Though the 840 do need some amping to bring out its best potential according to the people who have it. :P But that's true for almost all headphones.
I wanted to get a shure srh840 at one point but those things are effing huge.
I needed huge. I would have gotten something like the Grado SR 60s but I live in a small condo with another person so having sound contained within the headphones late at night was a must.
The size of the 840s isn't that bad, comparable to other full sized closed ones.
Though the 840 do need some amping to bring out its best potential according to the people who have it. :P But that's true for almost all headphones.
I wanted to get a shure srh840 at one point but those things are effing huge.
I needed huge. I would have gotten something like the Grado SR 60s but I live in a small condo with another person so having sound contained within the headphones late at night was a must.
The size of the 840s isn't that bad, comparable to other full sized closed ones.
acidlacedpenguinInstitutionalizedSafe in jail.Registered Userregular
edited June 2011
So I've been enjoying my AD700s for the past few days. . . They're definitely not lacking in the bass response like I'd been led to believe. It seems to be so much more well balanced compared to other headphones I've used, they feel like there's so much more extra room in the sound-- I even hear some stuff in the mid range that I didn't know even existed.
I haven't gotten around to trying them with my 360 mostly because I've been going back through my music collection trying to find the previously "hidden" mid range stuff in my favorite albums.
I'm having a bit of a problem though in that the sound output is really loud to these things, like, to not blow my ears out I have to turn windows volume down to like 10% or less. I'm running a splitter on the sound output so that I can output to both the headphones and my TV, and because of this I have to crank my amp super high to hear anything. How do you suppose I should fix this? I was thinking of either wiring a variable resistor into a 3.5mm M/F cable to limit sound going to the headphones or installing both audio cards and having music and games sent to one card, TV/movies to the other. . . any suggestions?
acidlacedpenguin on
GT: Acidboogie PSNid: AcidLacedPenguiN
0
Options
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
Okie dokey, surely one or more of you audio experts can help me.
My good friend Glenn has just gotten himself a cheap turntable setup. No name turntable, no name stereo amplifier, 2 pairs of no name 2 way speakers. The turntable feeds straight into the cheapo amp, which has exactly two outputs, left and right. They are the spring-loaded wire-clamp type. With two speakers in parallel from each output, he gets surprisingly good midrange and highs, but because they're only smaller-sized speakers (I think the drivers are about 5 inches across), bass is pretty ordinary.
How can I help him setup a subwoofer to fill out the bottom of the frequency spectrum? I figure he'll need a low-pass filter and a powered subwoofer, but where do I even look for an LPF that will work in this situation?
And if you couldn't already tell, his budget isn't going to stretch to anything with Audio Note or Conrad Johnson written on it... He spends all his spare money on records!
Okie dokey, surely one or more of you audio experts can help me.
My good friend Glenn has just gotten himself a cheap turntable setup. No name turntable, no name stereo amplifier, 2 pairs of no name 2 way speakers. The turntable feeds straight into the cheapo amp, which has exactly two outputs, left and right. They are the spring-loaded wire-clamp type. With two speakers in parallel from each output, he gets surprisingly good midrange and highs, but because they're only smaller-sized speakers (I think the drivers are about 5 inches across), bass is pretty ordinary.
How can I help him setup a subwoofer to fill out the bottom of the frequency spectrum? I figure he'll need a low-pass filter and a powered subwoofer, but where do I even look for an LPF that will work in this situation?
And if you couldn't already tell, his budget isn't going to stretch to anything with Audio Note or Conrad Johnson written on it... He spends all his spare money on records!
Powered sub - feed the amp into the sub and from there out to the speakers.
I use an Eltax which was pretty cheap and makes a big difference.
ben0207 on
0
Options
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
Thanks! Now to find something available in Australia.
So I've been enjoying my AD700s for the past few days. . . They're definitely not lacking in the bass response like I'd been led to believe. It seems to be so much more well balanced compared to other headphones I've used, they feel like there's so much more extra room in the sound-- I even hear some stuff in the mid range that I didn't know even existed.
Just as a curiosity thing, when you reach around 2:20 onwards of this song, does your brain feel like it's being massaged by the sub-bass?
Because I was very interested in the AD700s till I heard that they are very bass light.
Antihippy on
PSN: Antiwhippy
0
Options
acidlacedpenguinInstitutionalizedSafe in jail.Registered Userregular
edited June 2011
at 0:50 it feels like my ears are being gently fucked with a swah-swah-swah-swah sounding bass echo thingy. I didn't know a roflcopter was a musical instrument. It could be bassier but it's not like the bass is non-existent.
*played through a 1st gen X-FI xtrememusic, using the 1080p source on youtube.
they are probably the bassiest headphones I've ever owned, but they're also the first high quality headphones I've owned.
edit: one second I'll try the same song against my ety mc5 isolating in-ears. yeah the AD700s are bassier than those too.
edit2: Just tried the AD700s plugged into the headphone jack of my bass amp, they're not that great as monitors.
Through my Senheisser HD650's connected to an Audio-gd Compass fed from X-FI Platinum with the optical out the bass is very strong to the point where I can feel it at points in the song. However, not strong to the point where it's uncomfortable just more than I prefer to hear.
In my portable setup consisting of Westone 3's being fed by a Headphonia Arrow 12HE v1 amp and a 3G Ipod Touch with a LOD using solid silver core wire the bass is oppressively strong. The Westone 3's have very strong bass and that song is almost painful to listen to. Bass that strong with IEM's is flat out uncomfortable.
A good friend of mine has the AD900's and compared to the HD650's they are bass light. However, they have a very airy and open sound (and much brighter than the HD650's), and with a bit of eq'ing you can bring out a lot of bass from them. I preferred the HD650's for the music I listen to, but that hasn't kept me from wanting a pair of A900's for a little variety.
Haha, yeah, that's one of the few tracks I like to use to test out the bass and sub-bass. Nice to hear that the AD700's can at least do frequencies that low. Though I'm surprised that you said they were bassy.
Also seriously nice equipment Cormac. Though I'm honestly curious if having the LOD being silver actually does much to change the sound.
Thanks Antihippy. I don't think the wire really makes that much, if any, difference being that it's about an inch long. I have another longer LOD that's a combination of silver and copper wires, and I can't hear any difference between the two. I had the silver one made for me by a Head-fi member who had only silver wire on hand at the time, so that's the only reason it's made with silver wire. Some people say that silver wire has a clearer and brighter sound than copper, but I don't personally buy into a lot of the cable mumbo jumbo. I don't particularly care what kind of wire a cable contains as long as it's high quality, well assembled, and sensibly priced.
I've been wanting to buy a shorter cable for my HD650's from Double Helix Cable for a while, but I've never actually gotten around to it. I don't think the cable will have much, if any, effect on the sound of the headphone, but I just want a 6ft cable as opposed to the 10ft stock cable that's too long for me. Unfortunately, the cable is $200 but that's the cheapest aftermarket cable I've been able to find. That's still more than I'd like to spend on a cable and probably why I've been putting it off for a couple of years.
Fuck it, I'm getting Polk left and rights too. Decent monitors, not the most amazing thing ever, but for my untrained ears who knows my speakers can be better?
So excited.
Skoal Cat on
0
Options
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Thanks Antihippy. I don't think the wire really makes that much, if any, difference being that it's about an inch long. I have another longer LOD that's a combination of silver and copper wires, and I can't hear any difference between the two. I had the silver one made for me by a Head-fi member who had only silver wire on hand at the time, so that's the only reason it's made with silver wire. Some people say that silver wire has a clearer and brighter sound than copper, but I don't personally buy into a lot of the cable mumbo jumbo. I don't particularly care what kind of wire a cable contains as long as it's high quality, well assembled, and sensibly priced.
I've been wanting to buy a shorter cable for my HD650's from Double Helix Cable for a while, but I've never actually gotten around to it. I don't think the cable will have much, if any, effect on the sound of the headphone, but I just want a 6ft cable as opposed to the 10ft stock cable that's too long for me. Unfortunately, the cable is $200 but that's the cheapest aftermarket cable I've been able to find. That's still more than I'd like to spend on a cable and probably why I've been putting it off for a couple of years.
$200 is an outrageous price to bay for 6 ft of wire and a 3.5mm stereo jack plug. Is there an aircraft maintenance business near you? Get some wire from them, source a quality jack plug and make your own, for way less.
We offer free consulting to put together a single cable or package of cables to meet your needs.
Seriously? What the fuck does he claim his cables do? I don't get this. At all.
edit: I read more. I'm flabbergasted and flummoxed. There is no fucking way this is legit.
Skoal Cat on
0
Options
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
Apparently they give you a blowjob whilst you listen to your music or something.
He does offer a very wide range of pretty colours and such...
Donovan Puppyfucker on
0
Options
Gear GirlMore class than a state universityRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
Headphones. Decently portable. I don't know what the term for it is but I ride buses and such so they should keep the sound in. $90-150 USD. Preferably available somewhere easy to buy from like Amazon. Go.
Gear Girl on
0
Options
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Though expect to spend $400 minimum on a decent wire...
I can't want to talk to my audiophile work friend about this load of horse shit
For digital cables, $400 is fucking ridiculous.
For analogue signals, not quite so bad. But it really is an exercise in diminishing returns. That website sells a replacement set of cables for Sennheiser HD800 headphones that cost US$3000...
I can find the phones online for $1400. And yet they want double that for a bit of cable? Why not take the money you would have spent on the headphones and the cable, and buy some $4500 headphones? Or stick with the HD800s, get a regular aftermarket cable if you must, and spend the other $2500 on better audio gear (DAC/amp)?
Regarding Double Helix Cables and expensive cables in general: I don't buy into it. I personally don't see how cables can have that much of an effect on sound. What's more important to me is that I have quality cables that aren't hugely overpriced. I have a couple of nice interconnects and digital cables that were around $30, and I see no reason to spend any more than that (I also bought those years ago before I had heard of Monoprice). That said, also have some really nice HDMI cables I bought from Monoprice for around $7 each that are probably 1/2in in diameter are wrapped in Techflex.
DHC's basic cable starts are $170 which is cheap for a custom headphone cable. Frankly, I don't know how to solder and nor do I feel like learning how to, and buying the parts separately would save me some money but I'm not interested in making my own cable.
If you want to talk about a worse value proposition, LOD for Apple products are even worse. I think I paid between $30 and $40 for each of the two I have (and I don't even use one of them anymore). So it's at least $30 for basically 1-2in of wire, a 3.5mm connector, and 30 pin dock connector.
I expected this was going to happen since cables is such a divisive topic. Either you buy into it or you don't, and neither side is interested in giving in to the other.
Edit: Yeah, the price on the so called high-end digital cables is beyond ridiculous particularly with optical and USB cables.
The Shure SRH840 are on sale for $140 on Amazon. Considering getting those.
I currently have Sennheiser HD428 that I got at a Best Buy for $70. The quality was definitely a step up from my previous headphones, but I don't really "love" them, especially for music. I'm thinking I may need to upgrade to something in a slightly higher bracket.
Yeah, I was mostly curious about the cables because people kept saying to change the HD25's stock steel cables to copper wires saying that it reduces the sibilance, increase the soundstage, etc. etc.
I don't really buy into it personally. Placebo can be a scary thing.
Fuck it, I'm getting Polk left and rights too. Decent monitors, not the most amazing thing ever, but for my untrained ears who knows my speakers can be better?
So excited.
Any links?
Kinda looking for a decent HT setup now too.
Just dunno if 5.1 is worth it over a simple 2.1 setup.
Headphones. Decently portable. I don't know what the term for it is but I ride buses and such so they should keep the sound in. $90-150 USD. Preferably available somewhere easy to buy from like Amazon. Go.
Audio technica ES7
Audio technica M50
If you're a basshead, sony XB700. Though if you can spend a little bit more I'd recommend the Audio technica pro700. I've tried them out and those things really are like subwoofers strapped to your head.
And if you're willing to spend quite a bit more, I can recommend the sennheiser HD251-II. Best I've had so far in isolation and sound.
This is just top of my head though. If you want a more comprehensive guide have a look at this.
Fuck it, I'm getting Polk left and rights too. Decent monitors, not the most amazing thing ever, but for my untrained ears who knows my speakers can be better?
So excited.
Any links?
Kinda looking for a decent HT setup now too.
Just dunno if 5.1 is worth it over a simple 2.1 setup.
Notes from my audiophile friend on purchasing speakers you can't hear in person:
Look for high sensitivity, butyl rubber or fabric accordian surround, large dome tweeters preferably silk. if it uses horns then altec or jbl only. Only buy from companies that only make speakers, not any other random equipment.
As in, most HT setups I've seen have been in 5.1 or 7.1 sets, and I have no idea how to piece them together separately, because the link you gave me show only the separate speakers and such.
Ahh, okay. Its pretty straightforward. You have three major types of speakers for home theater use. Centers, surrounds, and subwoofer. One can't replace the other. Centers need to be centers, etc.
Centers are the most important for TV watching, as most dialogue is center channel. For music listening, most stuff is mixed for stereo using the center and rears but not nearly as much as the front left and rights. For $X I would personally rather have all of it go into a 3.1 rather than parse money out for a 5.1. Anything more than 5.1 is silly unless you have a huge room.
You want opposite speakers to match, so you want your left and rights to be the same so that one isn't throwing off different sound which fucks with your sound field. You want your rears to match too, for a similar reason. Rears should be the cheapest as lets face it, there ain't a lot of shit happening behind you.
edit: I can't decide between the Monitor 30s and the 40s. The only difference is the 40s have two drivers and they cost $30 more. I'm leaning towards the 40s because hey, why not really, but the 30s are smaller and I don't expect to need to fill a large room with sound for pretty much ever. It seems like overkill for my needs, especially coming from shitty Onkyo speakers.
In addition to the speakers, you have to have an A/V receiver. The receiver will have several inputs for speakers (connected using speaker wire). They're labeled for the individual speakers.
Annnnd Skoal Cat gives a much better explanation than I did.
We're rocking a 2.0 (2.1, technically?) right now, and are sorely missing the center. It's better than the television's crap speakers, though. Next step is definitely a center.
Posts
I needed huge. I would have gotten something like the Grado SR 60s but I live in a small condo with another person so having sound contained within the headphones late at night was a must.
The size of the 840s isn't that bad, comparable to other full sized closed ones.
But this is what I had prior to the Shure set.
So it wasn't very hard for me to find them amazing. The Labtec's cost me under $20, I needed something very budget back then.
I KISS YOU!
I know they are probably not THE BEST EVER, but listening to FLAC music never sounded so good
lol sennheiser (though I still love my senn HD25 >_> <_<)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvQ8PzBrHXE
I consider portability for most of my stuff, so the SRH840 lost out for me.
They are great phones for the price though.
Speaking of grados, this will be my next home setup upgrade.
Alessandro MSpro + xonar essence st
So sexy... *drools* Just $1000 more to go!
2 strips of foam are literally what's causing $100 worth of difference. (well, as far as MSRP goes)
This is a decent write up on it.
I KISS YOU!
I haven't gotten around to trying them with my 360 mostly because I've been going back through my music collection trying to find the previously "hidden" mid range stuff in my favorite albums.
I'm having a bit of a problem though in that the sound output is really loud to these things, like, to not blow my ears out I have to turn windows volume down to like 10% or less. I'm running a splitter on the sound output so that I can output to both the headphones and my TV, and because of this I have to crank my amp super high to hear anything. How do you suppose I should fix this? I was thinking of either wiring a variable resistor into a 3.5mm M/F cable to limit sound going to the headphones or installing both audio cards and having music and games sent to one card, TV/movies to the other. . . any suggestions?
My good friend Glenn has just gotten himself a cheap turntable setup. No name turntable, no name stereo amplifier, 2 pairs of no name 2 way speakers. The turntable feeds straight into the cheapo amp, which has exactly two outputs, left and right. They are the spring-loaded wire-clamp type. With two speakers in parallel from each output, he gets surprisingly good midrange and highs, but because they're only smaller-sized speakers (I think the drivers are about 5 inches across), bass is pretty ordinary.
How can I help him setup a subwoofer to fill out the bottom of the frequency spectrum? I figure he'll need a low-pass filter and a powered subwoofer, but where do I even look for an LPF that will work in this situation?
And if you couldn't already tell, his budget isn't going to stretch to anything with Audio Note or Conrad Johnson written on it... He spends all his spare money on records!
http://promotions.newegg.com/neemail/June-0-2011/Star23/index-landing.html?nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL062311&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL062311-_-EMC-062311-Index-_-E0A-_-Receiver
Martin Logan 5.1 set from $1000 down to $330, Polk satellite from $130 down to $40, Poly center from $130 down to $50 (same one I got for even less on sellout.woot a week ago, woot!)
Powered sub - feed the amp into the sub and from there out to the speakers.
I use an Eltax which was pretty cheap and makes a big difference.
Just as a curiosity thing, when you reach around 2:20 onwards of this song, does your brain feel like it's being massaged by the sub-bass?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOT2-OTebx0
Because I was very interested in the AD700s till I heard that they are very bass light.
*played through a 1st gen X-FI xtrememusic, using the 1080p source on youtube.
they are probably the bassiest headphones I've ever owned, but they're also the first high quality headphones I've owned.
edit: one second I'll try the same song against my ety mc5 isolating in-ears. yeah the AD700s are bassier than those too.
edit2: Just tried the AD700s plugged into the headphone jack of my bass amp, they're not that great as monitors.
In my portable setup consisting of Westone 3's being fed by a Headphonia Arrow 12HE v1 amp and a 3G Ipod Touch with a LOD using solid silver core wire the bass is oppressively strong. The Westone 3's have very strong bass and that song is almost painful to listen to. Bass that strong with IEM's is flat out uncomfortable.
A good friend of mine has the AD900's and compared to the HD650's they are bass light. However, they have a very airy and open sound (and much brighter than the HD650's), and with a bit of eq'ing you can bring out a lot of bass from them. I preferred the HD650's for the music I listen to, but that hasn't kept me from wanting a pair of A900's for a little variety.
Also seriously nice equipment Cormac. Though I'm honestly curious if having the LOD being silver actually does much to change the sound.
I've been wanting to buy a shorter cable for my HD650's from Double Helix Cable for a while, but I've never actually gotten around to it. I don't think the cable will have much, if any, effect on the sound of the headphone, but I just want a 6ft cable as opposed to the 10ft stock cable that's too long for me. Unfortunately, the cable is $200 but that's the cheapest aftermarket cable I've been able to find. That's still more than I'd like to spend on a cable and probably why I've been putting it off for a couple of years.
So excited.
$200 is an outrageous price to bay for 6 ft of wire and a 3.5mm stereo jack plug. Is there an aircraft maintenance business near you? Get some wire from them, source a quality jack plug and make your own, for way less.
They sell a 3 foot long USB cable that costs $800...
A fool and his money are easily parted, it would seem.
Double Helix Cables
edit: I read more. I'm flabbergasted and flummoxed. There is no fucking way this is legit.
He does offer a very wide range of pretty colours and such...
For digital cables, $400 is fucking ridiculous.
For analogue signals, not quite so bad. But it really is an exercise in diminishing returns. That website sells a replacement set of cables for Sennheiser HD800 headphones that cost US$3000...
I can find the phones online for $1400. And yet they want double that for a bit of cable? Why not take the money you would have spent on the headphones and the cable, and buy some $4500 headphones? Or stick with the HD800s, get a regular aftermarket cable if you must, and spend the other $2500 on better audio gear (DAC/amp)?
DHC's basic cable starts are $170 which is cheap for a custom headphone cable. Frankly, I don't know how to solder and nor do I feel like learning how to, and buying the parts separately would save me some money but I'm not interested in making my own cable.
If you want to talk about a worse value proposition, LOD for Apple products are even worse. I think I paid between $30 and $40 for each of the two I have (and I don't even use one of them anymore). So it's at least $30 for basically 1-2in of wire, a 3.5mm connector, and 30 pin dock connector.
I expected this was going to happen since cables is such a divisive topic. Either you buy into it or you don't, and neither side is interested in giving in to the other.
Edit: Yeah, the price on the so called high-end digital cables is beyond ridiculous particularly with optical and USB cables.
I currently have Sennheiser HD428 that I got at a Best Buy for $70. The quality was definitely a step up from my previous headphones, but I don't really "love" them, especially for music. I'm thinking I may need to upgrade to something in a slightly higher bracket.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
I don't really buy into it personally. Placebo can be a scary thing.
Any links?
Kinda looking for a decent HT setup now too.
Just dunno if 5.1 is worth it over a simple 2.1 setup.
Audio technica ES7
Audio technica M50
If you're a basshead, sony XB700. Though if you can spend a little bit more I'd recommend the Audio technica pro700. I've tried them out and those things really are like subwoofers strapped to your head.
And if you're willing to spend quite a bit more, I can recommend the sennheiser HD251-II. Best I've had so far in isolation and sound.
This is just top of my head though. If you want a more comprehensive guide have a look at this.
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/433318/shootout-84-portable-headphones-reviewed-fischer-audio-fa-004-koss-ur55-added-06-06
Plus they have a nice little chart.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=polk+monitor+series+ii&x=0&y=0
Notes from my audiophile friend on purchasing speakers you can't hear in person:
How do you set yours up?
For my PC though I'm just going to get Audioengine A5's. Simple and relatively cheap. :P
I am also a total noob at home theater stuff.
Centers are the most important for TV watching, as most dialogue is center channel. For music listening, most stuff is mixed for stereo using the center and rears but not nearly as much as the front left and rights. For $X I would personally rather have all of it go into a 3.1 rather than parse money out for a 5.1. Anything more than 5.1 is silly unless you have a huge room.
You want opposite speakers to match, so you want your left and rights to be the same so that one isn't throwing off different sound which fucks with your sound field. You want your rears to match too, for a similar reason. Rears should be the cheapest as lets face it, there ain't a lot of shit happening behind you.
edit: I can't decide between the Monitor 30s and the 40s. The only difference is the 40s have two drivers and they cost $30 more. I'm leaning towards the 40s because hey, why not really, but the 30s are smaller and I don't expect to need to fill a large room with sound for pretty much ever. It seems like overkill for my needs, especially coming from shitty Onkyo speakers.
Annnnd Skoal Cat gives a much better explanation than I did.
We're rocking a 2.0 (2.1, technically?) right now, and are sorely missing the center. It's better than the television's crap speakers, though. Next step is definitely a center.