If you dont like bright and treble boths you then the THX line of amps isn’t correct. Swap the SP200 for something Class A like. Jotunheim or Asgard maybe.
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Yea i will look into that. I just got the amp for less then $150. and I heard dacs can help with that
I don’t own any of those DACs, nor have I heard them. However, they all seem to use ESS chipsets and therefore may all sound brightish and about the same. In my experience the iFi DACs (e.g., ZenDAC) with Burr-Brown chipsets are the least bright and least harsh in this price bracket.
You might also use an equalizer (EQ) to cut the treble and boost the bass.
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Loving the sound of the Focal Clear MG, but I need more sound stage. Recommendations for something with similar or better sound, comfort, and build quality? I think I have been landing on ZMF. Missing any?
I’m a big fan of my Atticus from ZMF. Had the Celestee and Elegia, but common concern about the build quality of the headband always dissuaded me from keeping them. The weight from ZMF could be a noticeable difference.
Tube amps often increase perceived sound stage and sense of immersion. However, many of them do best with 300 ohm or 600 ohm headphones (not Focal).
I put the Sennheiser HD 800 S above the Clear OG on sound quality, details, and comfort. It certainly has a much wider sound stage and comes alive on a tube amp. It doesn’t have a lot of bass without EQ/tubes, nor does it have Focal’s punch.
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The ZMF Auteur is what I’d check out.
This is VERY general and only for comparison purposes, but here’s the sonic signature in my experience of using all three major DAC chips with a variety of headphones:
ESS/Sabre: Bright
AKM: Neutral
Burr-Brown: Warm
Again, just a very general analysis. But it’s held up as truth with a handful of different DACs and cans.
I think it’s been mentioned before that it also depends on who the “cook” is that put the ess/sabre dac together. I’ve listened to Matrix and Wyred 4 sound, I wouldn’t call them bright. I’ve listened to the Holo May and then to the Wyred 4 sound 2v2se anniversary with the ESS Sabre 9038PRO DAC chip. The only way I could say the Wyred was a little bright would be that I listened to the May with an Aeolus and the Wyred with an Auteur. So, not a true, fair comparison (and I’m talking about more of a comparison of the headphones than the dac’s as I consider the sound of the May and the Wyred really close to each other) but I still do not consider the Wyred as bright. But I find it hard to compare an SMSL dac to a Wyred or Matrix dac. I listened to an SMSL quite a while back, had issues with usb and sent it back. So, I can’t comment on how bright they are compared to anything I’ve listened to over the last year.
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My experience with most low-end Delta Sigma DACs (including ESS, AKM, Cirrus, etc.) is that they convert air and atmosphere that should sound like innocuous “wisps” into piercing high frequency notes. This may follow from poor noise filtering, dated hardware, processing artifacts that exaggerate specific frequencies, etc.
All DACs are getting better with time and ESS products aren’t nearly as a bright/whiny as they used to be. In this price bracket I’d still go with Burr-Brown, and still cringe every time someone mentions ESS. Bad memories.
My point was just not to label all ESS/Sabre chips as bright. And at the lower/entry price point the consensus seems true that lower price point ESS/Sabre chips are bright.
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You and @generic are both right, and it’s very important to consider other aspects of the implementation aside from the chip. I might point to the Dragonfly Cobalt as a relatively cheap ESS DAC that is not overly bright. You’ll note that @Torq wrote quite a bit about all Dragonflies (Dragonflys) and I don’t recall him criticizing any of them as bright. I have the Cobalt and Black, and think the Cobalt is slightly warmer.
And yes, I generally prefer the BurrBrown signature, when comparing the two.
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Yep. To be fair, all of my experience with these various chips has been with entry-level and low mid-fi products. Nothing even close to TOTL.
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Hello everyone!
I have a pair of Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro (250Ohm) and in search of a good Dac/amp or a Dac + Amp Combo with a maximum budget of around 200€.
From what I found the Topping DX3 Pro + and Ifi Zen Dac V2 are the best choices, but now which one should i choose, and why?
If you have other advices, feel free to tell, since I’m new to the HiFi World.
I would buy from amazon.it
Thanks in advance!
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Well I don’t have either, but I do have a Topping and a bunch of other iFi models. If you want to kick back and enjoy the music, then a warmer sounding source like the iFi would be best. If you enjoy analyzing the music, then the Topping might better. Of course, there is middle ground, and both should be fun and capable.
Would the SMSL SP200 work or would the SINGXER SA-1 amp to match the D1SE.
I’ve been wanting to upgrade my Vali2 for a bit now. It’s probably the weakest link in my system and I want something more tube flavoured. The problem is that I can’t seem to stop buying planar headphones - not to mention all my other heaphones are in the lo-z category.
Anyhow, from what I’ve gathered this rules out anything OTL. OTC can be iffy - I emailed Hagerman about their Tuba and planars and was told even though his Sundara sounds “sweet” there isn’t enough volume to drive 'em to their best. I think the only review I’ve read of a tube amp that doesn’t struggle with planars is the Cayin HA-1A - but they dropped the option to switch between triode and ultralinear with the mk.2.
So I guess that leaves hybrids. Except I haven’t heard mention of a hybrid that actually sounds more tube than solid state.
So what are the options for us planar guys? We need to know…
What’s your budget?
As you note, most tube hybrids don’t necessarily have the warmth or bloom associated with some tube amps (not all tube amps, of course, have those sound qualities).
The tube amps that are said to drive planars well tend to be pricier ones ($1K and up, although I could easily be forgetting cheaper options). Apart from the Quicksilver amps and perhaps the Feliks ones, there has been a bit of a gap in the market between good, affordable tube amps (and hybrids) up to say $500 and significantly better ones, from ca. $2K. The in-between price range has been notorious for being a no-man’s land.
Another option might be to add a tube pre-amp before your amp, something like a Schiit Saga +. I’d been considering investing in a high-end ss amp that could drive all of my headphones, dynamic and planar alike, together with a Schiit pre-amp to provide a different flavor, as desire. I ended up going in a different direction, though, so this isn’t advice I’m giving from personal experience.
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Budget would definitely be under $1k - none of my cans are worth more than that, and IMO it’s silly to spend more on an amp than the phones.
The biggest issue with Schiit products are that they use negative feedback, which does kinda cancel out the tube.
I also have a Little Bear P1 - which does sound pretty decent considering it’s a cheap chifi offering. It suffers from cheap parts (I’ve modded the caps and mosfets already) and questionable circuit design, though.
If it wasn’t for the planars, I would’ve bought a Tuba already - I still might. If I do purchase one than I’d considering getting a Project Polaris too since was deliberately design to sound “tubey”. But honestly, I’d rather have a one amp solution.
Everyone sets their own budget but that logic doesn’t seem to be productive.
If your goal is a tube amp for planars you unfortunately have to hit the higher price levels. The price of the headphone seems unrelated to me. It’s not as if there’s a rule that half of a $2k amp will be thrown away because you’re listening to a $1k headphone.
The classic example for this is the HD-600 where people use $2k amps with a $300 headphone - because that’s what gives them the results they want.
If $1k is a budget limit then it’s the limit. If you want tubes with planars then it takes whatever it takes.
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