled would be good when you have a mix of high- and low-sensitivity headphones. That way you can get the level you need for any one of your headphones with a single control (volume) rather than...
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    Review and Measurements of Massdrop THX AAA 789 Amp

    The advantage to auto ref level is so that you don't need to change gain modes to get the full range of output levels with the pot. It's not useful in this case. As for calculating the voltage: Volume is shown in dBr is somewhat of an open scale, where the reference value is implied. In this...
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    Review and Measurements of Massdrop THX AAA 789 Amp

    If you're using the 13 dBu ref level, then use the pot to set volume to -4.5 dBr and that'll give you nearly the maximum voltage swing (8.5 dBu = 2.06 V). With this voltage, you will not clip the 789 in any of the three gain modes.
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    Review and Measurements of Massdrop THX AAA 789 Amp

    The ADI-2 DAC manual specifies that pin 3 should be floated when connecting to an unbalanced input, I'm guessing because it's impedance balanced instead of servo balanced. So referring to Rane Note 110, fig 3b shows the wiring.
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