Thank you. I know I’ve been a pain in the arse with all of the closed back questions, but I think I’ll be happier with an open back for my office set up (work from home). I think the 800 S will be a nice compliment to the LCD-X’s that I already own. The CTH will be a nice intro into the world of tubes.
Cheers!
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Home office? That’s where I have my old STAX set up. But the usual sound there are two SONOS Play 3’s and a SONOS Sub. I seldom WORK WORK in the home office. Can’t get real work done if there is music. “Background” music is irritating, and anything else interferes with concentrating.
Granted, there used to be exceptions when I was in publishing services, and certain repetitive but detailed tasks could be done to The Orb or Brian Eno. But would you want YOUR financial advisor constructing your portfolio and doing your projections to the Dead Kennedys?
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Yes, I would indeed want my financial planner to fully understand retirement in Cambodia before I move there.
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No worries mate! Glad to help where I can. Open backs are definitely the way to go if you have the option…plus you can be more aware of your surroundings that way. I use closed backs in a open office, outside of that I’m rarely using them. But we all have our preference 
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Fortunately I hold no fiduciary responsibilities but for my family. 
Music helps me focus, and when I have headphones on, my family knows not to disturb me.
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The ZDT Jr is legit. This is my first “real” tube amp, I’ve owned a couple hybrid amps (Vali 2 and Project Sunrise 3), and didn’t find them super impressive. The ZDT Jr is a different story though, I’ve only been using it for a few hours, and I’m loving it already. Just using the stock tubes for now, but I have ordered some others to try. This amp is fairly neutral, but it has a liquid smooth quality to it, it’s hard to describe, but in a way it sounds more natural and effortless than SS amps. I’ve only tried it with my modded HD 650 so far, from what I’ve read it might not be as good with low impedance headphones. I do wish the amp had a bit lower gain, connected to a 2Vrms DAC, I had to listen at well below 9 o’clock on the volume dial.
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It seems like the only thing holding holding the ZDT Jr back from greatness is somewhat loose bass, hoping it will tighten up some with different tubes.
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Ooh, get back with the results, please! I had some Voshkod 6ZH1P-EV tubes I tried from my deprecated Little Dot I+ and wasn’t too impressed and haven’t tried anything else yet.
I just dug out some GE5654Ws to try though.
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So far, I’ve tried Soviet 6Z1P (stock tubes), GE 5654W, and Realistic 6AK5 Gold Pin (according to the seller, these are rebranded Japanese tubes).
It’s early yet, but so far I’m liking the stock tubes best. Not sure what era these are from, but the glass has grooves, and there’s like a star design that says CCCP. They’re probably the most neutral, really lovely mids and highs, but the bass is a little sloppy.
The GE 5654W is not bad, but to my ears they’re slightly dark/dull sounding, the bass is tighter though. They also have a fuller sound than the stock tubes.
Realistic 6AK5 is my least favorite so far. There’s something weird going on with the mids, sounds kind of hollow. Good bass though. I do like them with electronic music.
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Thank ya! I’ve had the same experience with the stock and GE5654W tubes.
I have a pair of Grados with pretty sloppy bass to begin with but they distort in an interesting wideish way with the stock tubes. The GE5654W is much tighter but also more pronounced than my solid state amps.
I’ve been actually OK with them being a bit darker since the headphones I tend to use with tubes are bright so that worked out.
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MASSDROP X NUFORCE MOVE TRUE WIRELESS EARPHONE: FIRST IMPRESSIONS
First Impressions:
- Bigger than I expected – bigger that Galaxy Buds
- Sound is hazy and very poor resolution
- Treble peak is present, not harsh, but its there and messes up tonality
- There is a definite audible drop in the upper mid range causing that hazy fuzzy sound
- Bass amount is perfect for me, but it sounds very lacking in detail, layering and resolution
For $129, the Samsung Galaxy Buds absolutely destroys it so far. I’ll have to post more thoughts later!
PS. They measure almost identically to Campfire Comets.
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Well then…skip! Lol…
Another forum loved this IEM – I unfortunately do not, but I’m just one person.
If you want to borrow them, let me know. The Galaxy Buds are the best for me.
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I picked up the Fostex TR-X00 Ebony wood model the other day on Massdrop. Using a $100 coupon link from Metal571’s youtube and some referral bucks, I was able to get these at a decent price. I had only briefly heard @Neetlet’s Mahogany version prior to this, and thought it was pretty good but this ebony model has really surprised me so far. It’s actually well balanced without being overly bassy nor overly bright. It’s actually a good mix with only slightly recessed mid-range.
This is my HPN measurements of the Ebony on EARS with the gray line being the Focal Elex, which I think sounds fantastic for the price. Looking at the GRAS measurements from Head-Fi, these measurements don’t look that far off:
Each color represents the wood cup type.
These leak a lot, so I wouldn’t call them closed backs, but given my typical headphone listening volume, they still do okay in the office. I actually don’t mind the leakage to allow me to hear other people trying to get my attention.
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The Ebony were my favorite of the TH/TR-X00 line sound-wise. I enjoyed the Purpleheart version I had as well - it was more of a “guilty pleasure”.
Both were better at keeping sound in than out (don’t ask me how that works).
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yes a bit leakage could really help a lot at the office with not beeing directly talked at - I use 2 monitors, high and wide like the chinese wall 
and with the elegia or iems on my head, my coworker does never know if she can talk to me - so in the meantime she calls me every time via the phone
we have rare contact, except for the coffee/tea/cigarette breaks.
at the beginning, when we started working with each other a few months ago she often started asking something and waited and waited … I hate beeing not polite - especialy to women… but love my music
the other (bright) soundsignature looks cool with a bit forward mids(which is my thing) and I would love one of these fancy bio-cellular drivers at any time in the future. If these would be available for auditions here in munich - even ZMF has a distribution in germany…
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Easy. Magick.
Or noise from outside somehow interacts with the cups, baffle etc in such a way as to mechanically transmit sound within the ear chamber, while sound generated by the headphone diaphragm is directed well inwards so it doesn’t spill outside the vents unless playing at really high SPLs.
I dunno, talking out of my bum there.
Haven’t heard either the Mahogany nor the Purpleheart X00s yet, but the Ebony was a great daily-use can for me save for cup reverb (which wasn’t a problem until I got to try some other headphones whose designs didn’t lend themselves to it— psychoacoustics woo!) and a midtreble spike that absolutely sizzled on some tracks, mostly the obscenely sparkly Japanese anime tracks I still listen to, manchild that I am. It’s also a bit shouty, with the middle-mids being a bit hotter than strictly neutral (w-shaped response and all), but that’s less a problem to me than the treble is. Treble spike and slightly too-thin lower-mids aside I actually much prefer them to my HP-3s in terms of overall tonal balance.
Some HEQ compensated squiggles here. I’d say these are still suspect because I definitely hear a spike in the 10-11kHz region. Also have SBAF-compensation (flat horizontal is perceptual neutral) that I’m still working on fine-tuning of both the Klipsch HP-3 vs TH-X00EB. HP-3 is to my ears slightly less hot in treble between 7-9kHz than measured, and the TH-X00EB definitely moreso from 10-11kHz.
I don’t know why that is, I’m wondering whether it has something to do with how some designs might interact more with real and fake pinnae than others. I need to save up for a mic to use in a flat plate coupler, gragh.
Channel imbalance on X00EB is really there btw, wondering if it’s because the pads on these are close to dead. Minor though, no noticeable effect in regular listening and I didn’t hear it until listening to pure tones around 3,000Hz and focusing.
TH-X00 Ebony (HEQ Compensation):
TH-X00 Ebony (SBAF Compensation, pending tweaks):
TH-X00 Ebony [RED] v Klipsch HP-3 [GREEN] (SBAF Comp etc etc):
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Do the SBAF guys hate bass or something? That compensation looks like they really hate subbass.
Hahaha! If anything I think there are many bassheads there (myself included— hi!). I just kept with their compensation 1kHz and below because I largely agree with many of the members there that bass frequency compensation should be kept flat so people can draw their own conclusions about balance etc.
Speaking of the GBuds and Harman target I actually don’t mind a subbass boost a la the TH900, but to call it neutral would be something of a stretch no? I do think HEQ shows things a bit brighter though, so there’s that going for the comp.
Arguments can be made that headphones and IEMs could stand to have more meat down low for a more speaker-like presentation, to make up for the lack of actual “slam” you’d normally get with speakers or live music, but that’s more a matter of personal preference I think.
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HPN target for EARS is pretty neutral imho. it’s more like Tyll’s compensation with flat bass/mids from 20 to 1K. The SBAF plot you have there looks like its rolled off even more than that, maybe DF like bass, or even more so.
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