What headphones come close? (BD-Design)

by MikeH @, Thursday, January 24, 2008, 12:40 (5909 days ago)
edited by unknown, Thursday, January 24, 2008, 12:45

It may sound like a silly question at first. I keep rearranging my room, I keep trying different amplifiers. Nothing stays the same I change so many things I'm not making any progress.

I wish to split my problem in half, then solve the first half with my limited funds to build a good foundation for the second half.
If I have some reasonable headphones I can work on my DAC and preamp to maximise detail and "flavour" (I can't think of a better word). When I'm happy with the front end I can then work on the second half of the system to match.

So what headphones come close to the resolution of your BD horn systems and high end amplifiers and sources? (I think I may be asking you to compare an apple with a peanut)

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What headphones come close?

by Bert @, Thursday, January 24, 2008, 13:32 (5909 days ago) @ MikeH

It may sound like a silly question at first. I keep rearranging my room, I
keep trying different amplifiers. Nothing stays the same I change so many
things I'm not making any progress.

This will never be different as the room and the placement of the system and connected equipment and cable will always have their major influence...

I wish to split my problem in half, then solve the first half with my
limited funds to build a good foundation for the second half.

This will be more like splitting it in 25%, the only thing you can determine with the headphone is how the source is doing. Connecting a headphone or a speaker to an amp will already result in something different as a headphone is easy to "drive" (hardly current, power and feedback).

If I have some reasonable headphones I can work on my DAC and preamp to
maximise detail and "flavour" (I can't think of a better word). When I'm
happy with the front end I can then work on the second half of the system
to match.

Get a ESL headphone or one with a ribbon (Alexander from RAAL has one made using his own ribbons and that sounded real nice!). It does not represent the reality when using speakers though...much more power is needed and problems to be solved to get that working the same (if possible).

So what headphones come close to the resolution of your BD horn systems
and high end amplifiers and sources? (I think I may be asking you to
compare an apple with a peanut).

Basically any high quality and neutral sounding headphone can be used to check the source and even the amps to a certain point but do not expect to get the same with speakers placed in a room, that is a completely different world...

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

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What headphones come close?

by MikeH @, Thursday, January 24, 2008, 22:33 (5908 days ago) @ Bert
edited by unknown, Thursday, January 24, 2008, 22:39

Basically any high quality and neutral sounding headphone can be used to
check the source and even the amps to a certain point but do not expect to
get the same with speakers placed in a room, that is a completely different
world...

Bert

Thanks Bert,
I do understand that it is not only audio components. Every single thing between the disc and your ear matters, along with everything nearby that can influence such as curtains, rugs, power supply etc. All of that is too much for me to handle and keep track of when I have no faith in my source, amplification, speakers, room placement or anything else.
I appreciate your patience with beginners such as myself.

Some RAAL ribbon headphones... I like that idea, the ribbons can be used properly afterward. I will investigate.

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What headphones come close?

by PeterSt. ⌂ @, Netherlands, Friday, January 25, 2008, 10:53 (5908 days ago) @ MikeH

Hi Mike, 2c here :

Although Bert perfectly informed you about it being rather "worthless" to judge a system as a whole by headphones, I think it may need some emhpasization in some areas;

Thinking of the influence of the room, you need to focus on what this actually does. And, this is not about the room influencing the sound, but merely that the room lets you judge the merits of the system. I hope I can make it clear by this :

One of the very first (and very) noticeable phenomena, is the standing waves in the room. Mind you, we usually accept this as "caused by the room" and nothing further to do about it but treat the room", but this is most certainly not true. Not since I defined that. :fishy:
It as been proven many times by now, that if one perceives the room as doing bad things, this is in 100% of cases caused by the source, the amps, the speakers.

Our project "in search for the best amp" has proven that the bad amp expresses standing waves, and if you take this as a measuring device, you're done with the judgement of the amp in seconds. I'm not making up anything here.
The standing waves are most common to us in the lower frequencies, but with some experience they audibly destroy the high frequencies just the same. The sound gets harsher, less refined and more that takes us away from realistic natural playback.

The point is, nothing of this emerges from headphones. There's just no opportunity to create the standing waves (maybe in the highest frequencies ?).

It may sound like voodoo, but it is not;
When a system (no matter what part does it) does something wrong ("wrong" remains undefined here), the waves supposed to be tight and defined by themselves become "wobbly". Imagine a tight thin line of 1 mm becoming a weak wobbly line of 5 cm. The effect ? 50 times more chance of that wave meeting another, mixing up with it because of that.
There's no scientific proof of this (say, because I'm not a scientist), but I'm sure it is allowed to imagine the things as how I just presented it.

Now try to use this as a tool;
Your first problem will be that you don't have the reference. So you must work relative. Now take a first "device" of which I can guarantee it does not contribute to the standing waves. This would be XXHighEnd, and it allows it without much mangling to the PC, although it needs Vista to do the things right. I can't tell whether you already use GC (sorry), but if not, there is no need to buy it in order to get you going with this.
Best would be if you do not use GC yet, so you can start to hear the first difference in the direction I mean. If you don't hear a difference, try to feel the difference. Put your hand on a table, and try to sense the vibes in there (the good thing) compared with that they're not there (the bed thing -> the individual waves are too messy to have the proper energy to move the surface of the table).

Assuming you get the hunch by this means, you can proceed with the other parts in the chain. You know the goal : not *any* disturbance of lower frequency waves no matter the SPL, and not any disturbance for harshness or the idea to better put the volume down.

As long as you are not experimenting with class-D amps, I'll kind of promise that each of your amps can sound much better than you knew. Similarly I can promise that the wobbly lows of a tube amp are not so wobbly at all. BUT :
Your greatest care must be in the area of anything that is related to impedance mismatches, and even the slightest earthing problems (this latter is opposite of what you think, it seems :blush:). Also, rather start switching per-amps than main amps. They influence more.

For the speakers ? whatever it is you use, you will now their nature. That nature won't change, or not much at least. Try to put in your mind that speakers don't sound harsh. You only can make them sound hars by means of the other stuff (I'm not talking $100 speakers here of course).


I'd like to rephrase the implied "rather worthless" of using headphones into "completely worthless". For your purpose it is.

Hope this helps you Mike,
Peter

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None come close.

by MikeH @, Friday, January 25, 2008, 11:54 (5908 days ago) @ PeterSt.

I havent tried GChighend yet. I think I should if it works with my DAC (only 96kHz/24bit). I'll be running windows XP or Mac-os on my music PC, (I'm about to buy a new one)

I'll have to read your advice a few times more and think about it, I'm not understanding something in it and I'm not sure which part. Perhaps the controlled angle of output from a horn is part of the reduced room problems. I'm probably missing the point completely.

At this stage I'm looking at revealing detail and those quiet little background noises and ambience in the recordings that only become apparent with good equipment. If the source doesn't reproduce the detail the later stages can never get it back. I'm only trying to judge the source by the headphones. The impact in the first milliseconds of a drum beat caNot be reproduced by any headphones.
Trying to judge a whole system by headphones is like judging the handling of a Ferrari without releasing the handbrake and putting it in gear. It makes nice noises but you won't know how it FEELS.

I have a couple of tripath based D amps I am experimenting with at the moment. I don't have quite enough gain from my source to drive these so I'm looking at pre-amps along the lines of an Aikido (either high voltage MOSFET or tubes) with 6-8dB of gain and stepped ladder attenuators. I believe increasing the gain of the T-amps too much can increase the noise. I have been paying attention to impedance matching at every stage, as an RF technician I do it by habit, your confirming that makes me feel I am on the right path. I'm not sure if you are implying D amps are a good thing or a bad thing. I've been trying to spot what chip is used in the Crazy amp but it's been rather well concealed in the pictures which is entirely understandable, I have no idea if it's digital or not.

My speakers will be replaced, I know them reasonably well now and I am far from satisfied with them. the cabinets are wrong for the possible placements in my listening room, the drivers are (relatively) cheap and lack high frequency finesse. I will continue to experiment on them and learn until I know what I want. Great speakers and amplifiers will not be able to reach their potential without a worthy source.

You have helped me a great deal Peter, thankyou.

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None come close.

by PeterSt. ⌂ @, Netherlands, Friday, January 25, 2008, 15:38 (5907 days ago) @ MikeH

Mike,

Not that this is about GC, but indeed it doesn't work with 96/24, if that is what you said. I'm currently working on that though.

Back to your (difficult) subject, what I actually want to make clear, is that all comes down to rather stupid 1:1 representation of matters. Might it be the source, the DAC, the amp, the preamp, the speakers, as long as things are represented 1:1 you'll be fine.

Well, how stupid is that remark, thinking of how obvious it is.

It may not be all that stupid, when you know that this 1:1 can be achieved in the individual elements. Easy example : grab a scope, put a sine wave in the player, measure at the output of the main amp, and measure at that same cable at the other end of it (speaker input). You can bet that when the wave shown is the cleanest (at e.g. comparing speaker cables) that this is the cable to stay.

And so easy it is.
Thus, all becomes stupid theory, and listening is only needed to confirm applied "tweaks", which has become a wrong word now. :yes: One very important thing : you must allow yourself to reach the end by means of this principle. Example again : at applying the most clean speaker cable, it is certainly not said that you have the best sound. Why ? because that cleanest cable will be filtering the least, so e.g. harsh sound now comes out unfiltered. Oops. You did one thing though : enable the audability of the harsh sound which obviously comes from somewhere.

Sidenote : it is very important to just plain KNOW that today's sound reproduction can be so real live, that anything else should dissatisfy you. Or better : go and look for where the problem is, until death is near.:cool:
This too has become stupid theory, and handy to know. It just exists. Nothing to show off if you have it (just enjoy !!), but something to explicitly hunt for when you don't. Anyway, this is your virtual reference, early 2008.

The Class-D I meant "badly". Now try to believe in this too, coming down to what Bert said earlier : any good performing system shows everything and every little change. But here's a chicken-egg one too : first you must have that good performing system, in order to have it as a reference to compare with. But now a couple of things come together :

If you examine the principe of operation of the D-amp, you know that at least there is some very high frequency going around in there (the triangle or sawtooth carrier wave) with which all D manufacturers have problems to get rid of. Also, 80% of them have switching PSU's.
Both are audible. But, in order to hear it, you should not emphasize on the good things (like often the low frequencies), but on the bad. Do NOT think "all is a compromise", but think about disturbances, like a high frequency flair being the very first. I think Bert pretty well described it at his CrazyA description, which you might read as a commercial, but of which I can tell you it really is not. I was there, and I don't have shares in Bert's company.

Above is one thing, and a next is the crazy influence such an amp can have on the loudspeaker. Maybe you recall the tweak Bert came up with, in order to let the D (I think it was about a Tripath mainly) not rise the high frequencies sky high. This is the opposite of 1:1 representation, and it is just measureable.

Have you heard a couple of D's, then you are lost in the speed they show. Oh yes. So again you tend to look at it as all compromises, but you better search further. Because really *all* D's we listened to add a similar sound/flair to the sound, by now I caNot imagine that D's exist that don't do this. It's just a path to give up upon.

From the sheer enjoyment of speed as an in fact dumn phenomenon (but it's so much audible which you probably know) "we" searched further in complete other directions, and from a by me well respected audio equipment suplier we came to the idea of what Bert explains in his commercial, although by heart I don't think Bert emphasizes on the speed dumn phenomenon : the thing which was right under our nose. Btw, Bert will tell what drives his amps if he likes to, and if not you can find it in this forum somewhere. I know it's there anyway.

Now, how dumn is "speed" for a requirement ?
This, in the end, is simple too : 1:1 representation of sound waves.
You may find amp producers cick on their reproduction of square waves. "This says nothing !" many say. I say it does, and it is just a prerequisite to reproduce sound lively.
This time you feed your system with high frequency square waves. Any amp not fast enough, can't follow. Ok, but what about the 1:1 representation then ? well, not much.

From one comes the other, and that is the importance of the square wave reaching your ears. You probably know about my ideas about this (and that in fact ALL is built around this), and this starts with the non oversampling DAC. I won't tell this story once again, but start off with the wrong DAC (being an oversampling one), and the speed of the amp does nothing.

I think you get it by now;
All parts of the chain muct be able to represent 1:1. The more do, the better the sound will be. The most stupid obvious theory, but now with controllable / measureable phenomena to deal with.

All ends with fast speakers (drivers). There too counts the same. You could say, the slower the driver is, the more distortion you'll have. Here too underlaying theories can help you, like the knowledge of a high sensitive driver will be more speedy. Or indirectly : that a front loaded horn speaker incurs for better sensitivity.
That a horn goes along with more directional sound, hence less prone to standing waves and room modes (all incurred by reflections), is another thing that coincidentally helps. Note though that with a normal speaker my expressions about the standing waves count just the same, and you can get rid of them with normal speakers too (and in fact easy; there appears to be a great deal of headroom, when it comes down to how thick my before mentioned line (wave) is allowed to be before things start to go wrong -> ... which only tells how many things *are* wrong when those waves bother you).

1:1 Peter :cool:

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None come close.

by MikeH @, Monday, January 28, 2008, 11:28 (5905 days ago) @ PeterSt.

I think I need to do less half-steps with equipment. I need to do lots of research to figure out what I want, then wait and get something that will last me a long time.
One good amplifier will be cheaper than three steps of cheap amplifiers.
With the US dollar so weak the Transcendent 16 kit looks good, but it might be yet another half-step. A few Oris owners use it so it's probably a good thing.

Oh well, time to put an end to this thread, It's 90% about other people's products so it's not fair if I continue to chatter in the BD-Design section.
Thanks for the advice Bert and Peter.

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