$1200 of headphone audio equipment later and the differences in Tidal + Spotify are extremely subtle

[Googolbyte]

Should I preface a title like that with a Trigger Warning? I don't know. I very badly want to enjoy high end audio experiences through headphones, I just want to point that out now. I've listened to a stereo $50,000 and $150000 speaker setup at an audio show room so I know I won't ever get close to replicating that (because physics) but that for me isn't really the point of headphones. Different technical implementation different sound.

The benefits I heard were overall cleaner tonality, separation of sound, and a perceived increase in soundstage. But again, for me it was pretty damn subtle.

Between headphones, dacs, and amps, I came to the conclusion that my subjective listening experiences seem to notice a subtle difference. I've also gone back to do some research and have concluded that I almost certainly overspent. I have since returned the equipment that I bought (except my 58Xs).

My first consistent setup consisted of:
Su-9 DAC
Monoprice Monolith THX 887 amp
**Note: I haven't tried tubes yet.

And I tried the following headphones:
-Hifiman HE-5XX (Flat but a ton of potential for EQ, sad that I didn't play around with that more)
-Hifiman Sundara (I don't know what the hype is)
-Hifiman Ananda (These sound like tinny ass)
-LCD X (probably my favorite but its pretty weighty and it sounds like shit in games, don't hate me for that everyone's got needs!)
-LCD 2C (sounded fine in games but didn't have the bass punch that the LCD-Xs did, really made me sad)
-Sennheiser 58X (I ended up keeping these, they do what I want them to do and they felt safe to keep given the price point)
-Meze Empyreans (oh man I wanted to love these so badly but 3k for anything but perfection is unacceptable)

And since Amazon had a ridiculously long return period for my Su-9 and Monolith amp I decided to return them after not really hearing a significant enough difference to justify $800. Hell it sounds like I might be just as happy if not happier for the $400 I could spend on a topping dac/amp combo (two devices).

If you see my join date, that's around the time I started this audioquest of mine its been 2 months maybe?

So now that I have some limited experience with products, I wanted to start a discussion with interested people about my tastes, what I'm generally listening for, what I'm willing to pay and all that sort of thing. The community seems really passionate and objective and as someone who's recently being exposed to high end headphone audio I really admire that.

So essentially what I'm looking for is:

• That LCD-X punch (The LCD-2 fazors might be what I'm looking for)
• Something that will ease the peakiness of songs like "Dance Monkey"
• A way to EQ that doesn't involve Peace. For some reason the differences I hear with Peace are pretty subtle. I noticed some tub amps come with EQ knobs.
• And overall any general practices I could adopt to color my sound (because its fun) or to hear the benefit of objective performance.

A random note of my interpretation of my listening session with the Sennheiser HE-1s:
The HE-1 experience made me really understand the limitations of earspeakers/headphones whatever you want to call it. There's so much you can do, and there's so much you can't do. HE-1s are a demo of what money can't buy in headphone audio. But just FYI they were nothing but extremely pleasing to listen to, like pouring some warm gooey substance into your eardrums in the form of air.

But I'm confident that you can get the same experience for around 1/5th of the price.

 

[Cahudson42]

You can return it if you get thru amazon, the $110 Qudelix 5k gives you a 10-band PEQ capability. Use it directly with your HP via it's 2.5mm balanced or 3.5mm single ended outputs.You could also retain the use of your THX 887 by following he Qudelix with it via 3.5mm to RCA cable.

Assuming you connect it via USB (rather than bt) you can simultaneously control and adjust it via it's bt app. You can also select ESS Rolloff filters.

Gives you PEQ without Peace - or any computer.
https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/qudelix-5k-bluetooth-dac-headphone-amp.17386/

Just my personal opinion - forget the tube amp rabbit hole. I now see you returned the THX 887. If the Qudelix (use balanced if possible) doesn't have enough 'oomph' for you - consider following it with an L30.

 

[bobbooo]

But I'm confident that you can get the same experience for around 1/5th of the price.

More like 1/500th of the price and minimal EQ (mostly just the bass):

 

[Berwhale]

A way to EQ that doesn't involve Peace. For some reason the differences I hear with Peace are pretty subtle.

I'm a little confused by this comment. Peace is just a front end for EqualizerAPO, there's not really any limit to how much you can change the sound with it. How were you applying EQ with Peace?

 

[Googolbyte]

You can return it if you get thru amazon, the $110 Qudelix 5k gives you a 10-band PEQ capability. Use it directly with your HP via it's 2.5mm balanced or 3.5mm single ended outputs.You could also retain the use of your THX 887 by following he Qudelix with it via 3.5mm to RCA cable.

Assuming you connect it via USB (rather than bt) you can simultaneously control and adjust it via it's bt app. You can also select ESS Rolloff filters.

Gives you PEQ without Peace - or any computer.
https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/qudelix-5k-bluetooth-dac-headphone-amp.17386/

Just my personal opinion - forget the tube amp rabbit hole. I now see you returned the THX 887. If the Qudelix (use balanced if possible) doesn't have enough 'oomph' for you - consider following it with an L30.

Noice! Thank you!

More like 1/500th of the price and minimal EQ (mostly just the bass):

View attachment 98571

Haha I'll have to try this to confirm sometime. But I imagine the 8 pack tube DAC/Amp combo that the HE-1s came with also influence the sound as well. One of the things I learned testing all those headphones is that charts only have a (reliable-ish) slice of the experience.

I'm a little confused by this comment. Peace is just a front end for EqualizerAPO, there's not really any limit to how much you can change the sound with it. How were you applying EQ with Peace?

I tend to boost the hell out of the sub 75hz range, maybe remove a treble peak here and there. But I noticed on Windows since a recent update the EQ has had less effect on the music I've been listening to. When I play music through VLC and use that EQ, the differences are no longer subtle and I can clearly hear them.

 

[bobbooo]

Haha I'll have to try this to confirm sometime. But I imagine the 8 pack tube DAC/Amp combo that the HE-1s came with also influence the sound as well.

Much less than you'd think, in fact probably inaudibly so. The HE-1 system including headphone is rated to have distortion of 0.01% (-80 dB). That means the DAC/amp would have to have lower distortion than that, which likely puts it beyond audibility and so makes it audibly transparent, just like any other competently designed solid state DAC/amp. Any other audible influences of the HE-1's DAC/amp will just show up in the frequency response of the headphones posted above. As for the reliability of measurement charts, the ones I posted were made using state-of-the art, industry standard equipment by a professional acoustic engineer who actually measures and helps design headphones for a living. Their reliability is likely to be higher than casual, sighted, non-level matched listening done under uncontrolled conditions, which are subject to innumerable unconscious cognitive biases.

 

[hyperplanar]

Yeah that's the problem with headphones at the moment. Sure you'll get objectively better sound up to $400-500 or so, but past that point, it seems like a bit of picking your poison with each headphone having a different set of flaws and settling for whichever tradeoffs bother you the least... A bit egregious for the prices asked IMO, but passive headphones are difficult to get right with people having unpredictable HRTFs wearing headphones that don't correspond to the HRTF they would hear perfect speakers through. So it's a bit of a moving target and looking for an acceptable average without the ability to compensate for those deviations.

For what it's worth, I like the HD 600 more than the LCD-X which my brother bought for around $1800 a few years ago. The LCD-X has been sitting on my brother's desk a few feet away from mine for the past year collecting dust, so I've had plenty of time to listen to it (he's stuck out of the country thanks to COVID). I've tried many times to like it and do appreciate its extremely clean and extended bass response, but couldn't get past the very unnatural treble.

 

[bobbooo]

For what it's worth, I like the HD 600 more than the LCD-X which my brother bought for around $1800 a few years ago. The LCD-X has been sitting on my brother's desk a few feet away from mine for the past year collecting dust, so I've had plenty of time to listen to it (he's stuck out of the country thanks to COVID). I've tried many times to like it and do appreciate its extremely clean and extended bass response, but couldn't get past the very unnatural treble.

That'll be why.

 

[hyperplanar]

View attachment 98597

That'll be why.

Yeah, I've tried Oratory's EQ for the LCD-X and obviously it greatly improves things, but still doesn't sound natural to my ears.

The first most obvious problem is Audeze's notoriously bad quality control/tolerances. I can clearly hear frequency imbalances between the left and right ears, so that doesn't bode well for an EQ based on one pair's measurements translating to another pair.

Secondly, the treble past the massive 4 kHz dip is much rougher/nonlinear in reality than what the graph suggests. Probably a combination of diffraction/interference/resonance with the planar magnetic design, and its coupling to the ear. Simply sweeping a sine wave in that region reveals multiple frequencies that are either excruciatingly loud or nearly null, which is totally unlike what I hear doing the same thing with my KH120s.

Overall honestly I have to say it's a joke for the asking price... I feel bad because I was the one who recommended them to my brother in the first place, based off of the glowing reviews found online at the time. Also, they're a small local business located in Costa Mesa while I was going to UC Irvine at the time, so that was appealing. Unfortunately that kind of handmade approach doesn't lend itself to tight tolerances, compared to headphones produced in more advanced and automated facilities, like say Apple's or Sennheiser's.

The problem with high-end headphones is I feel like they all have glaring problems one way or another. I think I would take the Kali LP6s over basically any headphone sound quality-wise, but of course some people don't have the luxury of being able to use speakers. He did buy the HD800S recently in Singapore and at least those responded far better to EQ.

 

[bigjacko]

For me HD800 is an unique headphone that worth a high price because of the sound stage alone. I have got a few good headphones that punch higher in their price class like HD6XX, ESP/95X and DT1990, but the most expensive HD800 is the best of the bunch because of the sound stage. The sound stage is so big that other headphone will feel closed in. I think spending many thousands is not worth it, but just a bit more than a thousand or a few hundred if you get second hand, HD800 is worth it if you willing to spend and like big sound stage or more out of head feel.

 

[bobbooo]

Yeah, I've tried Oratory's EQ for the LCD-X and obviously it greatly improves things, but still doesn't sound natural to my ears.

The first most obvious problem is Audeze's notoriously bad quality control/tolerances. I can clearly hear frequency imbalances between the left and right ears, so that doesn't bode well for an EQ based on one pair's measurements translating to another pair.

Secondly, the treble past the massive 4 kHz dip is much rougher/nonlinear in reality than what the graph suggests. Probably a combination of diffraction/interference/resonance with the planar magnetic design, and its coupling to the ear. Simply sweeping a sine wave in that region reveals multiple frequencies that are either excruciatingly loud or nearly null, which is totally unlike what I hear doing the same thing with my KH120s, from a brand with

Overall honestly I have to say it's a joke for the asking price... I feel bad because I was the one who recommended them to my brother in the first place, based off of the glowing reviews found online at the time. The problem with high-end headphones is I feel like they all have glaring problems one way or another. He did buy the HD800S recently in Singapore and at least those responded far better to EQ.

Oratory usually measures several units if he can, but yeah Audeze's large unit variation is likely to make any EQ not based on measurements of your specific pair somewhat inaccurate. The other problem with the LCD-X is that huge 4 kHz dip is a non-minimum phase part of the frequency response most likely due to an internal earcup reflection and cancellation resulting in excess group delay, meaning no EQ will effectively be able to smooth it out properly (which is why Oratory's EQ doesn't even try to bring it right up to where it should be on the Harman target). Frankly it's just a poorly designed headphone, at an extortionate price, from a brand with a history of poor unit (and channel) variation.

 

[Oukkidoukki]

Should I preface a title like that with a Trigger Warning? I don't know. I very badly want to enjoy high end audio experiences through headphones, I just want to point that out now. I've listened to a stereo $50,000 and $150000 speaker setup at an audio show room so I know I won't ever get close to replicating that (because physics) but that for me isn't really the point of headphones. Different technical implementation different sound.

The benefits I heard were overall cleaner tonality, separation of sound, and a perceived increase in soundstage. But again, for me it was pretty damn subtle.

Between headphones, dacs, and amps, I came to the conclusion that my subjective listening experiences seem to notice a subtle difference. I've also gone back to do some research and have concluded that I almost certainly overspent. I have since returned the equipment that I bought (except my 58Xs).

My first consistent setup consisted of:
Su-9 DAC
Monoprice Monolith THX 887 amp
**Note: I haven't tried tubes yet.

And I tried the following headphones:
-Hifiman HE-5XX (Flat but a ton of potential for EQ, sad that I didn't play around with that more)
-Hifiman Sundara (I don't know what the hype is)
-Hifiman Ananda (These sound like tinny ass)
-LCD X (probably my favorite but its pretty weighty and it sounds like shit in games, don't hate me for that everyone's got needs!)
-LCD 2C (sounded fine in games but didn't have the bass punch that the LCD-Xs did, really made me sad)
-Sennheiser 58X (I ended up keeping these, they do what I want them to do and they felt safe to keep given the price point)
-Meze Empyreans (oh man I wanted to love these so badly but 3k for anything but perfection is unacceptable)

And since Amazon had a ridiculously long return period for my Su-9 and Monolith amp I decided to return them after not really hearing a significant enough difference to justify $800. Hell it sounds like I might be just as happy if not happier for the $400 I could spend on a topping dac/amp combo (two devices).

If you see my join date, that's around the time I started this audioquest of mine its been 2 months maybe?

So now that I have some limited experience with products, I wanted to start a discussion with interested people about my tastes, what I'm generally listening for, what I'm willing to pay and all that sort of thing. The community seems really passionate and objective and as someone who's recently being exposed to high end headphone audio I really admire that.

So essentially what I'm looking for is:

• That LCD-X punch (The LCD-2 fazors might be what I'm looking for)
• Something that will ease the peakiness of songs like "Dance Monkey"
• A way to EQ that doesn't involve Peace. For some reason the differences I hear with Peace are pretty subtle. I noticed some tub amps come with EQ knobs.
• And overall any general practices I could adopt to color my sound (because its fun) or to hear the benefit of objective performance.

A random note of my interpretation of my listening session with the Sennheiser HE-1s:
The HE-1 experience made me really understand the limitations of earspeakers/headphones whatever you want to call it. There's so much you can do, and there's so much you can't do. HE-1s are a demo of what money can't buy in headphone audio. But just FYI they were nothing but extremely pleasing to listen to, like pouring some warm gooey substance into your eardrums in the form of air.

But I'm confident that you can get the same experience for around 1/5th of the price.

No peakiness in dance monkey here....su 8 (0riginal,brickwall), xlr vovox sonorus to yamaha hs 8...

 

[whazzup]

I tend to boost the hell out of the sub 75hz range, maybe remove a treble peak here and there. But I noticed on Windows since a recent update the EQ has had less effect on the music I've been listening to. When I play music through VLC and use that EQ, the differences are no longer subtle and I can clearly hear them.

Just in case you encountered the same issue:
I did noticed Eq apo + peace stopped working recently. And I realised windows update voided the eq apo settings. Eventually I had to reinstall eq apo (not just reapply the settings/re-select the audio device) for everything to work again.

Second: Peace eq has a default maximum db setting of 20 I think, which I found wasn't sufficient for testing. For example I tried muting my subwoofer channel to -20db but could still hear audio. You can adjust it in Sizes and Amounts settings and increase the Maximum dB value.

 

[Berwhale]

But I noticed on Windows since a recent update the EQ has had less effect on the music I've been listening to. When I play music through VLC and use that EQ, the differences are no longer subtle and I can clearly hear them.

Sometimes you need to re-install Peace and/or EqualizerAPO after a Windows Update, that's why there's an option to warn you about this in Peace's settings...

I'm on the Windows 10 Insider programme and receive a lot more updates than those on the retail build. IIRC, i've had to re-install EqualizerAPO at least twice over the last year.

 

[ernestcarl]

Yeah, I've tried Oratory's EQ for the LCD-X and obviously it greatly improves things, but still doesn't sound natural to my ears.

The first most obvious problem is Audeze's notoriously bad quality control/tolerances. I can clearly hear frequency imbalances between the left and right ears, so that doesn't bode well for an EQ based on one pair's measurements translating to another pair.

Secondly, the treble past the massive 4 kHz dip is much rougher/nonlinear in reality than what the graph suggests. Probably a combination of diffraction/interference/resonance with the planar magnetic design, and its coupling to the ear. Simply sweeping a sine wave in that region reveals multiple frequencies that are either excruciatingly loud or nearly null, which is totally unlike what I hear doing the same thing with my KH120s.

Overall honestly I have to say it's a joke for the asking price... I feel bad because I was the one who recommended them to my brother in the first place, based off of the glowing reviews found online at the time. Also, they're a small local business located in Costa Mesa while I was going to UC Irvine at the time, so that was appealing. Unfortunately that kind of handmade approach doesn't lend itself to tight tolerances, compared to headphones produced in more advanced and automated facilities, like say Apple's or Sennheiser's.

The problem with high-end headphones is I feel like they all have glaring problems one way or another. I think I would take the Kali LP6s over basically any headphone sound quality-wise, but of course some people don't have the luxury of being able to use speakers. He did buy the HD800S recently in Singapore and at least those responded far better to EQ.

If you have a rig to measure the headphones’ frequency response precisely (compensation curves not needed) you can fix the channel imbalance differences using simple A/B trace arithmetic and auto filter generation tools in REW. Tip: use the better looking curve as your reference trace to EQ other (bad) side — or channel with larger deviation error. After that, you can EQ the set as a matched-pair. Of course, it’s possible that the differences are large and erratic (esp. if high Q) enough in the high frequencies that you might not be able to completely pair-match them.

 

[ernestcarl]

I'm on the Windows 10 Insider programme and receive a lot more updates than those on the retail build. IIRC, i've had to re-install EqualizerAPO at least twice over the last year.

I used to as well; it has caused me some headache inducing os/application problems — even had to reinstall Windows after an update where I could no longer boot back into Windows. If you have only one computer, I advise not to let it become a guinea pig for testing purposes. Unless you have a second or third computer to fall back on to with a robust automated backup system already set in place.

 

[solderdude]

But I'm confident that you can get the same experience for around 1/5th of the price.

This one gets you close.

Try to audition one. It doesn't go very loud though.

EQing headphones will only get you so far, the basis needs to be good.
Note: it also includes a DAC + dedicated headphone amp.

 

[Cahudson42]

@solderdude at the other end of the price spectrum, any impressions of HE4XX and HE5XX and after-EQ results? Which to get?

 

[Berwhale]

I used to as well; it has caused me some headache inducing os/application problems — even had to reinstall Windows after an update where I could no longer boot back into Windows. If you have only one computer, I advise not to let it become a guinea pig for testing purposes. Unless you have a second or third computer to fall back on to with a robust automated backup system already set in place.

Yes, the Insider programme isn't for everyone. I've been a Window 10 Insider since October 2015 (on what is now called the Beta channel), i've only had to re-install once and that was due to a hardware upgrade.

I don't store any important data on my PC, all my data is on a server which is backed up to another server with another off-line backup for important stuff. So I can wipe my main PC, re-install Windows and redeploy most of my apps in about an hour if I need to.

Ninite is quite useful for quickly installing your most used applications Ninite - Install or Update Multiple Apps at Once,.

If you prefer the command line then Chocolatey Software | Chocolatey - The package manager for Windows. is good. There is also the new Windows Package Manager Windows Package Manager Preview | Windows Command Line (microsoft.com).

 

[solderdude]

@solderdude at the other end of the price spectrum, any impressions of HE4XX and HE5XX and after-EQ results? Which to get?

Heard nor measured neither. I would say these are sidegrades.
I would get the HD560S and remove some of the upper mids.