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dalethorn

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Everything posted by dalethorn

  1. This makes sense, because the DT-48A has a nearly ideal signature from the mids on up - not distant like most of the better Sennheisers, not forward like the Grados, not bright like Senns or Grados, and not dark either. Just a lean, clean, perfect pitch on music. Quite a bargain for the price too. I was describing to someone a little while ago, the sound of a Skullcandy headphone I heard last week. I have a jazz track with mass crescendos of horns in several places, which the DT-48A reproduces so cleanly you can practically hear the sparkles of light reflecting off of the horns. With the Skullcandy, the horns sounded like someone crashing into a bunch of garbage cans in an alley, all covered by a big heavy blanket. Hard to believe, unless you hear it yourself.
  2. The Senn 800 and Grado PS-500 are very different, and running from the same amps the 800 is the winner in soundstage, but no hugely - the PS-500 is good for a small headphone, although it's pricey. It's the overall clarity and smoothness of the 500 that impresses after a lot of listening. I don't have the lower Grados to compare with, but I do have some other detailed and revealing headphones - the Shure 940 and Beyer DT-48A, and the PS-500 compares favorably to those, but again, I do believe it costs more to get comparable performance.
  3. I would recommend joining Facebook and connecting to Todd the Vinyl Junkie, and Jerry Raskin's Needle Doctor, and maybe asking a few questions and reading. Also two great sources for analog and vinyl are Stereophile and The Absolute Sound, which you can subscribe to electronic editions.
  4. If you take the PS-500 and reduce the small bass hump around 100 hz a little, the bass sounds very much like the Senn HD-800. I have not heard the other Grados.
  5. Very true, this. I'd like to add one tip, something I kind of discovered just recently. If you're able to listen really late at night, like 2 or 3 in the morning, sometimes that can be the quietest time of the 24-hour day, and also might be when you are most relaxed and able to tune in on detail in the music. And I'm finding I really enjoy that time a lot, when I can do it (work does not usually permit).
  6. I have heard that the Stax SR-009 has gone through some minor revisions already, which might make existing owners who paid big $$$ for them a little bit nervous. So if Edifier can stabilize production and assure buyers that they are getting a stable product, that would help the Stax brand.
  7. If there were one loudspeaker I could listen to today it would be the Audience 2+2 that has no crossovers.
  8. The page is dated 2009. The items on the page are also out of date. I went to the English page and there is nothing - no press release, no news, no nothing.
  9. The HD-25-1-II falls off in the bass, based on the large Measurements PDF at Innerfidelity dot com. Check the December Update posting. The HD-25-1-II is not a completely neutral headphone like the Shure 940, and it is an earpad headphone which will not have the comfort of the 940. But the HD-25 is made for DJ's I think (not sure), which the Shure is not.
  10. The funny thing about personal taste is, as soon as I decide that the colorations in headphone A sound best with certain music tracks, then I switch to other music tracks and headphone B sounds better with those tracks.
  11. Update to DT-48A review: The initial description I made of the bass response was similar to the DT-48E's bass, which by all rights should be identical. But when running from iPod Touch or iPod Touch connected to amp, the DT-48A has significantly better bass, which I assume is due to the low 5 ohm impedance, since I don't see any other factors. They both use identical oval earpads of 2011 vintage.
  12. All of the modern(!) DT-48 series are contenders for best, if they are equipped and driven identically. For example, there are postings still being made about DT-48's of ancient vintage that are no longer available, and some postings fail to specify the earpads used, which make a huge difference in the sound. My current DT-48A 2011 edition has much better bass than my 2011 edition DT-48E, and there's only one reasonable explanation since I don't think Beyer maintains two production lines for a headphone that sells 10 units per year. The impedances are 5 and 25 ohms, and when driven from amps that are very sensitive to that difference, the result is a difference in bass response (using identical earpads).
  13. I always preferred speakers over headphones, until I found out what really deep bass sounds like. Lots of people have misperceptions about deep bass. If you've ever been in one of those large churches like Riverside in New York etc., and the organist plays a 20 hz tone with the 32 ft. pipe, that's deep bass, and it feels like the Earth is moving. You can't get that in the house unless you have speakers that can reproduce that tone with sufficient power (very few can), but most important, if you don't have at least a 25 foot dimension in the room and no large open doors or windows, plus very rigid walls, you won't get it anyway. So when I found out how much that was going to cost me (about $100,000 USD), I gave up and got headphones that could reproduce that tone, for less than 1/100 the money. That's a very good observation too, about system mismatches.
  14. I would expect the treble rolloff to be very fatiguing. I can live with slightly less bass if I have to, but a dull high end is headache-inducing, straining to hear details that aren't coming through.
  15. The interesting thing about the HD-800 is that several people I know who own it don't use it much (including me), and nobody seems to know why. It sounds great and has a very good test record, but after using it awhile I gravitate toward other headphones. Currently I have the Shure 940, which sounds like the HD-800, and I don't use the Shure 940 much either. I also have the Beyer DT-48A and Grado PS-500, both very excellent headphones, and I use those a lot.
  16. Before I got the new DT-48A, I did feel like I had a good amount of time to listen, but now I feel like I'm very short on time, because I'm staying up until 4 am every day listening to this fabulous headphone and don't want to go to bed.
  17. Not in person, but Innerfidelity has a detailed review.
  18. http://dalethorn.com/Photos/Leica_X1/Headp...t48_Collage.jpg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X49t8jMfufQ&feature=feedu The first URL is to my updated photo collage of the DT-48 series. Most of those headphones are not mine. The second URL is to an informal video I did of the new DT-48A.
  19. Unless it just changed now, it says Marcus under the headline, and "about Marcus" at the end. The other reviews say Dale and about Dale.
  20. It's the first one of my reviews that's by Marcus, top and bottom. I also added a comment about the latest tests.
  21. Well, when the picture review is finally up at Headfonics, we need to get them the link so they can link their page to it and start taking orders. The modding opportunities alone could be a goldmine for someone.
  22. Good thought - we tend to rave about the equipment here, but it's the music that counts the most.
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