xjazzdummy

apologies for late reply, DT150 are 3-4 years old I think.

WTS: Beyerdynamic DT150 $260 - all good condition, pads not brand new but definitely usable - 1/4" jack replaced with neutrik jack WTS: Beyerdynamic DT770 80ohm $220 - all good condition, pads not brand new Please contact 9 3 8 4 2 3 0 7

Senn HD25 (normal version, not SP version) is great for tracking, field recording. Personally I use DT150 for tracking, but it's probably too big for field recording. Then again, nowadays I'm pretty with IEMs for no-fuss tracking purposes. On the lower budget side, you can get Sony 7560. However for mixing, sound design etc., I'd go for open cans. I use DT880 to good effect, but let me warn that you'd probably need to use some crossfeed filter and also check back with monitor speakers.

I use the humble M-Audio Transit. It's tiny, has wonderful DAC, and can drive quite a few cans. From Sinamex (Selegie Parklane basement), $140 I think.

If you do mean near-field monitoring for music production purposes (i.e. not for entertainment/casual listening), I'd suggest to go with the established pro-audio brands.

Or you can try Corda higher end amps. eg Opera. They offer the benefits of balanced without having you to rewire your cans. Works with all cans too. Better value for money?

WTS: ESI Near04 Monitor Speakers - more than 1 year old - good condition, used in home studio only - will include Canare interconnect speaker cable (between the L and R speakers) - Self collect Holland V - $200 best price Contact: 93842307 THANKS FOR YOUR RESPONSES!

It always happens! This happened to me years ago. So you don't see me appearing at Jaben or Stereo for the past 2 years. Headphile will always be part of me. I'm not about to see my cans and setup, but I admittedly don't listen to them much these days. It happens also as your work life/career progresses and changes too. Bottomline, spend wisely, know how much is enough and how much is just fanatical. Don't throw money into fads. Eventually we all will realise the "loves" that we will hold for a long time. And that's before the kids come along ... ... P.S. maybe ladies have it easier. It's just clothes, bags and shoes no matter how old they are.

Frankly, for folks who started with the piercing trebles of Grado and Etys, Senns will always sound veiled. But if you compare with speakers and studio monitors, I don't think you will consider Senns veiled (esp. after cable change). Senns' strength in warmth and mids. Even with the wonderful highs and mids from my basic Stax setup, my main listen setup is still my HD650+Zu+modded X-Cans.

Hi, I strongly recommend you to change the cable. I changed to Zu Mobius and the improvement was astonishing! Warm and thick, strong, no veil, really GREAT! Plus a tube amp, your life will be complete! Popular cables include Cardas, Equinox, and Zu Mobius. My vote's with the Zu, obviously.

Beresford TC-7510 DAC $250 - Good starter's DAC - 2 coax, 2 optical inputs - 24/96 capable - Original, unmodded - Very good condition Please contact me on my mobile 93842307

Hi, I do exactly what you do, track and mix at night. For mixing I use Beyer 880 but added a layer of foam to make it less bright. I find it pretty neutral. For tracking, I use the DT150. Great isolation, has a presence boost that helps during tracking stage. Otherwise you can always use the ever-popular Sony 7506 or 7509. Otherwise, AKG 271 is a good choice too for monitoring.

Thanks again to gene83 and yotiao for organising the meet. This is the first time I'm attending such a gathering, and seeing all of you in action. I was very impressed by cmk's setup, with the Audio Magic power supply thingy, the Denon player, the Benchmark DAC1, Diva amp, and AT woodies. You see, I never liked the AT house sound, but cmk's setup changed my impression of AT. Everything was there and well-balanced, without sacrificing dynamics. You don't even need to turn it up loud to get excited. Vocals, classical, hard rock, it handled everything! Best part of all, most of the components aren't that expensive (other than the Audio Magic). cmk said the Audio Magic contributed a lot to the setup. Must try, must try ... The AT-ANC7 (also cmk) was also very surprising for most of us who tried it. Most had that "noise cancelling crap?" look before putting it on, and the OMG look after that. This is a must buy for me. Great alternative to IEMs for travelling: same isolation, no ear ache or wax, headphone soundstage, great sound! A pity the right input of my modded Creek OBH-21SE died after a while. Huangyong did the mod (a simple mod according to him) and brought it on Sat itself. Those who heard it all thought that it was pretty good for a Creek. Will bring again for next meet. For those keen on Slim Devices stuff, once in a while they will have an online sale. When I bought mine, "LIVE365" works as promo code, but not sure if still valid. The local agent (the Benchmark guys) will honour the warranty even if you order it in from US.

I tried a few XRCDs. I can say that they sound different, but not necessarily. Once I opened up the WAV file of a song from both the redbook version and the XRCD version. Visually it's easy to tell that the XRCD is more compressed than the redbook, which may not be good news.

I just received my Maple Tree Audio switcher, a 2 x 4 unit. Works great right out of the box!

Hi, I have a brand new factory sealed Super-Fi 5 Pro in transparent colour. It is brand new because I got it replaced under warranty, and they gave me a complete new set. For those who wonder who went wrong with the old set that I claimed under warranty, mine was the early batch SF5Pro which had the cracked casing problem. The new ones are all ok now, so don't panic. I'm not sure what's the pricing like, so please make me a reasonable offer for a brand new set. Contact: 93842307

The best I've heard from software DSP is the Izotope Ozone and the BBE Sonic Maximizer, MP and Mach3 Bass. The Izotope Ozone has a free version that's terrific already. The paid version is not expensive too. The BBE Sonic Maximizer, MP and Mach3 Bass are the same ones inside iaudio players. So far I only know that they are available through the iaudio jetaudio player for a small price. Do some googling and you'll find the links. And SRS WOW is horrigible compared to Izotope and BBE stuff.

Just go Jab*n la. They can get it for you.

If you can find it, there's a 3-disc commerative set for Jobim. Disc 1 vocals, disc 2 instrumentals, disc 3 comparisons. It's a very good compilation, die die must buy. Also check out Ana Caram, under Chesky. Very accomplished Brazilian singer. Jobim was once her mentor. Don't listen to Lisa Ono. After you've heard the real thing, Lisa Ono sounds bad. She's singing bossa, but the feeling is not quite there. For that matter, I feel that Stan Getz isn't his best at bossa nova as well. His best works are still in jazz. Somehow the Brazilians and Latin Americans still play their own music the best, e.g. Paquito D Rivera. After you're familiar with Brazilian music, you can check out Bossa Cuca Nova, a group which does very very good dancy versions of Brazilian music.

On the headphone and speaker end, it is determined by sensitivity and impendance. On the amp, it is determined by voltage x current = power (watts). Recall high school physics?

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That's what I suggested to yield best resolution from digital sources. When you turn off, just turn off the amp first, then the player. You don't have to bring down the volume. BTW, that means when you turn it on, turn on the player first followed by the amp. The reason is when the player is turned on, it may produce a loud pop sound (clipping signal). If the amp is on at this time, volume turned on high, with cans connected, the cans might be damaged by the high voltage. (this reasoning is from the speaker world, but I religiously follow it for fear of risking damage to my precious cans)

Common wisdom is to set digital volume to at least 80% to achieve better resolution, then use analog volume to adjust final level. I.e. set the volume on your MP3 player to at least 80% (e.g. 32 if it goes from 1 to 40), then use volume on amp to set overall level to cans. The only exception is sometimes the MP3 volume level at 80% will be too hot for the amp input. You can hear this easily cuz it distorts. In this case lower the volume of MP3 player enough to eliminate the distortion.

HEALTH CHECK (1) If you using an amp for jogging, I suppose you're going to turn the music up? That's a very bad idea. When you're exercising, blood is drawn away from your ears and to your limbs instead. Music on your earphones will sound softer because of this. And people will tend to turn up the music to compensate. And the end result is that your ears will get damaged. (2) I never liked the idea of listening to music on bluetooth device or wired headset to mobile phones. We all know that any wire connected to a radio device becomes an antenna. Just imagine connecting two antennas for a high powered radio device (i.e. mobile phone. The signal can penetrate walls!) to two sides of your brain. I've tested this myself a few times with headset connect to my phone. I get a headache in 5 mins of listening to music on it!

That's right. Crossover places a low pass filter on the sub output from the receiver, and a high pass filter on the stereo speakers (sometimes also your surround speakers, depending whether you turn bass management on or off in your receiver). In plain terms, xover determines where to split the bass between the sub and the other speakers. Say there's a 80Hz tone. With your xover settings, the tone will be output from the sub and not the other speakers. With a 150Hz tone, it'll be the other way round. The tone will be output from the speakers and not the sub. This is important because if the same tone (especially for low frequencies) is produced by more than one speaker, there will be all kinds of comb-filtering and phase interaction problems (recall O level physics). It may even sound like the bass frequencies are being sucked out. What about tones at or very near the xover frequency? These notes will be output partially on both the subs and the other speakers. Will there be phase or other problems? Yes there will be, and there's where the genius in xover design comes in. Actually xovers are used whenever there are more than one driver, e.g. in 2 or 3-way speakers, even in 2-driver IEMs. These can be active or passive crossovers. There's always weakness at the crossover frequency.