I think you’re fine with the SE cables you have, unless you want to experiment. The L50 is actually SE internally, so you shouldn’t see any benefits from using balanced cables, either between the DAC and amp or out into your headphones.
4 Likes
Hello everyone, I hope you’re doing great.
Me and my family went to my grandmother house to do some cleaning, and in one of the rooms we found this.
Not so sure how it works or if it still work, don’t know how to set it to play music or something since it have just one cable and I didn’t recognize the output.
I did watch some videos but haven’t find any valuable info on it, I also don´t know too much about it, specially how old it is and things like that, but it don’t look like it’s harm or broke in any way
I believe it even have the “stylus” (don’t really know how it’s call) or the tip of the arm that go over the disc
this is in the back of the product itself
Hope someone can help me with something, don’t feel like just throwing it to the trash just like that, I’m hopping to find a way to make it work and use it to star using some vinyl to listen music.
3 Likes
LCD-X (2021) , Utopia (2019) or Verite Open ?
Assuming you mean for your next purchase? You already have the LCD-5 if I recall, right?
Sold it. SQ was tops and the weight was good. The smaller cups and the angled pads didn’t gel with glasses, the arms clash with the pad on the back quite a lot and squeek squeek squeek. Sold and used some $$ to upgrade my speakers to some Harbeth P3ESR!
Annnnyway. Have a VO currently. Plenty Utopia’s around for under 3000 AUD. And LCD-X is only 1700 AUD or something.
1 Like
I have a pair Phillips headphones that just got broken.
The headphone/earpiece seems to have been somehow popped out of its socket.
It all looks intact but I can’t figure out how to get it to pop back in.
It looks like there’s a retaining pin within the socket that’s supposed to hold the ball-joint type fixing in place, if I could somehow get that out and then replace it that would make it easy but I’m not sure I can do that either.
Perhaps some photos will help:
Thanks in advanced for any suggestions.
Hello, I am thinking of getting a pair of Audeze LCD-5 but wanted to know if my Cranesong Solaris DAC (http://www.cranesong.com/solaris_manual_version_1.pdf) will be enough power to adequately power the 5’s from its’ headphone amp? I currently have HD600s and am powering it from the DAC HP amp…it seems to be well powered but I want to ensure if I get the LCD-5 that I get the maximum potential out of it.
I am just getting into researching a more detailed higher-end headphoned for my mastering work and would appreciate any assistance.
Thank you for your help.
Hard to say for sure, as you need more information than the manual (or their site) provides in order to be able to figure it out.
They claim +24 dBU, which should be about 12.24 vrms. But they don’t provide the output impedance nor how much current (or overall power) the unit can deliver (or sustain). And they don’t say into how low a load the output is stable.
1 Like
Thank you as that it was I was thinking too. I could find any real details of the HP amp in the Solaris. I am going to email the developer of the DAC to see if I can get more detailed specs.
Wondering if I even need to consider a seperate dac .Both my amps (Darkvoice , & SMSL SP200) are linked to my pc’s sound card (Asus Xonar D2X - Burr-Brown pcm 1796 dac) via a Y adapter . I also have my Soundblaster AE-5 .
Depends what your goal is, your budget, and synergy. But if you’re happy with what you got, then 
Depends if you’re having issues or not. Do you hear any added noise from the PC when using your headphones?
1 Like
Don’t hear any added noise , Nuance . Just music when I have it playing . I did hear buzzing on my Darkvoice , but that was with an NOS Russian tube .Switched to a NOS Sylvania 6sn7 with a coin base , no more noise . Same goes with an RCA tube of the same type . hifiDJ , I’ve been eyeballing the SMSL SU-6 , & a Topping E30 & E50 . That would be about as far as I can stretch my wallet . If I thought I could hear a difference over the dac in my pc sound card ,I’d be happy to invest in an external dac , & allow my Xonar D2X (sound card) to gracefully retire .
General Question: For high impedance headphones with the Soloist 3xp, what do you think delivers the best sound quality–medium gain or high gain?
Specific Question: For high impedance headphones on the Soloist 3xp–AND when using an RME ADI 2 DAC–what settings do you think have the best sound quality…lower Ref. Levels on the RME (say -5 and 1), or higher Ref Levels (such as 7 or 13)?
Overall for the Soloist and RME combination with high impedance hp’s, what do you think is the best mix of Ref. Level and Gain…for example, low Ref Level on the RME and high Gain on the Soloist, or high Ref. Level with medium Gain?
BTW, the hp’s I’ll mostly be using are ZMF Aeolus and Auteur, and Senn. HD650 and HD6xx.
Thanks in advance for you thoughts.
I would say compare for yourself and let your ears decide.
Regarding gain, use as much as you require (start with low and go from there). If the headphone requires more to get to your desired listening level or it sounds “off,” increase it and test again until the desired performance is achieved.
2 Likes
The headphone impedance doesn’t factor into this. The outputput impedance of the amp is so low (desirable) that there is no implication for sound qualtity based on headphone impedance.
The first thing is that you want the volume level going into the dac at maximum. This means if you are streaming you want all the streaming and computer volume controls at maximum. Preferably you want “bit perfect” settings so that the compuer does no processing and sends unmodified data to the dac. The exact way to accomplish this depends on your streaming software and operating system.
The RME has a bunch of settings and I’m not an expert on them. I found this thread where you can use “Case 1 - analog volume control”.
The idea is to let the RME run at full output and then use the volume control on the Burson to adjust the listening volume.
Generally the advice is to use whatever gain on the amp lets you listen at normal volume with the volume control betwen 25% and 50%.
All of this is kind of splitting hairs though since both units are very good and will sound great at a variety of settings.
2 Likes
I have a question regarding conversion and whether or not I would see any real world benefits in my situation…
I have read plenty on sample rates, scaling etc. etc. but I still don’t pretend to think I know enough about it, so I thought I would ask the resident experts on the subject.
My main speaker system is fed from a BSS Blu160 DSP. I had been feeding analog into it but in order to reduce the amount of conversions (D to A, then A to D inside the DSP, then D to A again on the output), I have swapped two of the IO cards for a digital ( giving me 2x AES or 2x SPDIF inputs and 2x AES or 2x SPDIF outputs).
This allows me to do EQ, crossover etc. without leaving the digital domain. I can then feed the digital outputs into DACs of my choice before going to the speakers.
I can also use this as a powerful PEQ for headphone set ups when I want to.
The issue is, which leads me to my question, the sample rates supported by the DSP. The BSS spec is:
Inputs
Sample Rates: 48kHz or 96kHz
Sample rate conversion: 8kHz to 96kHz
Outputs
Sample Rates: 48kHz or 96kHz
Sample rate conversion: 8kHz to 96kHz
First off, I don’t understand the sample rate conversion on the outputs. As far as I am aware, I can only output 48 or 96. My understanding is that it would do the sample conversion on the input and then just output 48 or 96 depending on what I select.
The second question is actually feeding it with 44.1kHz. For my video content, this is almost all at 48kHz but my music is almost all (90%) at 44.1kHz.
Do you think there would be any real world benefits to doing the sample conversion before feeding it into the BSS rather than letting the BSS do the conversion?
If so, my guess is that everything is converted to 96 inside the BSS for processing, so what would be the best solution to convert to 96 before feeding into the BSS?
1 Like
It’s hard to say for sure, but units of this nature are rarely using anything but the ASRC and filters built-into whatever ICs they’re built around. Those tend to leave a bit to be desired in general, and particularly so for non-integer upsampling (e.g. 44.1 to 48 kHz).
HQPlayer would be my first choice, followed by SoX and then r8brain.
The ability to use, and how exactly you would employ, any of those is dependent on how you get your music to the device.
2 Likes
Music to the BSS is usually from PC via a Topping D10S and then Coax SPDIF. I do have a a Chromecast that I extract SPDIF from the HDMI also but this is only used for multimedia and Spotify so not important.
Also, I should probably point out that I don’t have a specific listening position, the speakers are set up to fill the room more than focus on a position. I am not against upgrading or adding to the chain but it is not for critical listening.
1 Like