Time to go Planar!

[ljones67]

Thanks, I saw that, but unfortunately £100 more. Maybe Monoprice will eventually get some more stock and at that lower price. Just have to keep checking now and then.

[Fretless]

The Monoprice M1060C and M565C planar cans appear to still be available for under £250.

I can highly recommend the 1060C, which can be modded onto a high-performance open-back headphone.

[Vinyl-ant]

Ive been enjoying this thread as its given me an avenue to go down that i wasnt 'unaware' of, but hadnt particularly considered. Circumstances are such that i dont really get to listen to my main system a whole lot due to the family.
My daughter mithering for paid spotify started it off, which i put on my phone, a tablet and her phone. Tried Tidal which was better sound quality so i got that instead
Plan was to set up my AT electrets with the a20. In the interim i bought some b&w p5s to use with the phone which meant i could listen to tidal in peace while the familiy were doing their whatevers.

Tidal and the cans and the fact that i can now listen to millions of tracks in decent quality whenever i like is something of a revalation for me.

Next was to get the astell and kern bluetooth dac as i was finding the phone headphone output on the phone (Samsung galaxy note 9) was seemingly a little strained by the p5s, it is not with the little dac head amp. Betterer.

Then onto the planar AT cans and the a20. They are abit disappointing, they sound abit tired for want of a better word. They may get better with some more use, as they are mid 70s, so almost 50 years old now.

I was interested in the next ones up in the b&w wired range, the p7. Over ear rather than on ear.

In a fit of generosity, mr fretless sent me some from his extensive can collection.
These are very nice indeed. They have similar characteristics to the p5s but are much more open sounding and more linear in their response as opposed to the p5s which focus a little too much for my liking on the bass end. I suppose they have been voiced that way.

Interestingly the p7s seem easier to drive than the p5s.

I have spent the last 2 days with the p7s on my head practically constantly, my ebay watchlist has been stuffed with headphone amps and hifiman planar headphones and all sorts of other bits and pieces.

So fretless has sent me in a direction i wasnt considering. And im quite excited

Thanks fretless

[Fretless]

Look at the Sabaj PHA3 - it is a joy to listen to (with better tubes).

[Vinyl-ant]

Another little worthwhile tweak. i figured out how to get some more control of the volume with the dinky little astell and kern dac.
Issue has been that the volume steps per button click on either the phone volume keys or the ones on the dac itself are far too coarse. Set it one click down its too quiet, one click up its too loud.

Bluetooth volume is separate to headphone jack volume, notification volume, system and media volume ect, so is a separate issue to deal with

Doing some nosing around in the developer options i found an option in the bluetooth list labeled disable absolute volume. Looking into what it was, it apparently syncs the phone and the bluetooth accessory volume controls so that the keys on the accessory and the phone do the same thing instead of being independent controls.

So a click of the phone volume key does exactly the same as a click of the accessory key and vice versa.
I added a samsung app to the phone that gives 150 volume steps instead of 15, works lovely with the headphone jack, but this is overriden by the standard 15 steps that the dac gives.

Enabling the option to disable this (arse about face description if ive ever read one) means that i can now fine tune the volume. Set it about right with the dac keys, then raise or lower the 'master' volume with the phone keys.
It remembers these settings too, so now the dac keys are adjusting the volume in a much better range than they were before.

So the dac is now much more useable and isnt deafening me on one track and being too quiet on the next. Id resorted to using the headphone jack instead and accepting the sq loss until i found a workaround.

It would be much easier if the bluetooth codec had more steps to start with

Im also now eyeing up monoprice m1060c headphones, better start saving. Just bought a(nother) dog as we lost our last dog a few weeks ago. and apart from being really rather sad, it just felt all wrong not having one.
So we now have bertie the dachshund (the little sod!) and a very depleted savings account that was earmarked by me for delving further into strapping speakers to my head....
Dont mind too much though

[Vinyl-ant]

A frind of mine sent me his wad hd83 headphone amp through the post yesterday, and after perusing the docs for it which another friend kindly supplied, ive (with tony the friends permission) rewired the output tx's for 16-50r impedance. It was wired for his senny hd650s previously at 250+ ohms. I tried it with some of the kids nasty gaming headphones first so if id done something wrong i wasnt blowing my good headphones up........


[Img]]

The wires were a little short to get them to the transformer termination pins at the front of the board, tony hadnt used them originally either and had configured the windings separately, so ive added the small tag strip just to the right of the black cap to terminate the windings onto to configure all 4 in parallel.

Tony found he had built this unit back in 2002!

Much much better sound through the p7s than using either the jack on the phone or the astell and kern bluetooth dac.
The phone us plugged into the m1 dac via usb and is just streaming tidal.

Thankyou to tony for the loan, and Greg for the docs
Planars are now a somewhat more realistic prospect. Hifiman he 400s keep popping up at around a ton., and the monoprice 1060c looks more and more enticing

Ive also bought a couple of pairs of sennheiser momentums, a m1 on ear pair because thet were dirt cheap, and a pair of over ear m2
But my word the p7s sound gorgeous on the end of a proper valve headphone amp


Onwards!

[Vinyl-ant]

Ive veen using the hd83 m1 dac combo for a little while now and have been pretty happy.
The p7s are still the top dog, im a little disappointed with the sennheiser m2 over ears and m1 on ears.

The m2s are very very comfortable, but the sound is just not quite there for me. They get muddled in the mid where you need clarity, when the music gets complicated they start to go all incoherent. The bass on them is mighty, but they can start to get a little shrill. Not sibilant particularly, but just abit too much. I have to have clarity and the top end has to be balanced. Which it isnt. The fabulous bass quality does not make up for the top end squawk and the congested upper mid. If this sounds like a hatchet job on the m2, it isnt because its all relative. I have a very specific requirement that these cans just dont quite fulfill. The 99 percent will be very happy with them

The on ear m1s are uncomfortable and dull. Fine for mooching about outside or on public transport but i have the p5s and some in ear jvcs that are better.

The p7s are not head and shoulders better than the m2s but are better balanced and cohesive. If the p7 had the m2 bass quality they would be perfect for me, as it is there is a little bloom that the m2s dont have and they dont go quite as deep. But the compromise is more palatable than the top end being provoked to make me wince with the m2s.

So the m2s and m1 on ears are destined to be sold on.

So. Onto the subject of the thread, i have bought some planars. Abit of a left field choice, ive gone for some fostex t50rp mk3s. These are the semi open back version. The range consists of the t20 open, t40 closed and t50 semi open. They are all identical, the differences are in the vents in the rear cover of the driver that are either open, covered with something internally to close them off, or have a resistive felt in them to form a kind of aperiodic chamber load in the case of the semi open t50

I want clarity, i dont want harsh or emphasised top end, and i want there to be controlled agile bass which the t50 is supposed to provide.

We shall see when they arrive.

Onwards!

[Vinyl-ant]

Listening to the fostex cans on the end of tonys wad headphone amp and i am impressed.
They seem nicely balanced already, the reviews on the web seem to say that they require some running in to sound their best which isnt unexpected.
They appear to do what they say on the tin. Or box in this case which says 'flat and clear' on it. They certainly seem to be with about an hour on them

[Firebug1]

Party because of Fretless, partly because of my own will and want but mainly because of used pair came up for sale in Finnish hifi forum, I bought Audeze LCD-2 closed back. After some critical and leisure listening, I found them be more enjoyable than my other headphones that I have. Audio Technica ATH-A900X are very revealing but can also easily be too bright and thin sounding. Audioquest Nightowl carbon are the opposite of AT, very laid back but easily too veiled. Audeze's top end is in good balance and bass is very good. They combine good qualitys of AT and AQ. Downside is that they are quite heavy, so no head banging with these on.

[Vinyl-ant]

Little review of the fostex t50rp mk3 after spending some time with them

I find these to be very very good for me. I value transparency very highly, the ability to pick an instrument, voice, the triangle in the back of the mix, whatever, and follow it, and be able to instantly switch to something else and follow that instead but not lose the other parts of the track.
These do that very well.
Tone, texture, whatever you want to call it is very good too, all parts sound natural. Bass guitar tone is very good indeed, im listening to 2112, farewell to kings and hemispheres at the moment and geddy lees bass is right there and all the string tone is spot on.

Voices are spot on, neal pearts drums are lacking a very slight bit of punch but are lightning fast with good decay to the strikes.

Cymbals are a little soft but are getting better with run in of the cans. The p7 cymbals are better but the fostexs are getting there nicely.

Pianos are very slightly off with the mixed harmonics of multiple keys at the same time but again are getting better with some running in.

I am finding them easy to listen to because separation and transparency are very very good, better than any of the other cans i have, which incidentally are all closed back which is probably why.

There is no harshness either, the top end is very sweet and is getting better. The m2s can be provoked into harshness which i dont like but will put up with when im out and about

They keep getting better every time i listen to them, they havent plateaued yet so theres abit more to come from them.

They need some poke up them though, i tried them with the 3.5mm jack cable into the phone and they were crap. Flat and no dynamics. They need a kick up the arse with a good headphone amp and they come alive. The wad hd83 has the necessary boot

As for comfort, they arent bad but the sennheiser over ear m2s have them beat easily, the p7s are also better. The ear pads are quite thin but they dont clamp all that tightly so are ok. After about an hour and a half they are starting to become uncomfortable where the arms of my glasses are. Ears get a bit warm too but not overly so. They are nice and light though and the padding on the head band is nice and thick so hasn't bothered me even with my short balding hair

The sound leak isnt bad either, but other people in the room can make out what you are listening to if they are within 4 feet. Nobody can hear the p7s and can barely hear the m2s

Isolation from extraneous noise isnt great, people in the room can talk to you and you can answer.

But thats not an issue for me as these are used upstairs with the headphone rig, not downstairs with the main hifi.

I am impressed.

Im keeping these upstairs for 'proper' listening with the headphone rig, the p7s with the astell and kern dac and phone for downstairs when i get told off for being antisocial, because they are velvety smooth and block out practically everything, and the m2s for use when out walking or shopping, or on public transport. Because im not walking around the local shitholes with the p7s on and the m2s are not far off as good.

The p5s and m1s are open use for anyone else in the house...

Onwards!