I wear glasses, and also listen to my headphones for usually AT LEAST 12 hours but usually closer to 16 hours a day, listening to music (actually a small part of the overall listening time strangely enough), while trading, market research, webinars, youtube, basically everything online, so probably best to order with the wider headband? A little less clamping force should be more comfortable thinking logically, since I spend ridiculous hours with my headphones on. Head size I don’t think is a lot more than normal far as I can tell, but reduced clamp does sound more favorable. Wearing glasses while listening I think is a big deal with clamp force.
I also wear glasses, and it was a real problem when I had Abyss Dianas; I used to have to remove my glasses for them to sit comfortably. I no longer have them, though. My Utopias and Susvaras fit fine over my glasses, and so far the LCD-5 is giving me no problems - I do not have a wide head so it’s a snug fit without it being uncomfortable.
Through the distributor I bought the headphone from.
Audeze is sending me extended rods too.
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Audeze have also said the leather free pads are in the pipeline, though maybe be a while. For those who prefer the fake suede thing they used to do
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I think you may be stressing the mz3 with any of the 3 tbh. Short of sus/he-6/k1000 those are the hardest HPs to drive currently and the mz3 doesn’t tend to handle such loads super well
Really, even the LCD-5? Have you tried it?
Maybe I will be able to put up with it until my Stellaris arrives.
I hate to break it to you, and I haven’t tried it explicitly with the Stellaris, but the 1266 is not a great match with the Stratus. Doesn’t sound terrible or anything, but it’s certainly not ideal.
The reason I never moved up to the Stellaris (at one point I seriously considered it) had everything to do with moving to hard to drive planar’s as my primary headphones.
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I’ll see what it’s like and decide if I need to complement the Stellaris with a solid state amp. Most of my headphones are dynamic so I think I’ll be good with the Stellaris.
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LCD-5 are pretty current hungry. Here is a comparo done by @Currawong on the voltage and current requirements for different headphones. Look at the current wanted by the 5s vs susvara. While absalutely easier to drive than susvara (because you dont have the doubly whammy of crazy current and voltage) its no slouch. As power supplies start to reach their current potential all sorts of nasty things can happen (massive reduction in slew, more distortion, etc). The MZ3 is seemingly designed more for dynamic cans with less of a current draw than it is LCD-5. I have no doubt it will run LCD-5 but I dont think it will be ideal given it doesnt like 1266 which has even lesser current requirements (and dont need much more voltage tbh)
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That is fascinating! Do you have a link for where you got those graphs? I’d like to read more.
Thanks!
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Its from the @Currawong review video. Here is the time stamp. Its a good video over all if you want to watch the whole thing though.
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Since I made this, I figured I’d post it here. For anyone looking for Roon values for the EQ that worked for the unit I evaluated… here it is:
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You can also try the speaker outs of the MZ3 driving harder to drive headphones.
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If you have the impedance and sensitivity numbers for any headphone, this page will calculate the values for you (though not pretty graphs)
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Right, that’s a good idea. I suppose I need an RCA → 6.3mm jack adapter for that. Any recommendations? Something like this or this.
Edit: I wrote “LTA amps usually put out more power on the speaker outs than on the headphone out.” I thought I remembered that from an LTA interview. Turns out I was wrong, according to LTA. It’s the same circuit either way.
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Given the specs
it seems the 0.5 W (into 14 Ohm) on the MZ3 should be enough (according to the Digizoid calculator)
I don’t think I would listen at ‘very loud’ levels for more than a few seconds at a time.
So now the question… Are these numbers all there is to it, or do other factors come into play? Maybe something like the ability to deliver high peak current?
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That’s absolutely right about delivering high peak current on demand… There’s also the output impedance of the amp. To me, it’s all voodoo black magic from here, especially because amp manufacturers don’t all publish the same specs, and you can’t just convert say the output voltage of one amp at 16 Ohms vs another’s amps output at 200 Ohms.
I hope someone more knowledgeable can comment further.
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For testing stuff like this I personally just buy el-cheapo amazon stuff. Once I find out if I like it or not I’ll get the nice stuff (usualy needs to be custom made tbh)
ok, so a few things to consider here.
- These specs are almost always at 1kHz. As you change frequency the power requirements will change and can end up being quite a bit for lower bass frequencies (luckily the impedence of a planar is flat so its just a sensitivity curve). This part ultimately isnt all that important to overall outcome of a can/amp pairing IMO (I have some pairing I love that are theoretically vastly underpowered), but it is something to keep in mind.
- Power of an amp, generally speaking, is peak power @ a certain distortion level and not a continuous draw. To build on this, as a power supply starts reaching towards its maximum current output (current supply of an amp is largely determined by power supply) all sorts of weird things can happen. You can get very quickly rising distortion, molasses slow slew rates, bad over shoot, and really just run into a huge number of issues.
- Some amps just really don’t like lower impedance cans for one reason or another (and I’m not just talking OTLs here). LTA make good products so you shouldn’t run into any stability issues in this specific circumstance but it can happen depending on topology. More importantly though, its not too uncommon for amps to be unoptimized at impendences this low and just have some measurably wonky performance due to a number of reasons (bad damping factor and unexpectedly low gain are two big ones).
- Honestly, while going “I need to meet the specs at 120dB for proper over head” isnt a bad rule of thumb, it just doesn’t always apply. A great example of this is “tube power” where speaker guys will often claim that tubes have a higher “equivalent power” to solid state. While I sometimes feel that even the 13R doesnt give me satisfying kick on susvara, the HPA-01M (at 350mW @ 30 ohm) absolutely never leaves me feeling that way. You also run into cases where the step between amplifiers is so large that the “under powered” one ends up subjectively a better experience (BX2+ vs Mass kobo 428 on diana V2).
Over all, I think eyeballing power is fine and useful but its not the whole story. Amps can be a bad pairing for a number of reasons even if we ignore presentation synergy issues, and these issues tend to be exacerbated as you go lower and lower in impedance. By all means give LCD-5 a shot on the MZ3. We wont know for certain if it works well or not until a few people do. Its just that if you asked me to make a bet on if it would work or not, I would put my money on ‘no’ due to the mz3 not doing great with other more demanding planars
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I opted for speaker outs to XLR, with an extension for flexibility, from Blue Jeans Cable. I emailed them regarding this custom order:
PM me if you’re interested in trying the cable and paying for shipping and I can send it to you. I established that the RAD-0 doesn’t sound better with my speaker amp (mainly due to a higher noise floor), although it doesn’t sound bad. The RAD-0 has higher sensitivity so doesn’t benefit greatly from a speaker amp. That said, it sounded glorious off of a 9 watt Cavalli Liquid Gold solid state headphone amp.
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