40 Ohms to Freedom

Noontec Zoro - Fashion Headphones With An Audiophile Soul

2015-07-23T10:01:00.001-07:00

INTRO

Full disclosure here, I was contacted by Noontec asking if I’d be interested in reviewing their new flagship headphone the Hammo... I am all about flagships. So I agreed... arguably a little too hastily. They subsequently sent me a pair of Zoro HD 2’s instead. Looking at their website the Zoro and Hammo are only separated by an MSRP of $10 but the Hammo looks like it is an over ear design.... Still the Zoro... Wait! Zoro? This headphone has actually received a fair amount of praise from the likes of Grandpa Headphone himself, Tyll Hertsen at Inner Fidelity, and Steve Guttenberg of Audiophiliac fame. To be fair though, Guttenberg likes everything, (except Pono), so we’ll have to take his praise with a grain of salt.

INFO

While the phones were in transit I perused the Noontec website to see what the company is about. A few clicks in and I found that Noontec was founded in Australia (that’s a surprise!) and they have some other interesting products as well. A NAS streamer for video and audio, a number of USB power banks for smartphone and tablet charging on the go and also have a noise cancelling headphone along with a couple different dynamic in-ear monitors. All good stuff so far. Then I got to the headphone section of their website and was left a bit dismayed…. Fashion headphones… Wait Wha?

Noontec markets their Zoro and Hammo headphones as “Fashion” headphones to excite your ear. Also a little nit here but multiple words on their website are misspelled. Being that your website is your global storefront and your front door to the rest of the world, Noontec’s website seems just a bit… off? Half baked? I am not sure I can pin down what it is, but it seems to lack the spit and polish of a finalized product that is ready for prime time.

Noontec calls their headphones ‘Fashion Hi-Fi’ (ugh!) and call out some interesting proprietary technical innovations. Like their SCCB “Surround Closed Cavity Body” which appears to be a convoluted way of calling it a closed back headphone. They also employ Votrik HD400 drivers. I found a few gamer tags for online role playing games when I search the name Votrik, so the Votrik driver and SCCB tech are likely clever if a little disingenuous ways that Noontec is seeking to differentiate themselves in a crowded headphone market. But how does the saying go?

Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game!

IN HAND

The Zoro 2 HD arrived (henceforth referred to as Zoro) and like I said I was taken back a bit since it wasn’t the Hammo I’d been expecting… Mike from Noontec said they decided otherwise last minute. OK… BTW I don’t do packaging reviews, if you need that angle, go to YouTube and watch an unboxing or something like that. I will say the Zoro is packaged like a retail class product ready to stock the shelves of you average big box store. In the hand the Zoro II HD are clearly an attempt to mimic the Beats by Dre aesthetic for significantly less spend. They have the same colorful plastic housing and large logos emblazoned on the cups. Maybe not as many premium finishes or materials in the build but still they evoke a Beats by Dre aura at a glance. While this was obviously their intent, I don’t know that I am a fan.

For one, I am not all that crazy about Beats so a company mimicking their design doesn’t strike a chord with me. As far back as Tyll’s original review I’ve always dismissed these headphones as pretenders, despite Tyll’s claim that they sounded excellent. As far as I was concerned a headphone purposefully copying the appearance of another headphone to garner attention was just an indicator that it wasn’t a serious product on its own. I clearly had a ‘prejudice’ against this headphone, and this whole train of thought revealed itself during the review period and it took some consideration on my part to call it what it was… I was being an audio snob.

In the box, sundries are minimal but get you going. They include a velour storage bag and a single color matched ribbon cable with smartphone mic and volume controls. The cable is relatively short but on point with the design intent (smartphone/ MP3 player). One trouble area I had was with the headband fully extended I could barely get the headphones to sit properly on my head. I wear a 7 5/8 hat so my head is on the larger side, even so an extra ¼” of travel would be nice. I often felt like I needed to readjust to get them to sit properly. To be fair though, I have taken them on multiple 3 and 4 mile jogs and they seem to work perfectly fine.

HEY HO LETS GO!

After running the headphones in for the weekend on my vintage rig I plugged them into my desktop setup first (portable impressions later) which is an April Music/ Stello HP100 MK2 with iFi iDSD Micro handling D/A Conversion from an HP Envy laptop running JRiver.

Obscene as it is, I compared the Noontec Zoro II HD to my daily desktop headphones… My Sennheiser HD800 and Audeze LCD2. I know, I know, and while it isn’t fair it gives me a good understanding of the Noontec’s strengths and weaknesses against the greater landscape. I will stack it up against my Porta Pros and my daughter’s Creative Labs Aurvana while rolling portable to drill down on how the Noontec performs within its own segment and intended use but for now sonic performance writ large.

So to start off at the end… Is this headphone any good? Yes… It is better than I expected.

I didn’t want to like it, and if I was going to let myself like it I was going to put a bunch of qualifiers on it like: It’s good for a ‘hundred dollar closed headphone’ but still isn’t a something I would be interested in…. pisha pisha! I mean for a hundred bucks you could have a Sony MDR-7506, Grado SR80 or AKG K240. But that snooty predisposition didn’t hold up. The Zoro bucks a modern trend in consumer grade headphones towards bloated bass, sucked out midrange and spiky treble, otherwise known as a V shape or ‘Fun’ sound. Instead the Zoro has a remarkably even handed and linear presentation that has enough meat on the bone to play very well with most modern genres.

Against the HD800 and LCD2 it has obvious acoustic limitations. The closed back design creates a dramatically more close up, closed in and crowded stereo image that lacks air, width, and depth of an open back let alone $1k+ flagships. The HD800 and LCD2 can offer a presence and depth of field that energizes the space around your head. The Zoro sounds narrow and crowded by a large margin.

I then set up 3 way listening session to parse out sonic deltas between the Zoro, my Porta Pro and Creative Labs Aurvana using the iFi iDSD Micro, ALO Audio National and a couple different Apple devices. All music was 16/44 Rips of CD’s from the Golden Silvers, The Strokes, The Clash, Daft Punk, Lorde, The Ramones, Blur, Amy Winehouse and a few others.

First off in terms of acoustics, the Zoro plays the same song with the Aurvana and Porta-Pro that it did with the HD800 and LCD2. Only difference is that the margin of victory was not nearly as great this time. The Aurvana and Porta Pro both offer more natural and open presentation against the Zoro, the Porta Pro especially, being an open design. However once you move past imaging and acoustics and dig into tone and sonics the Zoro starts gaining ground fast.

The Zoro is very natural and balanced…. I was actually taken aback by it a little when I first listened to it. It appears to be fairly linear across the frequency range and it’s only clear sonic deficiency is a somewhat early roll off point in the low bass and similar roll off in the high treble.

The Creative Labs Aurvana has too much mid bass. Vocals sound hollow or canned like the singer is singing through a tube and it doesn’t resolve as well as the Zoro. Listening to both side by side there were these distortive artifacts or spots of poor resolution in the Aurvana where music and vocals had grain and grit and crunchy static where the the Zoro presented things cleanly and clearly. And the Aurvana had this gaping chasm in the midrange making vocals muffled and hollow. The Aurvana has always sounded OK on its own but against the Zoro it suddenly sounds bloated, grainy and sloppy.

Against the Porta Pro the Zoro lacks the open sense of space that the Porta Pro provides while sonically they are pretty similar… Neither lacks mid range and neither over cooks bass… The Zoro is darker by design and also has less shimmer and illumination because of the roll off point of the treble coupled with the closed design. And the Porta Pro doesn’t not suffer the same low end roll off so gives you that lowest octave bass power that the Zoro lacks. But the Zoro plays it more forward and has a sense of immediacy and presence that the Porta Pro lacks. The Porta Pro also has faint little artifacts that detract from the experience. The Zoro doesn’t break form like this. Everything that it does do, it does well. Also the Zoro feels better on your head. Yes it is heavier but it doesn’t pull your hair, has soft ear pads with a padded headband and doesn’t feel so fragile.

The Zoro is not a bass heavy or bass-head can per se. As I said it has an early rolling off point at the lowest octave of bass which is only obvious when compared against other headphones, but this frequency level isn’t where you find bass lines, and drums hammering away at your ear drums. This is more about acoustic feedback, venue resonance, etc… It’s the frequency that explosions happen on in movies, not the frequency that bass drums kick at on a Roland 808 or 909 drum machine. Those are still on tap.

LET ME BE CLEAR! I know that the words “EARLY ROLL OFF OF BASS” is like giving a headphone the kiss of death…. Oh Hell No. I need my bass!

You don’t lose bass like Hip Hop or electronic drum beats… There is plenty of that punchy subwoofin goodness on tap. But that deep explosion, jet engine, earthquake bass from movies and video games is beneath the roll off point so even though it is heard, the impact is less dramatic and clearly non-linear when taking into account the fullness of tone above 100hz.

Mind you, this is not a lifeless, anemic, or thin sounding headphone. This is a rounded, nourishing, fulsome headphone that happens to do a lot of things really well. If you wanted to parse details on a DSD track, the Zoro won’t give you that unnatural level of magnification power. But those who want a headphone to play naturally without invoking frequency driven fatigue will find a lot to like here. It gives you a natural mid-range presentation, a good helping of bass and a softer treble. All three of these are good qualities (especially with smartphone use) and are also presented in a forward and engaging way with plenty of body and weight making it a satisfying experience at the price point.

It sounds very good for the price and I am using it daily for my workouts and sometimes during my drive home because the closed design coupled with the smartphone mic makes it a good headphone for taking phone calls on the road.

That said, I still don’t like the physical design and am uncertain about its durability. I think the copycat aesthetic detracts from the headphones inherent value. If Noontec were to develop their own design from scratch and couple that to their sonic successes, I think I would take it more seriously and Noontec’s reputation would track along the same path as Master and Dynamic. As it stands though, I think there is a LOT of competition in the $100 headphone market and given what I said earlier about the competition in this market… I can’t say the Noontec is a slam dunk. Realistically with $100 bucks in hand you can buy the Sony MDR7506, Grado SR80, AKG K240 or K142, Audio Technica ATHM40 or A700x, VModa Crossfade LP, Sennheiser Momentum (On Ear), Philips L2, etc… With all those choices would I spend my money on a Zoro? I don’t know.

I think it will provide outstanding sound quality for the spend… If that is all you are looking for, then it is up to the challenge. It is a “fashion headphone” with an audiophile soul. But there are other places that people ascribe value to a product. I don’t know that the Zoro ticks all these other boxes.

But… Big But! If you are comfortable with or even find the Zoro’s design attractive then have no fear about sound quality, you can proceed with full confidence.

Alex Rosson of Audeze Steps Down As CEO - Rosson Audio In the Works?

2015-07-14T08:45:00.001-07:00

Alex Rosson, one part of the two man team of Alex and Sankar Thiagasamudram that founded Audeze headphones has stepped down as CEO of Audeze. The reasons for stepping down from a flourishing headphone company while it is still relatively young may be indicated in his closing remark on his facebook page.

To see the original facebook post go here.

He provides new contact information @Rosson.audio. Mayhaps Alex has a new audio house he wants to develop... Time will tell.

The Fiio X1 - iPods for Audiophiles?

2015-06-30T15:57:00.001-07:00

In the wake of the great Portable Audio Player renaissance of the last two or three years, I have been bewildered by just how many manufacturers are now involved in the battle for market share. What initially seemed to me to be a cottage industry for a specialized niche market now has dozens of companies with serious engineering chops developing into a robust audio segment.

The first major sortie fired to announce this coming wave was fired by iRiver’s re-branded Astell & Kern players, which many claim has set a new gold standard for performance. And then came the marketing juggernaut Pono with its bold claims and even bolder rock star endorsements. Pono has balls and made no bones about its intent to poach Apple’s enormous customer base with promises of better sound quality from its Toblerone shaped player.

Since the market explosion in 2013, Astell & Kern has enjoyed its position at the Vanguard and Pono’s success is ballasted by rock star endorsements. Even against an onslaught of derision from audio critics and tech sites alike. The rest of the portable audio player segment is left to duke it out over the scraps on limited R&D budgets and next to nothing in marketing.

If you consider that both tech giants Microsoft and Samsung bent the knee to mighty iOS just a few short years ago and pulled their Zune HD and Samsung Galaxy players from the shelves. It's absurd to think that an obscure group of Korean and Chinese audio houses could submit products that compete for King Cupertino's crown. And yet that is exactly where we find ourselves... How?

Simple really.... Apple's throne is in jeopardy because Apple has let its vast portable/ digital audio kingdom fall into disrepair. It has spent the last few, Jobs-less years focused on multi-media content consuming devices like the iPad and iPhone, while the music focused iPod has become a bit of a bastard in the Apple hierarchy. This was never more apparent than when Apple decided to kill off the The Classic, which is the only unit it its line up with respectable storage capacity, in favor of the more app and cloud friendly Touch.

One could argue that Apple has lost interest or at least lost their vision in the portable audio market just as the market itself has matured. It was the iPod that resuscitated the segment from near death after years of failing health and atrophy from too many years of leaning on plastic disc spinning Sony Walkmen. By the late 90's you could buy a CD spinning Walkman at a damn gas station (For less than $20!)

If it weren't for iPod there may be no such thing as Audeze, Inner Fidelity, Cypher Labs, ALO Audio or possibly even Head-fi.

Yet now we find Blue Chip audio companies like Sony, Yamaha, Pioneer, Kenwood, TEAC, and Onkyo focusing significant resources on the portable audio market while carefully walking back from their "All In" position on 5.1 and 7.1 Channel A/V to try and repair damaged reputations in the 2 channel stereo game.

Meanwhile life giving Apple is focusing its efforts on..... digital horology?
iWatch.... Times are Changing.

Still, this year alone I’ve counted at least half a dozen companies who are bringing devices to market to try and ride this Portable Music Player, Digital Audio Player, MP3 player (WHATEVER!) wave. Whether we’ve reached a saturation point with new devices is anyone’s guess but I doubt we’ve seen the last of them.

For me the question is whether these new market players, like the queued up review sample (The Fiio X1), are setting a new state of the art. Or are they all just traveling down a well-worn road Apple blazed years ago while bringing nothing new to bear. It could be that they are simply filling the vacuum left by Apple's faltering interest. Basic economics.

We shall tease out the truth at the entry level jumping off point today.

For me to be willing to consider a future life with a Fiio X1 or any other DAP it must show itself as superior to the current experience I have with my litany of iPods. And that isn’t just a cut and dry matter of sound quality. Mind you I am flush with Apple iOS devices and am not one who finds their tone offensive, so the notion of moving out of the Apple ecosystem is not so easy. I currently have no fewer than 6 iOS based devices including two “audiophile” approved Apple iPod videos (5th generation) with the older Wolfson DAC chips as well as 3 Nano’s an iPad Air and an iPhone 6.

With such a large collection of Apple devices, the idea of leaving iOS based playback feels a bit like the idea of abandoning Nikon for Canon or ditching DSLR for mirrorless. It’s not just the camera itself that you are replacing. It’s the ecosystem and long term investment in lenses, filters, software etc… that makes the switch far more disruptive.

And while I do have a fair amount invested in iOS based playback it is not insurmountable. I have a few line out docks to tap analog line level signal from Apple’s proprietary connectors into a portable amp, I’ve got a dock that extracts digital audio from my lightning based products and I’ve got DACs purchased because they work with iOS devices using a CCK.

Apple’s User interface makes for a hell of transport if you can move conversion and amplification off board. But those same DAC’s are likely going to work with this modern crop of portable units just as easily.

Flexibility and connectivity options are important features in todays market. Consumers won't accept the cradle to grave Casino like environment of iTunes from modern DAP makers.

For this reason among others, I've stayed away from using iTunes for music management or playback. That honor goes to JRiver and because of its plugins library I am able to sync and load most all of my iPods with music directly from JRiver. Making the move away that much easier. The only devices I sync with iTunes are my phone and tablet because they are governed by the iOS monopoly.

Meanwhile only Pono has had the gall to try to create its own iTunes like ecosystem, but Pono offers a line out that doesn’t require custom cables. So in that regard it isn’t as closed as Apple. I do think a great number of consumers are like me and are going to need more than just promises of better sound quality to justify the change. Especially when sound quality differences at this stage of the game are relatively small.

A lion share of Canon cameras operate a 18 MP which is a far lower resolution than Nikon’s 24MP spec on even its cheapest D3300 DSLR, yet Canon outsells Nikon with general consumers because they’ve marketed their gear as “fool proof” with celebrities like Ashton Kutcher taking perfect shots without any training. The average Joe sees Canon’s as easy to use and will drop $400 on a T5 without even considering image quality.

Although I do appreciate the handsome nature of the Astell and Kern 100 and 120, and am even taken with the look of the new entry level X1, before I venture too far down this DAP rabbit hole, I need to understand what the aftermarket DAP manufacturer is bringing to the table and where it may conflict with my sound system and my listening habits.

So to begin in earnest, I don’t think Fiio needs much of an introduction for anyone who managed to find their way to this site. They are a prolific entry level company for Head-fi types. Early on their reputation suffered from perceived “cheapness” and even I was skeptical of buying any of their budget gear fearing it was cheap Chinese plastic fit for Walmart. Maybe a step above Radio Shacks Boostaroo in my book but certainly not up there with HeadRoom, Ray Samuels etc...

As years wore on, Fiio held strong to its core mission and earned a reputation in the Head-fi community as a fantastic company that offers very good performance on a budget. Their line up of battery and USB powered headphone amps and DACS are what many a Head-fier cuts their teeth on. And still are to this day.

I personally have owned their E10 dac/amp for 4 years and it has made more than a dozen trips across country with me and is a vital part of my travel routine. Fiio has 3 tiers to their digital audio player game ending with their $350 TOTL X5 (recently updated with Mark 2) which is chocked full of features, inputs & outputs. But I chose the golden $99 X1 for no other reason than I thought it looked best and because I am testing waters here, not diving in head first.

IT BEGINS!
So with a 64 GB micro SD card in hand I quickly formatted the card to Fat32 using the Fiio X1 (as per the user’s manual) and proceeded to drop some 60 odd GB of uncompressed 16/44 CD Rips onto the card from my PC.

I spent the next couple hours listening through my main system while watching the music get written onto the drive and waiting for the X1 to reach full charge.

Once the SD Card was filled to the brim with musical goodness I punched it into the slot on the side of the X1 and hit the power button. Turning the device on you are met with a colorful Fiio greeting then taken to setup screen where you select language and update library. What took nearly two hours to write onto the SD Card took a matter of seconds for the X1 to scan and organize. I added some 1300 songs in a matter of seconds and the Fiio X1 was ready to play. I used the scroll wheel to take a look at the music and selected the “Artist” category… Sure enough it was all there… What was more is the X1 read all of my WAV file format tags (APE3) without a single hiccup (Good On Ya!).

Next I plugged in the only in-ear monitor I own and the only one I’ve ever listened to that agrees with me, The VSonic GR-07 and listened for a bit finding nothing at all offensive. SO far so good.

Like most all my reviews I didn’t want to be hasty by turning the unit on, listening for 10 mins… shouting “IT’S CRAP!” and shove it back in its box with a return label from Amazon….

It’s not entirely fair to pass judgement without giving it some time to break in. The voodoo behind this I cannot speak to, but I do feel there is something to it. Letting components energize and allowing the caps, resistors, diodes etc… to stabilize does seem to work. Maybe its brain burn but perception is perception so if I perceive it as my truth…. It’s my truth!

So I plugged it into my computer through USB and selected it as a USB DAC tethering the jack to an old beater set of cans that I set up in my file cabinet. After it had run in for maybe 24 hour, I unplugged it from the computer and plugged in the GR-07. It sounded ok. I didn’t really feel like I was listening to something extraordinary but I was using a $150 set of IEM too. There was a bit of sharpness in the tone and some of my hotter recordings did cut at my ears a little, which is not a typical trait of the VSonic GR-07. The GR07 is about as warm and cozy an IEM as I have ever heard.

Luckily this bad boy has an EQ!

Go ahead and groan audiophiles, I don’t give two rips.

I like my loudness switch thrown when I use my Sansui amp, and I often like my EQ’s enabled on portable rigs.

Attempting to move the sliders the best I could to mimic a Fletcher-Munson loudness contour I was able to take a little bit of the edge off and goose the bass a little. The adjustments proved a bit counter intuitive with the Fiio interface but after a couple oops I was set. This added a bit of depth and a degree of warmth to the tone. With a nice rich full sounding recording like Smashing Pumpkin’s - Siamese Dream things were sounding pretty damn good. The part of “Today” where the guitars and drums flood the stage after the small guitar intro was a bit harsh but other songs like Quiet, Geek USA, and Rocket sounded live and full. With less stellar studio efforts like Off With Their Heads ‘Home’ the Fiio sounded a bit brittle and the albums already strident nature was pretty bad with the Fiio, EQ or not.

UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
I swapped out the GR-07 and pulled the microscope down off the shelf. The Sennheiser HD800 is probably the best headphone I have for analyzing gear because of its sometimes brutal honesty. I tapped the headphone out of the X1 directly to the HD800 and cranked up the volume to 75% and while I was getting a good volume level out of the X1, it was showing clear signs of strain. Static and electric hash were tainting edges of transients blurring the cymbal crashes and lower bass was not distorted but truncated in the sense that overall dynamics were severely compressed. Not to worry! It was an unfair test of the little X1 in the first place. Although it is good to know that the X1 is a no go with pro grade full size cans… The same holds true for my planar magnetic headphones. The LCD2 was serviceable but like the HD800 the dynamics and punch of the music was compressed and the overall presentation was diluted pretty bad. With the HE400 things were a little better but far from ideal.

Time to bring in support. The ALO Audio National has been my go to portable amp for close to three years now and even though it doesn’t sound all that good with the HD800 because it’s tone is a little too clean, it does not lack for power with the HD800 and I am familiar with its good, bad and ugly. I knew the National/ X1 pairing would probably double down on problem areas in tone but wanted to use it in its likely context. Tethering the X1 to a $1500 desktop amp seemed a waste as I can’t imagine anyone would use it like this. But did it anyway to check its performance against the E10. Really quick before I get into portable impressions. I found the X1 a near equal to the E10 with the E10 acting as DAC for my laptop and the X1 streaming its own stored audio. Both sounded good running into Godzilla (Sansui AU517) and I wasn’t able to identify any appreciable differences between the two in terms of sound quality and performance.

HEAD TO HEAD
From here I added a splitter so that I could plug in both my Apple iPod Nano 2nd gen with Forza Audio Line-out Dock and the Fiio via Forza mini-to-mini and after loading up the same song on both could do quick ABX like switch testing to find audible differences. This would theoretically give me a nice sharp picture of the performance delta between the two.

Listening to most of a song with the Nano then switching over to the X1 I was met with an extreme jump in volume. Whoops! I quickly sorted out that the X1 needed to be attenuated about 8 marks on the National’s volume pot to keep the two volumes matched. In situations like this, I wish the National had a stepped attenuator.

So from here, I had a portable amp with players strapped to both sides. The front face of the National was a bit crowded and my fingers had a bit of trouble getting at the volume dial, but they always kind of do. After listening to the X1 and iPod Nano for some time, with albums from The Strokes, Weezer, New Order, Blur, Beck, Studio One era Wailers, and a bit of Lorde I was able to get a pretty accurate picture of the X1’s overall performance.

The Achilles heel, if you want to use it with full size headphones, is that Fiio automatically disables its inbuilt EQ when you are using the line-out option from the jack. Without any of the X1’s tone shaping abilities available through the line out, the X1 exhibits a tendency towards sharpness in the upper register and though the treble was bright and revealing did not have the level of refinement needed for such illumination through the top of the stage. Laid bare by the HD800, the X1’s tone gets fatiguing and I cannot reconcile myself to it.

ON AN ISLAND WITH X1
I tried ditching the Nano as a reference point to see if I could get my brain & ears to buy in with the X1 on its own merits. With the Nano 20 miles away in my desk drawer and without another flavor on tap to indicate the bitter spots of the X1, I tried listening without King Apple casting its shadow over the audition. I still wasn’t able to find peace with it. With the EQ engaged using a small portable headphone or with a warm cozy IEM like the VSonic GR-07 the sound is pretty good. But the X1 does not work well with off board amplification because the line out configuration cripples what I consider to be necessary EQ functions that can massage the X1’s tone enough to soften is otherwise brittle and forward sound for playback with more serious partners.

Mind you my 2nd generation Nano is one of those vintage audiophile quality iPods. Some may snort with derision at that statement, but the older iPods used Wolfson silicone (WM8975) and of all my iPods (3 nanos, 3 Classics, 2 shuffles, 1 iPhone and 1 iPad) the 2nd Gen Nano has the most refined sound of them all. It is the best of my iOS stable and if there is a compliment to be paid sound quality wise to the X1 it is that the two were very close without any DSP.

The big score with the 2nd Gen Nano is its well implemented ‘loudness’ EQ preset which elevates tone density significantly. The more popular iPod Classic or Video 5th gen has well documented issues with its EQ presets causing clipping and distortion, so I tend to gravitate towards the lighter, smaller Nano and just have to sync up and change playlists more often if I want different music.

Also the X1 seemed to have a shallower and narrower sound stage. Switching to the X1 from the Nano, lead singers invariably moved towards me quite a bit and the outer edges of the stereo image collapsed considerably. While this presents as a forward and aggressive sound signature, which my inner punk rocker enjoys. Contrasted against something with more honest stereo imaging, the X1’s sound stage is pretty narrow.

I’d say it’s probably the most significant delta I can give the X1 between the two. Its sound stage is too forward and crowded.

Tone wise, all things equal, the deltas between the X1 and iOS were pretty minor. If you aren’t looking to move amplification off board, and are looking to use the X1 with IEM or small efficient portable headphones then it provides a near equal sound quality to the iPod. Functionally the iPod wins out with off board amplification because its EQ is still working in line out mode, but that is only if you want the added muscle for larger headphones.

So while I’d give the sound quality edge to the Nano. Which is simply softer, more refined sounding and is able to add a significant dose of warmth when using the loudness preset of the EQ. It’s really not a night and day thing. The X1 keeps pretty good pace when you consider the two devices on their own merits. The caveat here being the soundstage... The X1 is very narrow and forward. But this is more obvious on staging giants like the HD800 than it is on a pair of IEM's.

As far as user interface, I won’t even bother comparing. It is well known that the Cupertino giant trades heavily on the snappy nature of their interface. The UI is what has allowed them to stay ahead of the army of Android devices looking to steal the iPad and iPhone thunder. Android is far better today than it was just 2 years ago, but still doesn’t hold a candle to Apple. The sheer simplicity, speed, and responsiveness are their UI has no rival in the market and Fiio is certainly not the company to overtake them.

Interface wise the X1 screen is relatively grainy and the scroll wheel is not the smoothest. The forward and back buttons seem a bit counter intuitive and doing things like adjusting the EQ are laid out a bit odd. With enough time everything is serviceable but it takes a bit of trial and error. The volume buttons on the side are fine, if a bit shallow and sometimes hard to get response from. One significant niggle I had with the X1 was that its screen could not be woken up by pressing any key. You had to press the power button in order to wake the X1. Good I suppose as this help avoid accidental volume spikes when in your pocket or song changes but still after 2 weeks of use I would still hit buttons or the scroll wheel on the front screen expecting it to wake up only to remember I had to press the power button to get it to come back to life.

So what’s good? There are a number of areas where the X1 does have significantly better performance than iPod and if, like I said, you were going to use the X1 strictly with small portables and/ or IEM then these are welcome victories.

Storage: Right now you can utilize up to 128GB Micro SD cards with the X1 and because it scans and assembles libraries so quickly you could have 2 or 3 or 4 different cards with different libraries and the few seconds it takes the X1 to assemble a library is nominal. This flexibility and ability to keep your library on Micro SD cards is definitely a plus.

High Res: I personally don’t own any hi-res music (beyond weird samplers of music I’d never really listen to) so the high resolution capabilities are a zero sum gain for me… But those who live and breathe hi-res certainly won’t find the same capability in an iPod. Betwixt the two, X1 is the only one that can play that game.

Battery Life: The iPods, being a bit long in the tooth, and with a habit for quickly losing battery memory suffer relatively short charging cycles, even with updated batteries. I did not track hours with the X1 but played music through it relatively frequently for nearly a week before I needed to plug it in and get it charged back up. My iPod requires a trip to the charging station once every day or two depending on volume of use. X1 slaughters it here. How it holds up over the course of a year or two I couldn't say... Head-fi's impressions thread may have the answer.

So does the X1 overtake the king? Not in my book. With my listening habits and the way I want a portable player to work.

That said if you are looking for a modern player that spends most all of its life tethered to a pair of in-ear monitors like the iPod was originally marketed, then it offers comparable sound quality along with storage flexibility, battery superiority and high resolution capability.

All good things to the right customer.

That customer just isn’t me. So does the X1 turn me off to digital audio players? No. I am leaving room for the potential. If the right device with the right interface popped up I could see it as a portable transport that could take my entire library anywhere I go. Ditch the laptop altogether. But for now that device remains elusive to me.

Pit Stop at the Headphonium - 30 Minutes with the Oppo's Latest and 15 with King Sound

2014-07-07T14:20:00.001-07:00

At The Show in Newport Beach this year (eh technically Irvine) I spent a fair amount of time at the back room of the 1st floor main hotel Headphonium.

There was a veritable treasure trove of goodies for the die hard headphoner and I may very well have sprained my neck whipping it back and forth checking out all the glistening, shimmering aluminum and glass boxes from Woo Audio, Benchmark, Hifiman, Auralic and the spread of amps that Mr. Speakers had lined out to test his Alpha Dogs.

At the back of the room sat Gary from Affordable Audio, an El Segundo audio distributor. Gary was pimping the King Sound electrostatic headphone that with accompanying solid state amp, puts you into a electrostatic rig for around $1500.

I packed appropriately with Audeze LCD2 and Hifiman He400 stacked in small Pelican cases in my backpack to listen to amps with and do some A/B action with phones that were on tap today. I wasn't able to A/B the King Sound unit because it runs off it's own electrostatic amp. The King Sound system comes with either a pre-requisite solid state amplifier or a glass and gas kit for a bigger hit to the wallet. The King Sound unit had an absolutely brilliant way with treble.... no glare, no harshness, no glassiness. Music was presented with a crystaline realism. These headphones fall to the lighter, crisper side of the spectrum although tonal colors were displayed vividly across the spectrum... and the overall tone of music was every bit authentic, the level of saturation and mass was bit reduced... This is probably a function of (A.) being a very open design and (B.) the inherent nature of electrostatics. However despite not being the last word in punch and slam... they were still involving and musical and provided a very "HIFI" sound with all the detail, air and majesty I expect one is looking for in an electrostatic rig. And all that was with the Solid State amp.

Switching over to valve amp I was expecting a loss of low end heft with increased color.... Instead low end bass was still rock solid and taunt. However the bottom octave that doesn't really impact power or punch on drums or rhythm but rather provides spacial info, acoustic resonance, i.e. music venue echo... it was blacked out.... This more black background came off as a perceived closing in of the sound stage and increased perceived intimacy with the music. Admittedly the effect wasn't tremendous as there was so much ambient noise but I was surprised by (A) the smoothness of the solid state amp and the relative linearity of the valve amp.

NEXT UP - TEAM OPPO. I made a bee line straight for 1 of 2 sets of Oppo PM1's that were set up at Mark Waldrep's music table to audition his High-Resolution music library (iTrax and AIX records)..... Mark has a PHD from UCLA and the lion share of his music offerings are live performances captured in high resolution 5.1 channel audio on either Blu-Ray or DVD concert videos. He had a Benchmark DAC2 and an Oppo HA-1 both leashed to Oppo's new statement high-end (mostly portable) planar magnetic headphone.

I told my friend that was attending the show to snag the other set of phones... while I pulled out the Audeze LCD into the other port of the Benchmark to do a comparison with the PM-1.

Now at the aggravation of everyone in the room, my friend and I hogged the PM-1's for a good 30 minutes on Sunday (which to be fair was the slowest day of the show) and when it seemed like Mark was going to shoo us off, Lionel ran interference chatting up Mark for the final 5 or 6 minutes while I logged impressions.

Mind you these comparisons are quick and dirty but they are comparisons nonetheless.

LCD2 vs. PM1
HE-400 vs. PM1

LCD w/ Dac2 vs. LCD2 w/ HA1
PM1 w/ Dac2 vs. PM1 w/ HA1

Right off the bat I plugged the LCD2 into the Benchmark (which I am not familiar with) to get an understanding of it's sound with my LCD2 with which I am intimately familiar..... The Benchmark was surprisingly warmer than I expected. The high-rez audio barreling down its circuits may have played of factor but my subjective biased viewpoint of the Benchmark fleet is that they err to the lean side or the clean side.... I did not hear that at all.... Rather I heard a full, warm, resolute sound without so much as a single nit of distortion or static.... perfectly crystal clear music. The bass was full and robust and I was for a moment lost in the music. Rolling into the PM1 it was immediately clear where the differences lie.

The PM1 seemed to lift a shroud off the top of the music... there was air, a crispness that was missing from the top most octaves with the LCD2 that the PM1 restores.... like letting sunlight in through a window on the second floor.... What is more is that the PM1 does not retreat from low end power, color and tonal richness in order to gain this extra clarity up top.... In this way it's a lot like the Hifiman HE400... which though not as God of Thunder subterranean as the LCD2 can more than hold its own down to maybe 40 or 30hz?

The PM1 seems to strike an outstanding balance between the two competing house sounds.... Hifiman is known for more treble, more air, a crispness.... sometimes at the expense of low bass... (though the HE400 does not give up much) where the LCD2 is a warm, rich, smooth, silky sound but is missing a fair amount of treble air, clarity and top end tone....

When going back from the PM1 to the LCD2 I felt a long shadow cast over the top of the song.... spotlights are gone... a cloud has blocked the sunbeam coming in through the window.

With the HE400 the switch is less significant.... Although I do feel the warmth and fuzzyness of the HE400 low mids is missing a bit from the PM1.... I dare say the PM1 paints the most accurate of the 3.

The AMPS
After listening to all 3 through the Benchmark I switched over to the HA1..... Not much to report there.... I do feel like there may have been an ever so small drop in resolution quality moving over to the HA1... like the utmost fidelity lost a half notch.... but it would be hard to express in words.... Given the Dac2 runs for $800 more.... and the HA1 looks very sharp..... I can only imagine that Oppo has brought something to market that is a very troublesome machine for their competitors..... The casework and display are gorgeous.... the sound is outstanding (though maybe not perfect) and the connectivity options are more than I personally need.

Oppo means business.

JVC DX700 - I Am The King of Bass There Is None Higher

2014-01-15T17:13:00.000-08:00

The JVC DX700 is a ridiculous headphone! It sounds ridiculous and it looks ridiculous.
That is not to say it doesn't sound good.... it does.... It's just ridiculous in a lot of ways.

Mind you it is not a very popular headphone here in North America. A quick search for it on Headfi.org yields very few results and even though the DX1000 and DX700 are JVC/ Kenwood's TOTL headphones, the Japanese company does not offer either phone to the US Market.
So if you want to get your hands on a pair it is Amazon.JP (Japan) or you'll need to identify an Asian source who will ship overseas to the U.S..... Big question being, is it worth all the trouble.

And my answer would be: HELL YES!

Unless you view your headphones as a fashion accessory.
Because if you care how this thing looks... forget it. Because the JVC DX700 looks absolutely ridiculous.

Mind you I don't really think much of the headphone as fashion accessory idea. I use Audeze LCD2's and Hifiman HE400's for most of my listening. Neither of which qualifies as a good looking "man about town" headphone... The LCD2 could be a "man about to get jacked!" headphone, but not about town.

The JVC DX700 is a W I D E headphone... with cups that measure nearly 12" from outside of cup to outside and the suspension system that JVC chose to hang the cups from on the DX700 don't help. They actually accentuate the widest point on the headphone helping to add to its almost absurd dimensions. It connects to the cup with a plastic swiveling joint that is connected to a metal band that points straight up at the widest point before a bend in the metal band curves it sharply over the top of your skull, almost flat across the top of your head. If one happens to be rocking out on ones portable unit (Because the JVC DX700 does sound killer on portable set ups) and one happens to catch a glimpse of ones self in the mirror. You could mistake yourself for a cartoon character at first glance.... A head that is 3x as wide as it is tall.... Yes, Arnold from Hey Arnold comes to mind. You look ARE- EYE-DONKULOUS wearing these... And "HEY ARNOLD" is precisely what my wife called me the first time she saw me rocking these headphones.

Mind you she likes to take jabs at just about any headphone I listen to because listening to a headphone means that I am paying attention to something other than her.... so it isn't like the JVC was just too much and she couldn't resist. Even the most sleek and streamlined looking cans, i.e. the Ultimate Ears UE6000's have drawn personal attacks.... The difference with the JVC is that, in response to her playful jab, I pulled it off my head and put it on hers..... She didn't say another word.... just looked wide eyed at me and then coyly pulled my portable rig out of my hand, turned her back on me with my setup in tow and walked away.... She knows a good thing when she hears it.

The JVC DX700 is a bass lovers delight.... It is outstanding.... I mean O U T S T A N D I N G! with heavy techno, Hip Hop, and most low riding pop music.... Most pop music these days lays on a bed of heavy bass riffs so these headphones have everything you need to lay down a rock solid rhythm foundation. Bass is not 'good', it is not "well implemented". It is God of Thunder mind shaking powerful. The Ultrasone Pro900 have long been my low riding King with their thick as molasses pulsating rhythmic drive. But it was brought to its knees crying out "yield" to the DX700 within minutes of my head-woofer death match. It isn't that the DX700 has more power, punch, thrust or more body (whatever you wanna call it, you know what I'm talking about!). The Pro900 is probably a bit thicker. But the DX700 is able to bring the same power, the same levels of air pressure from what seems like a few feet further away.... This extraordinarily wide sound stage coupled with this mastery of low riding, means the DX700 is an all together more lifelike, impressive and immersive experience.

I listened to the JVC DX700 with a few different set ups. My Violectric V100 headphone amp, my ALO Audio National portable rig (coupled to an Apple 5th Gen iPod Video with line out dock) and my transportable laptop setup that includes JAYRiver, spitting AIFF CD rips to my itsy witsy but potent Fiio E10. It sounded amazing on all of them. Very forgiving and well mannered with all grades of amplification. The only hiccup I had with the JVC DX700 was when I tethered it to my Sansui AU517 integrated amp.... The Sansui has a relatively high output impedance and the DX700 is only 65 ohms. The Sui is high Z through the jack because it uses 220 ohm resistors to pad down current levels direct from the hot lead of the speakers. The high impedance on the Sui sounds beautiful and sonorous with the Audeze LCD2 and the Hifiman HE400 giving music a big and lifelike sound full of body and gallons of gorgeous tone and timbre. It is far and away my preferred amp for listening with either of my planar headphone since they are not as susceptible to frequency response interactions. They just sound warm, gorgeous, and inviting with the added dose of body and honey tone that the extra impedance adds. But it doesn't work with the DX700. The bass gets a bit loose and sloppy and I became keenly aware of the drivers instability. It was clearly poorly damped and the sound suffered with the lack of grip and control on the driver.

But beyond that, the typical low impedance dedicated headphone rig is going to sound wicked with the JVC DX700.

There are only a couple real knocks I can give the DX700. First in regard to sound quality, the mid range is maybe a tad bit recessed. Nothing severe like the V shape frequency response on the Pro900. It is a v shaped curve but a much softer v shape. Maybe not a V, hows about a lower case u shaped curve? 20/20 frequency sweep test tones exhibited some receding in the upper mid and treble with back and forth from step to step. Also the treble lacks clarity and smoothness. It can drift towards sharpness on poor recordings or sharp sounding albums... A lot of my old punk rock albums are sharp and apt to slice at your ears with razors with the wrong set up. The DX700 is less susceptible to being sibilant than the Pro900 and even the Denon D5k (with which obvious comparisons must be made) but still has a tendency to get squelchy and sharp every once in a while. .

VS. Denon AHD-5000

The similarities in design between the JVC DX700 and the Denon D5K are tough to ignore. Both the Denon D5k and Fostex TH-X00 series closed back dynamic models appear to be related (if not direct siblings then at least kissing cousins). And directly compared to the D5K there is some give and take.

The DX700 has one significant design strength over the D5K. The driver is attached directly to the wooden cups by way of a barrel like acoustic chamber shaped on the inside of the cup from a solid piece of wood.

There is one small port drilled into the wood to allow air to escape to the outer chamber reducing resonance on the interior. The D5k reduces resonance by using holes in the plastic plate that the driver is connected to to allow air to travel freely but the driver itself fires backward into an open and undamped chamber. The DX700 is more stout and controlled in the bottom 500hz where resonance tends to affect the sound quality the most. The DX700 straight up murders the Denon D5k in lows and lower mids. It's not even up for discussion. The resonance control helps to make the low end both visceral and thunderous but perfectly controlled, damped and grippy.

Denon is able to score points further up the frequency spectrum. Both have a tendency to become sibilant and neither is supremely smooth in the treble. But the D5k has a bit more crispness to its sound and as such has a bit more air to its sound. This can be a good thing with good recordings and downright painful with the wrong ones but overall I would rather have that extra air than not.

But the DX700 takes the Sound Quality lead for good when you consider sound stage. Those WIDE cups offer extra real estate and that extra real estate gets you a much wider and more realistic sound stage from which the music springs... Deeper, wider, every which way the DX700 sounds more natural with music that comes from somewhere outside of your head while the Denon seems to present music right in front of your face.

If all I cared about was sound quality and nothing else, I would take the DX700 without batting an eyelash. It may have a little more muddled treble and a slightly less forward upper mid, but it makes up for that in sound stage width and depth that far exceed the D5k and it just flat out owns the D5K in bass prowess. The DX700 SOUNDS BETTER than either iteration of the D5k (and in case you are wondering, yes I've owned and listened to the 2012 upgraded version).

However if I did care about things like the aesthetic value of headphones, the build quality and the engineering subtext, which I do, then I would have to take a more serious look at the Denon phones.

Holding both in your hand they have similar overall designs. Same angled protein leather pads, same wooden cup housing, same metal ring that clips to the gimbal. Overall they are very familiar.

In a way, the DX700 almost looks like an early prototype of the Denon. When they were only worrying about how to wrest the best sound possible from a headphone without concerning themselves with look, fit and finish. The DX700 does not have the same grade of finish as the Denon. This is obvious when they sit next to each other. The Denon is made of wood, leather, aluminum and magnesium, with some plastic on the driver plate, out of site. The DX 700 uses plastic here and there. Seems to use lower quality wood & or finish, lower quality metal in the suspension system (a strip of bent aluminum stock connected to plastic gymbals), with headband leather that is somewhat sloppy and made of lower quality material. The cable on the D5K is cloth wrapped, pliable and soft. The cable on the DX700 is much thicker and cloth wrapped but is prohibitively stiff and long and is a constant headache to wrestle with when in use.

If the DX700 is the "proof of concept" with the perfect sound, then the D5K is the "Finished product" with a more streamlined and polished look. It looks fully ready to compete with flagships and high end headphones from Audeze, Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic... The JVC although sounding utterly amazing is a bit clunky and cheap feeling in contrast. Not to mention the dimensions & proportions of the DX700 have drifted into the absurd.

In all honesty the premium finish on the Denon coupled with the limited number of concessions it made in the fidelity department earn it serious consideration (if it weren't discontinued). Mind you the losses in sound quality that the D5k suffers are few, but they are obvious to the naked ear with just a cursory listen.

The DX700 is the bigger, grander, and more majestic musical presenter. It is all together a more impressive sonic experience, but it comes at the price of a lower grade finish, with cheaper materials (that feel cheaper) and an overall design that looks absurd when worn. God forbid you take a stroll with the DX700 strapped to your head. You'll be getting cat calls of "HEY ARNOLD!" from your neighbors in no time.

Luckily the DX700 sounds killer. So you probably won't even hear them.

POST SCRIPT

Couple of postscript notes to offer here. Denon AHD models have or had a robust aftermarket modification culture with Lawton audio focusing almost exclusively on modifications as well as J Money offering upgraded pads for the Denon models.... JVC doesn't have quite the same Head-fi following as it is a relatively obscure headphone without formal US distribution but it does have a company out of France that offers modifications to JVC DX700 including custom wood cups, cabling and ear pads.... Company is called Casque Headphones.

UPDATE: JVC has in recent months discontinued the DX700 and DX1000 models while introducing a limited edition DX2000 that is available in Europe and Asia. Looks like the Fostex TH900 and TH700 are the last men standing in this family of headphones.

Violectric V100 - High Speed German Audiobahn

2013-12-02T15:37:00.001-08:00

The Violectric V100 is the second Lake People/ Violectric amp that I have owned for a period of time. After listening to music for almost three years through Fried Reihm’s creations and having used the V100 for well over six months. I believe I have a pretty fair understanding of the house sound that accompanies these amps as well as the nature of the V100 itself.

My goal for this review isn’t to stroke my own audio knowledge or try to talk you into purchasing the amp. Rather my goal is to provide useful information to other consumers looking into purchasing a $500 to $1000 headphone amp in order to help them make smart purchasing decisions. God knows that finding a way to test drive a headphone amp is not easy to come by and is only that much more complicated trying to get a listen to a headphone amp that is designed, constructed and largely distributed through Germany.

The Violectric V100 is the mid level consumer focused headphone amp from German pro audio house Lake People’s. It sees a number of improvements over the lower level V90 both in terms of build quality and overall design.

The V90 (as per my review) was a wonderfully potent little amplifier for most headphones I owned. If it sounded good on my portable rig then it sounded much better on the the V90, but the V90’s design was pretty bare boned.

The V90 offered up a somewhat dual mono design (sans dual trafos) but it was implemented with surface mounted transistors at the gain stage and 2 Burr Brown OPA551’s mounted at the output stage for amplification. This is a high voltage, high current design essentially making the V90 a chip amp but it uses a rather unorthodox chip compared to the usual gainclone LM3886 & LM3875 types.

The V100 is loaded up with twice as many capacitors in the power supply to smooth out the incoming voltage, has a host of socketed opamps handling low level signal duties, input buffering and it features an array of resistors leading to a heatsink tower with 4 transistors per channel handling amplification in dual mono mode (sans dual trafos once again). People have talked about how all the opamps on the Violectric are socketed and there have been a few discussions on Headfi about swapping out opamps to change the tone of the amp… Be to be clear upfront the opamps in the Violectric are not handling amplification duties in this unit. It uses discrete transistors mounted to heatsinks to handle the actual amplification, so swapping in a Burr Brown Opa627 isn’t going to do much besides empty $20 and change out of your wallet… Although I do find it interesting that some have made this swap and reported the typical “laid back, full bodied” changes… Our subconscious is a tricky beast!

The V100 is also treated to an ALPS RK27 (Blue Velvet) potentiometer and as usual the channel balancing in this amp is superb.

Overall, sitting next to the V90 with the gold feet, the more dimensional face plate and the much more beefy amplifier design… the V100 seems to be an all together more serious piece of equipment and for a desktop unit to sit in your office it is about as handsome a headphone amp as you could hope for.

But looks can be a deceiving, yes?

HURRY UP AND WAIT!

Although I do not believe a whole lot in burn in on sand amps, I did run the V100 for a good 8 hours before plugging in. This should have more than settled down any capacitors that needed to do whatever is they are supposed to do when going through their burn in stage… Then I proceeded to listen to for a good solid six months. (heheh!) Interconnects were Better Cables and Emotiva RCA’s with a Pangea USB, tethering my HP Envy Laptop (W/ JRiver Media Center) to a Wyred4Sound uLink that was then connected by digital coax to my Rega DAC. I have yet to hear much sonic benefit from cables so opt for the handsome and affordable when I shop cables for my system.

Sound and Synergy

I’ve been listening to the V100 for months now. First and foremost in regard to its most basic function, amplification muscle with headphones… the V100 is a stellar performer.

It provides tremendous headroom with virtually any headphone that you throw at it. Low impedance Fidelio X1 and Denon D5k’s sounded both superb and excellently controlled through the low output resistance. Higher impedance/ current hungry planar magnetic likewise were both well damped, and could easily be taken to their design limits with regard to volume. And the most easily damped and somewhat resistive loads like the Sennheiser HD650 sounded outstanding with the V100.

Lighter resistance phones like the X1 required flipping the dip switches in the back to reduce gain a bit, while likewise the Sennheiser HD650 seemed to fare better with the gain increased, but in all honesty though the available travel on the volume pot was drastically shorter for the X1 than the Audeze LCD2 just about every headphone I used could easily be controlled with the gain set at zero.

As far as tone I believe that the V100 is similar in tone to the V90 in that it has a fairly linear and even handed tone. There don’t appear to be any areas of the bandwidth that the V100 appears to be accentuating overly so. Treble is lightning fast and smooth as silk. Mid range is presented honestly and smoothly, and low frequency bass is big slammin when it need be.

What does strike me a bit about the V100’s tone and maybe was as present on the V90 is a somewhat lighter side of neutral presentation overall. I don’t mean that bass is lean vs. treble being bright, I mean that bass is there as equally as treble is but overall…. Full value, the amplifiers seems to be just slightly tilted towards a thinner sound than a meaty organic fleshy sound…. Words like liquid, fast, resolving, linear, and lit up… are descriptive of the sound…. But words like bombastic, slamming, warm, earthy, punchy…. Are not…

Now this is relative to what else you listen through. I happen to have a fairly large collection of vintage amplifiers. Two of my personal favorites are my Sansui AU 517 and Technics. Both of these amplifiers headphone out is simply an extension of the speaker outputs with a resistors padding down the current coming out of the headphone section….. On the Sansui amps and my Pioneer SX1050 an overall more warm, lush, organic sound is heard…. This probably has a lot to do with the high output impedance of the headphone socket on the 517 but you can’t unknow what you know…. If music sounds full bodied and punchy on the 517…. It’s hard to forget about it and try to assert that the V100 is in fact a warm and punchy amp in contrast… No its not. In direct comparison it gives off a much more Pro like sound… Where the Sui 517 is what it sounds like in the studio room with the band jamming out, the V100 is the sound in the control room. It is stripped of a bit of its dynamic slam and impact. Maybe contrasting the difference between CD’s and vinyl the vintage rig is warm punchy vinyl (done right) while the Violectric is the CD… the digital revolution driven by accuracy and resolution.

That is not to say that it won’t satisfy the bass head in me…. With the X1, the D5k and the JVC DX700 the V100 provided me with good mind rattling bass lines…. But that overall center of gravity from whence theV100 jumps is just a few degrees higher in the atmosphere whereas the Sui and Pioneer vintage units exist anchored to the ground by strong roots.

The V100 exhibits the same sure footed nature of its smaller brethren through highly complex passages and offers an even firmer grip on drivers via a very well damped signal chain but I can’t help feeling that the emotive experiences has been bleached just a tad bit in favor of a more professional monitoring class sound… Nothing wrong with that… and considering it more deeply it is probably more a typical “audiophile” sound. But I’ve never followed convention with audiophiles and believe musical enjoyment is the apex… anything that tried to redirect the purpose of music away from enjoyment is false.

So in that one regard the V100 suffers a bit… It is not the most musically satisfying unit I’ve heard.
There is still a lot to like. The sound is never anywhere near offensive. Treble and mid range are offered in a silky smooth fashion and bass is never bloated or over cooked. The small form factor is perfect for a premium desktop set up… I just wish there was a little more musicality in this music box. Besides that, it’s all good.

The National - Are ALO Audio portables High Fidelity or High Fashion?

2013-09-03T10:40:00.001-07:00

I bought both of the ALO Continental/ National family members around June/ July of 2012 when the second wave of V2 Continentals hit the market. I got the bug bad at the time and was worried it was going to sell out... I was worried that I was going to miss my chance to own a collectors piece.... A portable tube amp... a one of the kind piece of kit.... Yeah I had gotten bitten by some consumer dementia and was quickly losing site of reality.

The Marantz 8b is a collectors piece... a McIntosh 275 is a collectors piece, a Levinson #33 or a Dynaco Stereo 70 is a collectors piece.... The Continental.... eh not quite.

However despite having become a bit unhinged from reality in my desire to get this not so itsy bitsy little amp.... Once I got it and plugged it in one would think that it could do no wrong in my subjectively blind ears. However this was not the case. The over arching sense of happiness one gets when one scores a piece of kit that you feel far surpasses your expectations was... elusive.

What was there was an unsure feeling... "I guess it sounds okay!"... I mean its louder.... it's really big... but it is louder than my iPod.

The Continental adds just a slight dose of sweetness to the sound. If you are buying a portable amp like the Continental assuming it is going to give you the rich harmonics, warmth and so called Honeytone of a bonafied tube amp (i.e. an EL84 type design) you won't find what you are looking for here. The hybrid circuit tube adds just a tint of color to the picture without causing the sound to become syrupy. This touch of sweetness is what the Continental has going for it... that tiny little tube glowing inside the vents... was dropping just a dose of honey into the sound.

But for a full $265.00 less, you get The National. Based on ALO's own marketing the National is supposed to provide an inexhaustable solid state derivative of the Continental that is not dependent on a finite supply of NOS 6111 tubes from Raytheon. The National is centered around the very cheap but highly capable NE5532 opamp and listening to both side by side I must admit to not being able to really hear much of a difference.

Switching back and forth from iPod Video, to Continental to National there are obvious differences between the amp stage of the iPod and the two ALO amps.... but very little to find between the two amps themselves. The sound from the iPod's headphone jack sounds crowded and closed in.... the singer of the band stands right in your face making it very difficult to appreciate the song as a whole. Switch over to the National and the singer takes 6 steps back, the band takes a couple steps forward and a more natural stage is set.... Likewise for the Continental.

Many reviewers have stated that the Continental is far less grainy and has a clear spotless sound.... I don't know that I hear that.... maybe the subjective viewpoint that a 'glass' tube somehow provides a clean, clear harmonic tone is biasing their viewpoint but both amps sound equally grainy.... What is more is that the National seems to have just a little more horsepower to wrestle with difficult loads like ortho dynamic headphones. Both my HE400 and LCD2 were out and out too much for the Continental.... In complex passages with multiple layers of low frequency action (like bass strings and bass drums) the Continental seemed to get a bit more tizzy and hashy sounding.... Electronic trash started tainting the lowest register and the transient edges seemed to get injected with static. however with the National though it does max out its volume pot on the LCD2 while still operating inside of "comfortable" listening volume it doesn't seem to lose as much forms. Admittedly it does show signs of insecurity with the loads.... There is a level of electrical hash in the upper register and a crunchy blurring together of low frequency passages on more complex numbers.... It still does not show quite the bad form that it's premium dual triode packing brother displays.

The Continental and National are pretty, yes, they are unique and sublime in their design aesthete. The Continental more so with its hybrid tube design, certainly, it is a gorgeous looking piece of kit, however in regard to its most basic function.... the skill set upon which all its other talents should be founded..... it is in my application, a sub par performer. The National is more confident (to a degree) more propulsive and dynamic.... It's slam slams harder and its bass booms bigger... but it suffers the same fate as it's slightly more tricked out big brother. When the going gets complex, loud or both.... the National and Continental both get spooked.... start showing speed wobbles... and are far from confident and authoritative amplifiers. They are a step up from the nervous spastic tendencies of an iPod at max volume.... a tad cleaner and with better sound staging but that is not really a great compliment.

I actually sold my first set of Audeze LCD2's because the sound was so "unremarkable" through the ALO Audio retro styled duo that is seemed foolish to own a $1000 headphone that sounded so sub par. I eventually came back around to a second set of LCD2's long after the Continental had been returned to ALO Audio for a refund. With just the National playing portable amp duties and with as much as 300 hours of playing time, the National seems to a bit more stable in its presentation.... Mind you it still maxes out its pot at comfortable listening levels but seems to have gotten its legs under it to an extent.

So contrasting against the Continental.... it truly is a no brainer. The National sounds nearly identical in tone, is near a full inch shorter (right in line with the length of an iPod) seems to have more horsepower and offers a more punchy bass and costs over $250 less.

Ken Ball and company seem passionate about this culture and he has made a name for himself by putting forward very sublime products with a very classy aesthetic value. The ALO amps are beautiful looking and are built like tanks.... I truly do love the Marshall Amp type aesthetic that they utilize for this line and enjoy the look of all of Ken's products... I am not a big believer in cables but do acknowledge that the ALO cables are very handsome and at the very least add some nice aesthetic value to portable rigs.... the price seems prohibitive and counter intuitive to me... but if I had the cash to burn... I'd probably bite just for the look alone.

And I think that is the blessing and the problem with these products... They look damn good. Ken, his engineers, his team (whoever is involved in their creative process) designs aesthetically pleasing products... However they seem to be lacking design chops in the most important place AMPS!. The National is the better price/ performance value to me and so gets 3.5 stars for that. However compared to other non-portable amps.... shows why the state of portable hifi has not quite reached full maturity... It is a last resort for music listening for me... and I chose it because it's qualities compared to its nearly $600 sibling were nearly indiscernable... yes there was that drop of sweetness in the Continental... but were talking a drop in a barrel here..... Beyond that the two sound nearly identical.... so for less than half... I'll forgo honey and use a faster harder hitting saccharine.

They are better than an iPod.... but far worse than nearly any desktop source that I have utilized.... I have not tried power monsters like the Lisa 3 or SR71 Blackbird or even ALO's own RX Mark III but I do think that portable amps in the main, have a ways to go before they will be single source solutions for big time headphones like LCD2's.... Quite simply a National or Continental amp is not worthy of an Audeze LCD2 and seem better suited to your mid fi headphones like M-50's or Pro900's.

May not be what some people want to hear.... but it's how I see it.

But I do think that the National at $299 is a no brainer if one must have the ALO Audio experience.... Otherwise though it isn't half as sexy, I think the FiiO E12 or E17 is a much better route to go.

The Fidelio X1 - Ultimate All Rounder

2013-09-03T10:27:00.001-07:00

The Phillips Fidelio X1

I purchased the Phillips Fidelio X1 about 3 months ago to add to my mid range open back collection which includes the Hifiman He400, the Sennheiser HD650 and the Grado 325i….

I honestly do not get a lot of time listening with open back headphones anymore because the cubicles outside my office have gotten filled up with a small army of junior level engineers fresh out of college waiting for a project site assignment. It is hard to rock out to the Dirtbombs, Pixies, Ramones and Radiohead with their eager ears a mere 10 feet from my door. These days closed back designs seem to be dominating my life, and with my stalwart Ultrasone Pro900 in hand as well as the VERY impressive JVC DX700 I am hardly wanting for audio quality.

That said I still usually find time in the afternoon after all the kids have gone home, to do at least an hour a day of listening with the more spacious and natural sounding open back fleet. And the last couple months my wife has gone up to Santa Barbara for the weekend so I’ve been able to lug the collection home and listen to the X-1 and his siblings well into the wee hours of the night with my reference system.

So I think I have settled in clearly on what the X-1 sound is, and where it fits into the headphone landscape for the average consumer.

X-1 Intro
The Fidelio line-up is Phillips premium line up of personal audio products. It was initially comprised of a few Airplay & Bluetooth enabled docks and speakers as well as a small line- up of headphones. Over the course of the last 2 years the line Fidelio has matured into something near serious that now includes a 100 watt class D wireless receiver, and 2.1 and 5.1 channel surround systems as well as multiple nice looking and thoughtfully designed docks, and speakers that look be decent quality as well as of impeccable build. The aesthetic value of the Fidelio products cannot be emphasized enough. Leather, aluminum and wood finishes dominate the line and it is very clear from a cursory perusal of their product page that Fidelio is marketing this product line towards affluent customers who are aesthetes as much as they are audiophiles.

The X-1 is a headphone that exudes class and high end. The ear pads are made of soft memory foam cushions with a luxurious feeling velvet fabric wrapped around them. The cups are connected to brushed aluminum gimbals by matte black metal rods. The gimbals are connected to the outer suspension system with stainless steel screws tying the gimbals to 2 stainless steel rods that are rolled to a slightly larger diameter than the inner suspension system and are wrapped with leather and embossed with the Fidelio trademark. The inner “hammock” suspension system is anchored to the outer system with aluminum buttons that are laser engraved with “L” & “R” and the hammock itself seems to be some sort of Cordura or ballistic nylon in a porous weave to allow heat dissipation. Everything on the actual physical design of these headphones seems to have been well thought out. And everything was constructed using top shelf materials.

In some ways it looks like an AKG 701 that’s been modified by John Varvatos or something.

Odds and Ends
The headphone comes with a cloth wrapped cord, a plastic Fidelio embossed wire management clip and a ¼” to 1/8” adapter. The adaptor is a single fitting barrel type and if plugged into a amp, portable amp or iPod is likely to inflict too much stress on the jack. I prefer Grado’s ¼” to 1/8” adaptor because its design alleviates this stress. Impedance rating is 26 ohms so these are relatively efficient. They can be driven by an iPod or iPhone to decent volume levels…. But certainly benefit from good amplification.

Also I was made aware that there are issues with the X1’s stock cable. Apparently it runs a very high resistance and this can cause some problems with proper damping. So before I ever cued up the X1 for burn in, I swapped out the stock cable with my Ultrasone Pro900 stock cable. The Ultrasone Pro900 came with a coiled cable terminated with ¼” TRS and a straight 3’ cable terminated with 1/8” TRS. Since I had already re-cabled the Pro900 with a dual entry cable, these two were just sitting around collecting dust. With a multi meter set up on the ends the measured resistance of the Pro900 cable was .15 ohms. Problem solved without the need for more spend.

Soundwise

The X1 has been constructed using some high quality and high cost materials. If they’ve spent so much of the $399 MSRP on top shelf materials, was there any cash left on the table for engineers to wrestle a decent sound from these headphones? Or has Phillips chosen style over substance?

For me, the answer is that they do sound good. Outstanding in a lot of ways. But at their price range there is a lot of steep competition from the likes of Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, Hifiman, Sony and Grado. Throw in recent offerings from Paul Barton's PSB, Sony's MDR 1R, NAD and Bowers and Wilkin and you have a LOT of steep competition in the premium/ sub $500 market ($250 to $500). So the X-1 has its work cut out to separate itself from the pack.

Right off the bat, I pulled the Sennheiser HD650, and the Hifiman HE400 off the shelf to compare against Johnny-come-lately. I ran everything through a Violectric V100 headphone amp being fed lossless files from CD rips through my HP Envy Laptop. 1's and 0's are converted by a Rega DAC that is fed a SPDIF diet from a Wyred 4 Sound uLink. I also ran lossless from by iPad through a Pure i20 dock to the Rega.

The X1 is voiced very smartly for a modern mainstream audience. It has a nice warm, lush sound to it and offers up a full bodied bass and mid bass punch. Almost unbelievably good bass for an open back design! The fact that it is an open design also yields some very positive traits. It is naturally light, airy and open... Wonderfully natural sounding.

The HD650 is comparitively more clean sounding and more resolving. It offers up loads of textural and timbral information in an easy to digest format but does so with a presentation that is far too polite and reserved. Going from the X1 to the 650 music seems withdrawn, dynamics, weight and body are all sucked out of the sound. Colors are vivid and tones are clearly heard but the music seems to have had a level of emotion stripped away.

What the 650 does expose is that the X1 mids and the upper mids sound a bit hollow/ unnatural in comparison. That naturalness and air.... that light that the X-1 seems to cast over music seems to disappear and a dark shadow is cast over the mids. But it still isn't a dark sounding headphone. That is the weird thing. A bass heavy can with recessed mids usually means you've got a dark headphone.... Audio molasses! But the X-1 is a sort of anomaly. It has that punchy hard hitting bass, coupled with good treble energy and decent though somewhat recessed mids, but it does so with all the air, ambiance and natural staging you get from your typical open back design that is the antithesis of dark.

Mind you, I don’t see the X1 as a true bass head can in that it will insult the sensibilities of your stodgy audiophile. I think it has enough mid range liquidity, natural ambiance, and clarity to satisfy the audiophile, but it may be the closest thing to an open back bass head can that I have heard. Most open back designs lose that visceral, full bodied punchy sound with a significant amount of the air pressure lost out the back of the phone. Open backs like the HD 650, Grado 325i and Hifiman HE400 are typically unable to give you that slamming low rider bass that we bassheads lust after so badly. So while the HE400 and HD650 give tremendously deep and accurate pictures of the bass, neither is able to give you the level of slam that the X1 does.

The HE400 offers a bit more sweetness in the mid range than the HD650 and in this regard adds salt to the wound on the X1 which already suffers a bit in mid range quality and clarity. Both the HE400 and HD650 hang their hats on their “audiophile” pedigree with clarity, resolution, and neutrality. Both the HE400 and HD650 have well behaved and clear treble. And the HE400 offers a slight uptick in low frequency punch over the HD650 (especially when fed a lot of power) but the HE400 suffers the same fate as the 650.... It's musical presentation just seems flat and lifeless in comparison to the X-1.

During my initial impressions I noted a somewhat hot treble on the X1 however after listening to it for a number of hours I can't find any evidence of that. Either the X1’s treble seems to have settled down quite nicely or I have miraculously gotten accustomed to sibilance. Regardless of nay sayers (of which I am one on a LOT of subjects) I actually have witnessed burn in on headphones and 99% of the burn in I have experienced has to do with hot treble settling down after a few hours.... The HE400 was also one with which I was deeply disappointed on first listen.... the treble was unbearably elevated on the first couple auditions... But as I let it sit and cook and went back to it a day or two later, the hotness or S-S-S-Sibilance was gone. So I have no doubt (at least very little doubt) that the X-1 settles down nicely.

In general the treble is good... It has plenty of energy and bite... it can get a bit squelchy and hot if you feed it bright hot music but I don't see it as having a dangerous peak in the treble... It is elevated a bit around 10K - 11k but not to any serious detriment like the Ultrasone Pro900 can be.

So with a world class low end, middle of the pack mid range and average to fair treble how does it compare to the heavyweights of Mid-fi…. Does the X1 have what it takes to compete?

I say absolutely.

There will always be those who view strong bass as an indicator that a headphone is overly colored. Those who want some lean sound and see that as "ruler flat" or linear. But I've been to hundreds of live shows, I know how "colored" live music can sound. If you forget about "this vs. that" comparisons and just listen to music through the X1 on its own merits, it is pure joy.

There is honest merit to it taking the title from the HD650 or HE400. It offers all of the benefits of an open back design... the spaciousness, the openness, the sense of a natural sound stage, and natural ambiance for music to breathe and feel alive. Couple that with an impressive punch, a sweet and full bodied tone, and the ability to offer big time drive on dynamic peaks.... Phillips really has something here.

Both the HE400 and the HD650 end up seeming too polite after A/B'ing with the X1. A more reserved, more timid sound that does not engage the listener. They are both heard but not felt. They offer natural colors but seem sterile and lifeless compared to the X1. The X1 mid range may be a bit more smeared and muddy comparatively (and this is a really stern criticism) but it offers dynamics and drive that simply decimates both the HE400 and HD650.

Mind you with my vintage integrated amp and its High Ohm headphone jack, the He400 wins hands down as its body and tone fleshes out much fuller while the X-1 becomes boomy and uncontrollable.... But that is only on my vintage rig.... Using a headphone amp, an amp/dac, an ipod, or an ipod/ portable amp stack, the X1 takes the cake.

And IMHO there is still enough clarity, resolution and openness on tap to satisfy the audiophile but it still offers all this with hard hitting bass that gives it universal appeal across a wider spectrum. I sure as hell am hooked.

I'm not interested in analyzing music. I am not interested in analyzing treble, mids and bass… I listen to music purely for enjoyment… If I were a recording engineer trying to master a CD or mixing a session I may gravitate towards the HE400 or HD650 because they can offer up details without allowing too much life... You can hear the music while still keeping a professional distance from it.... However if you listen to music to enjoy it, then the X1 deserves serious consideration. An open back design that'll satisfy the basshead.... that is something new and noteworthy.

Home run for Phillips. It's really REALLY good.

The Monster of Midrange - Hifiman HE400

2013-05-15T13:27:00.001-07:00

When I originally got into this hobby some 2 years ago, my first run of purchases included Sennheiser HD650's, Denon D5000 and Ultrasone Pro900's. I also had a couple beaters from Koss laying around like the Porta Pros (which I LIKE!). So upon purchasing my first true head amp (a Fiio E10) I thought my journey was over.... I had an amazing closed headphone, an amazing open headphone, a decent amp/dac... nuff said. Lets close the book on this consumer business and listen to some music.

From there I focused a good amount of my energy on (A) fixing up my 54 Lincoln and (B) mechanical watches..... I was in the throws of said watch obsession waiting for Steinhart to fill inventory on the Ocean 44 dive watch when I saw an episode of "How It's Made" on TV at the AKG factory in Austria where they take you through the steps of construction on one of the K702's.

Headphones!.... OH I LIKE THOSE

Since Steinhart was pushing their restock date back to August... maybe I can spend some of that money that is burning a hole in my pocket on a pair of Headphones.

And so the bug bit again.... But this time reading through forums, websites and reviews the kiss of death was bestowed on the K701 and 702 (which were my knee jerk target purchase after watching the show) but words like: lacking bass, thin sounding, airy and very NEUTRAL were intertwined into descriptions of their sound.... meh! I cannot handle thin sounding anything.
I've been to too many live shows to be able to pass off a thin sound as accurate.

Also (to me) the word "Neutral" conjures up images of a lifeless two dimensional sound that is lacking pace rhythm& and attack. Neutral is about as exciting as FLAT

I cannot imagine an OEM that would enjoy reading a review of their products, headphones, speakers or otherwise as "very flat and neutral".

So after jettisoning the 702 notion on its face, further Headfi forum reading of 'this vs that' impressions and product reviews and general chatter brought forth numerous mentions of a new player in the game... A company out of China called Hifiman who's entire line up of headphones consisted of planar magnetic drivers and open back designs. Even though the company hails from the PRC, they have a presence on US Soil that is comprised of a technical support staff and New York based distribution.The more I read about the Hifiman planar magnetic headphones, the more they starting working their way to the top of my list.

My pops raised me on a steady diet of vinyl with big power wars era receivers and massive floorstanding dynamic speakers but I remember spending time at my Uncle Johns in the summer where he had 2 big Magneplanar speakers set up in his game room. I don't remember a whole heck of a lot from back then but I do remember that I wanted my Uncles system.... So it became clearer and clearer to me that Hifiman was going to benefit from my next purchase. About the time I started my hunt, the HE400 model had been on the streets long enough to get through Rev 1.... and long enough for a couple of reviews to make it onto the street.

An article from Headfonia gave it a restrained thumbs up but Steve Guttenberg of CNet Audiophilliac fame gave it a gushing review. So as an impressionable young mark (er man) these last two votes of confidence were enough for me to pull the trigger. And so about 10 days after purchasing the headphones from Amazon for $399, they arrived at my doorstep. However upon taking delivery of the box there were obvious signs of having shipped direct from China and markings on the box gave me the impression they were shipped from a Chinese retail outlet as an in store demo. When I opened the box I was even more dismayed. There was no fancy case like had been shown in the literature and early reviews... Just a simple retail class cardboard box. I opened the box to find a pair of what looked to be a pair of blue HE400 but they were covered with a white dust and seemed to have been haphazardly packaged into the box.

"Is this some damn knock off or something?" was my original thought...

The sticker on the exterior of the box seemed to imply that this was some demo model... yet I paid full price.... WTF!

Needless to say the Hifiman HE400 and I did not have a very good introduction... no love at first sight here.... I was on high alert once I saw that the package had made its way from China and because the way it was boxed with the headphone crookedly placed in the box, it did not seem to be packaged with the type of professional polish one would expect to find from a relatively high cost consumer product targeted for retail sales. I was therefore a bit miffed from the start. Then I plugged them in and pushed play and that is where all the hand wringing fell away.

Up until this point all of my headphones were on the warm and/or bass heavy side.... Denon D5K's, Ultrasone Pro900's, Porta Pro's and Klipsch Image Ones that I once heard described on Headfi as "bass fart cannons".... so my predisposition of what a good headphone sounded like was a bit tilted to the basshead side.... With all the hype I expected something similar but different (you dig?) But plugging in the HE400's I was taken back initially.... They were clear, very clear and very crisp.... the bass was there but certainly not up with the D5ks or Pro900s... Its not a basshead can. But as I listened and listened I had that "AHA!" moment.... These things sound good... very good!

The HE400 sound is not lush or warm or thick like many dynamic offerings.... It is smooth but hangs its hat more on clarity and providing a balanced presentation of the music. Some have called it a bass heavy can but I don't see or hear that at all. Comparing it to the Pro900 and the Denon D5K its sound is much lighter and fast.... If the sound of the Pro900 is overly thick and bassy.... audio maple syrup.... then the HE400 is distilled water... faster, refreshing, clearer but it doesn't lack for musicality.... What one does discover listening to this planar magnetic headphone is that despite having a super clean and clear treble, the slightly more forward and engaging mid range gives it a very "LIVE" presentation. It does not have that heavy full bodied pulsating rhythmic drive of similarly priced dynamic cohorts, but that livewire midrange provides this growling power to guitar driven rock that makes you want to listen to music. That is good enough for me!

Shortly after this I purchased the planar magnetic darling of Headfi, the Audeze LCD2. I was originally assuming that the HIFIMan can would lose its luster after the LCD2 arrived but this was not so.... Mind you the LCD2 has a lovely way about it... a beautifully resolving sound and penchant for low volume listening... the ease/ effortlessness with which the LCD2 can play the most complex and formidable low frequency passages is amazing.... I give credit to its lightning fast planar membrane.... It sounds wonderful with jazz, oldies, and classic rock.... but what I discovered after weeks and weeks of comparing the runt of the Hifiman planar line with the Audeze cohort more than twice its price is that with more up tempo guitar driven music the HE400 actually provides just a bit more impact to bass (especially with less than reference sources) and there is this "LIVE" factor to the mid range that gives it a more realistic sound with guitars.

Now I am splitting hairs here to draw differences but I saw the LCD2 as sounding more like listening to music at home while the HE400 was more like being at a show. Saying that is a very stern criticism of the LCD2... I am trying to paint a very thin line (a very small deficiency) with broad strokes but I heard it so what am I to do. That ever so slightly tipped up mid range response on the HE400 makes it just a bit more involving and immersive. The LCD2 holds you back ever so slightly from the music and thus can cause disengagement with mid range focused guitar rock.... Considering the better part of my library is punk, rock, and alternative... the HE400 is actually the better all rounder of the two.... What is more is that while the LCD2 can give you ridiculously well resolved low frequencies, I mean it mines the depths of a song to absolutely subterranean levels with perfect texture and resolution, the HE400 actually provides a bit more punch and impact to its low end despite being a bit less confident in its resolve. The HE400 is prone to get a little tizzy on some heavy low end stuff where the LCD2 holds crystal clear.... but the HE400 makes up for its slightly messy presentation with more punch and dynamic weight.... you can hear it with the Audeze but you can feel it with the Hifiman. This desire to meet you halfway is what makes the HE400 so special.... It is not as euphonic and lush as the HD650... but it does sound similar in a lot of ways, in that its presentation is on the polite side of things compared to very forward and bass heavy cans like the Denons and Ultrasones. However in terms of accuracy vs. impact it has found an amazingly intoxicating balance that stays fun while never getting fatiguing. The LCD2 offers you resolution and clarity in spades.... Its technical speed is unmatched by the HE400 (which is how it ought to be) but the LCD does take maybe a few step further away from the stage and this slight recess strips away enough of the emotive experience that the HE400 has a justified place in my collection.

It is certainly not the last word in headphones but considering its price and the competition in the $400 +/- market it is an amazing performer. In the right setting with enough current feeding its drivers, it is an outstanding all rounder.

HAND WRINGING

I have one maybe two gripes with this headphone and they have ZERO to do with its sound quality. One is the weird reverse polarity coaxial connectors used to connect the cables to the cans.... The connectors are actually a pro television and radio fitting for antenna connections so it is an odd choice.... and very difficult to source. More importantly is that twisting the cable over and over to connect and release the cables is bound to eventually cause a short or some other form of damage in the cable.... My particular model came with a 6 foot Canare quad OFC cable and after connecting and disconnecting a few dozen times the collar on the cable side of the connector actually pushed through the back of the stem and fell off.... rendering the cable dead.... Hifiman was quick to send out a new replacement cable to me (Hat tip to Vince at Head Direct!) but if there was one thing I would change it would be that. Another line of defense that I may likely pursue is Toxic Cables adapters. If you buy a cable from him with say mini XLR terminations for Audeze cans he can build a set of adapters for Hifiman connectors so you can bypass the twist connector all together. You'd have a couple of odd little earrings dangling off the bottom of them when not connected to the cable but... This should only bother the most retentive of people in the hobby. The other mild nuisance is that the logo and markings are all painted on the headphones..... Thus after a few short months of handling them, the L & R designating which side is which have all but rubbed off.... The headphones appear to be perfectly symmetrical in build so I don't know that it changes anything to wear them either way but I opted to tag the stems with red and black sharpie to keep track. However it'd be nice if they could find a more permanent solution for marking the sides.... and the brand.... I've got to believe that eventually the "Hifiman HE-400" marking on the blocks will go to the wayside as well. Beyond these minor grievances I am superbly happy with this headphone.... It is a worthy adversary in the $400 realm and beats the snot out of its similarly price AKG, Beats and Grado adversaries... The HE400 is an opportunity to get some of the planar magnetic sound for significantly cheaper spend than normal. It is worth every penny. You will not regret it.

The Sennheiser HD-650 - Greatest Ever?

2013-05-15T13:23:00.001-07:00

The praise that has been heaped upon the Sennheiser HD650 headphone is something that probably every headphone OEM envies. The HD-650 is nearly a decade old and yet is still viewed by many as a top tier dynamic, worthy flagship and is the benchmark that many measure price to performance ratio against.

I personally was cruising along quite happy with my set up… Running almost exclusively between Denon D5000’s and Ultrasone Pro900’s I felt I had the best of both worlds. Since I love the visceral impact of good bass in my music, these two pieces seemed to be perfectly tailored to my listening habits.

The Denon gave me a little more reasonable treble energy and a little less sibilance when I needed it for something more complex and diverse, while the Pro 900 gave me that sub woofer for your ear feel that just flat out slams your ear drums. With a decent DAC/ desktop amp set up I am usually able to apply a 6kHz to 8kHz cut the smoothly equalizes the sound to eliminate that “ESSS” sounding ear razor that the Pro900 is so infamous for.

However somewhere along the way the constant gushing over the Sennheiser HD650 got to me. Specifically Mike from Headfonia repeatedly claiming that it was the ultimate king of bass impact…. He never said king of bass quality, quantity…. He always spoke of the HD650 in terms of “Impact”.This should get just about any hard core and well funded bass head’s juices flowing and so I began looking at the viable options for acquiring this apparent low frequency giant. And so after parting ways with most of my portable equipment, I was flush enough with cash to purchase my own set of the venerable HD650.

I will start out by saying that because of all the talk of the ‘luscious mids’, smooth highs and world class low frequencies my expectations with this headphone were near off the chart…. I have since done the same thing with the Audeze LCD2 prior to its arrival at my home. The LCD2 albeit a very good headphone, was so overblown in my mind that when I actually listened to it, I was rather disappointed. It has long since been shipped off to a more worthy and appreciative owner.

So by the time the Sennheiser headphone had finally arrived, it was competing with some extremely high expectation and was pretty much behind the 8 Ball.

Build & Design

The Sennheiser HD650 is certainly a dated design. There are dozens of headphones on the market in the same price point that are better dressed. Most $500 headphones have premium materials such as aluminum, leather and wood worked into the build. The Sennheiser headphone is almost exclusively plastic. It is a shiny, cheap feeling plastic on virtually every exterior surface sans the grill, ear pads, retainer ring and bottom of the headband. Detail items like the "Left" and "Right" indicators are simply cast into the grey plastic.... this specific nuance seemed unfit for such a legacy flagship.... obviously its been a long time since this headphone was brought to market and Sennheiser was working in the pre-Beats era back when they designed it, long before headphones were valued as a fashion accessory. And their HD800 shows they clearly can design a top tier headphone both in sonic character and design quality, but the HD650 is still asking $499 USD and doesn't give you a warm and fuzzy out of the box once you've got it in your hands, at least not me.

The headphone is extremely light. Many in the community would give it points for this and they are certainly entitled to their opinion. However I personally see this as a demerit. Speaking strictly in terms of assessing an items value from a subjective aesthetic viewpoint, the Sennheiser headphone appears to be made of cheaper, less durable materials. I am not going to strain my neck if a headphone is north of 400 grams. The Hifiman HE400 weighs in at a hefty 440 grams and is perfectly comfortable to me, the Denon D5k weighs in around 360 and is probably the most comfortable headphone I've ever worn. If one is spending $75.00 on a beater set of portable cans, an expendable gamer headset or a cheapie like Superlux or Porta Pros (of which I am a fan) then by all means they should be and can be as light as a feather without raising eyebrows. But at $500 out the door for a former flagship headphone that was intended for listening at home through a serious system... I don’t know.... I just expected something a little more substantial.

The other crux of this featherweight value is that in order to keep it properly seated on the listeners head, Sennheiser had to crank up the clamping force. Otherwise the light weight construction leaves it prone to moving too easily as it has little resistive value on its own. The clamping force is something that many have commented through the years as a supposed 'death grip'... Once again just like the HE400 won't break my neck, the clamping force on the HD650 is not going to crush my skull. It is certainly wound a bit tighter than most, but the clamping force seems to have been measured perfectly to counteract the lightweight construction's tendency towards moving easily.... this is a nod to the design engineers.

Right off the bat my delusions of grandeur were dispelled. It is certainly nicer looking than its faux marble clad brother the 600 however as a supposed flagship headphone of such universal praise, I was underwhelmed by the look and build quality.

The die-hard optimist says that this is simply an indicator that they chose to pour all their cash into sound quality. OK maybe this is true.... lets see.

Hook It Up! And Wait.

I did not want to be hasty with a plug and play attitude as I had heard that the out of the box, plug and play sound of the HD650 was disappointing (I heard this about 10 hours after I purchased it sadly) but that a 100 hours of burn in would get you a somewhat matured sounding headphone, so onto the vintage Realistic 64B it went. This older vintage rig is hooked up in a file cabinet at work and so can burn in a headphone out of site and outta mind while I still enjoy music on my main headphone rig…. A Violectric V100 tethered to a Laptop running JRiver via my Rega DAC with a Wyred 4 Sound uLink handling conversion duties to SPDIF.

100 Hours - Impressions

After it had burned half the day on Thursday and all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday by the time I got in to work on Monday the 650 had clocked roughly 96 hours of burn in time. I plugged it into the Violectric V100 and listened to some newer redbook CD rips.

The HD650 is not a bass head can. That is my first impression. Where the hell is this supposed ultimate bass weight?

A couple of local Head-Fiers down here in the Southland told me the 650 was really amp picky and that I would do better with a tube amp like a Woo WA6 or Bottlehead Crack. However my amp is a Violectric amp which is what Sennheiser uses in their “Hall of Fame” set up and is one of Sennheiser’s Senior Project Manager Axel Grell's favorite amps for his own listening. A couple others mentioned changing the cable to a Cardas one, and one guy said I might need a different DAC to get the most out of it.

So in order to get the Sennheiser HD650 to sound good what I needed to do was:

Get a different amp
Get a different cable
Get a different DAC

Maybe I should get a different source, different interconnects, a new power conditioner and stop using CD's while I am at it eh? Mind you I do see where some could see this headphone as all they need and build out their entire system around it.... searching for another .5% of improvement with each piece of the puzzle... but I have already built my system(s) and am not really inclined to do a whole lot of kit rolling in order to optimize the synergy with this lone headphone when I have a half dozen others that sound fantastic through the rigs as is.

So my immediate disappointment with the bass weight could’ve derailed this whole review. I was expecting Pro900 bass or Denon D5k bass with amazing mids and highs… veiled though they supposedly were. What I got was an all too polite rendition of everything.

The low frequencies are extended, there is textural information galore, you can really hear the stick or the tom on the drum skins, the full decay of bass strings, mid range is sweet and smooth, and there is plenty, and I mean plenty, of high frequency detail and sonic information. Anyone who says the HD650 does not have enough treble energy or detail is, to these ears, not hearing straight.

But that ultimate bass weight, that Mike implicates all the time, it is not here IMHO.

The low frequency, midrange and treble are all recessed quite a bit. They do not hit you in the side of the head with impact. They don't even touch you. If this is what people are speaking of when they say the 650 is veiled then yes, it is veiled, but not in the sense that a certain portion of the frequency range is somewhat blurry or hidden.... Its more about air pressure that makes a headphone felt as well as heard. Open architecture does limit this but I've heard better open backs at giving you punch.

I will hop on my soap box right here and say that one part of a headphone experience that is vital to me, is the overall weight of a headphones tone. I am not specifically talking about bass extension or articulation or even the bass frequencies in particular. What I am saying is that headphones with a tonal density to them…. A robust acoustic mass that move some air pressure to bring the music more to life…. That is critical for enjoying music in my book. Otherwise it sounds like music but doesn't feel like it.

It may not be critical for monitoring, mixing or mastering in a studio, or DJing or even for being an audiophile who wants to sample 24/192 and DSD audio tracks like they are a damn 10 year old Pinot Noir… but for the average Joe like myself who wants to simply strap on a set of headphones, cue up an album, hit play, sit back and enjoy some music…. The overall presentation doesn’t need to be “forward” but it needs to be felt as well as heard.

Oldies like Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, and Bob Marley all have strong drums and bass rhythm that is presented most natural when the full weight of the instruments is presented... the kick drum and bass line at the opening of Dock of the Bay sets a strong foundation for Otis and the guitar to build off of. Alternative music like Smashing Pumpkins, The Pixies, Jawbreaker, Dirtbombs, and Blur all have bass and drums that need punch. Punk rock and other guitar driven music like Social D, Operation Ivy, Van Halen, Bad Religion, The Ramones, Rancid, The Strokes, Vampire Weekend, Weezer, Gaslight Anthem.... they all have rhythm sections, and natural timbre that is presented best when it is presented with a fully developed full bodied sound.

Most people would rather listen to music through a great set of speakers because the music can be felt in your bones and people go to concerts because the live performance trumps every other experience. I saw Muse at Staples Center a month ago and the bass and drums absolutely rattled my bones.... Just vibrating you right down to your soul. And that is why 50,000 pack stadiums every night to see performances. Because the music overwhelms your senses. I saw the Ramones in Santa Barbara in the early 90's and it was the loudest show I've ever been to... Large Marshall double stack cabinets for both Dee Dee and Johnny and Marky's drums were mic... all in a small club (The Anaconda for anyone who cares) and the Ramones play tight so it was just a full on sonic assault.... transcendental to a young kid and still the best show I ever saw.

To me, listening at home through a set of headphones should be a tamed extension of that experience. Obviously headphones can't give you what a live concert can... nor can they give you what well crafted speakers can, and speakers can't give you what amps and guitars and mic'd up drums can.... but each should have a measure of the other. The HD650, although tonally sweet and smooth and carrying some weight in its tone is similar but a bit more recessed than the Audeze LCD2, it just holds you too far back from the music FOR MY TASTE. It left me wanting for something more!

The HD650 often gets the compliment that "I could fall asleep with these on" and that to me sums up the HD650 perfectly....

It's kinda boring.

The HE400/ HD650 issue.

I’ve have had a few people ask me which I prefer. After you allow the HE400 to break-in (and it will) and its treble bite settles down, it has a bit more low end punch and the midrange power of the HE400 makes it better for my music habits. Speaking strictly in terms of audiophile "quality" its acoustic chops max out well short of the Sennheiser’s limit. That additional 260 Ohms of professionally focused impedance allows the 650 to fill out in a more linear fashion allowing it gain ground on the HE400 when the volume pot starts rolling clockwise.

At lower listening levels the HE400 is a far better choice. With lower current sources the HE400 is the better choice. With guitar rock and for those who want to feel the music as much as hear it, the HE400 is the better choice. It gives you a tad more flesh to sink your teeth into. A bit more punch in the low end and that livewire mid range that’s tipped up just enough to make rock music sound amazing.

But as we travel up the volume ladder the Sennheiser's linear performance becomes more stable and stout in its presentation, everything fills in evenly. It never provides the SPL's that the HE400 does but it does resolve microdynamics and details in the music better. It parses individual instruments and creates better separation. The HE400 although good to a point, can get crispy and its budget level planar membrane can start smearing tones between instruments. Especially on complex electronic fare whee hundreds of different sounds are layered over each other. If I could only have one, it’d probably be the HE-400. If I was working exclusively with a vintage integrated amp with a high output impedance from its headphone jack, then I may be more inclined towards the HD-650 but the HE400 doesn't give up much here either so it'd be a close draw.

Johnny Come Lately – The X1

Phillips open back X1 is priced a hundred short of the 650. But there are obvious similarities. Open back design, midrange price point. But one would assume that its beautiful aluminum cups, velvet ear pads, and leather headband come at a sonic price.

The X1 is a gorgeous looking headphone. Besides my Audeze LCD2 and Denon D5000 it is the best looking/ best dressed of the bunch and does this with a significantly cheaper spend than either of its sartorial equals. People like to contrast it against the Sennheiser Momentum…. No, the Momentum has a flimsy build and doesn’t hold a candle side by side.

Next to the X1 was 650 looked terribly dated. The plastic finish is a glaring shortcoming for a headphone asking $200 more. But the 650 is clearly the technically superior headphone. For the same reasons the HE400 falters, the X1 can't keep up either. It doesn’t have that linearity and surefootedness that the Sennheiser has when current starts flowing from the amp. The X1 does not scale as well as the 650 when matched with more powerful and higher quality upstream gear. It actually seems more comfortable with smaller, lower current sources. This makes sense because it has a tremendously forgiving sound. It has a far richer and more nourishing tone that will appeal to bass heads and music lovers alike. It is rich and creamy and fun. Its bass slams harder, it's musical vibe is funner. It can also get a little crispy and sibilant in the upper register when volumes start creeping up whereas the 650 never seems to break form. The Sennheiser is the “better” headphone. But for a music lover like me I am not sure how important that is. Lately the X1 has been getting a ton of head time and that speaks to its engaging tone. It gives me that 'felt as well as heard' sound that I crave.

VS. My Favorites

Against both of my closed back favorites, the Sennheiser plays the same song over and over. It is linear, well engineered, accurate and resolved. But all this well implemented performance leaves you wanting for more. And you can get that thing that you are wanting for in spades from my 2 closed back favorites. The Denon D5k and JVC DX700 are more dynamic, more emotionally engaging, and just plain more musical. They immerse you in the music. They surround you in an envelope of tone that is both accurate and full bodied.

Both provide significant SPL over the HD650 but the JVC DX700 ups the ante by giving a sound stage worthy of an open back and provides a not quite as linear but still fairly linear sound as things get louder and louder. I would choose the Denon and the JVC DX700 over the 650 every time. It simply doesn't give you as much of the song as they do. It is emotional numb in its presentation. It sounds reserved and lacks true musical weight. The two Japanese phones are well rounded, dynamic and potent for closed back phones and so do not exhibit the same flaws many other mid-fi headphones do... They don't give anything away to the 650.

Contrasting the 3, the HD650 feels like a stuffy middle aged man dressed in a corporate polo, khakis and cheap patent leather black shoes... He presents well enough in professional circles but doesn't really have much personality... The 650 is to me a middle age, middle management cog in the machine. The D5K and the DX700 are sharply dressed young 20 somethings from Tokyo... Italian cut black suits with Redwing crepe sole shoes... Style and presence... They may not have as thick a resume or the professional accolades of their Polo sporting competition, but they are dynamic, engaging and the charisma they exude offers up excitement and potential opportunity you'll not find with the hum drum 40 something sitting with shoulders slouched in the lobby.

WRAP IT UP!

In closing the Sennheiser is by most normal youthful standards a little light in the ass. Some would call that a veil or laid back but it’s not laid back to me… That denotes a mellow, relaxing sound and to those who haven't heard it, a "veil" sounds like the treble is shelved down or something. No this is about sound pressure levels. This is about 2 dimensional accuracy vs. 3 dimensional involvement.

To me it is a bit boring. It has all the info, all the texture, sound, detail, sweetness, etc…. But it is lacking in emotional engagement. There is plenty of music, but you are held back just a bit too far from the heart of the song to truly enjoy it. I dare say at the risk of being alienated even further from your average armchair audiophile, that the hype is a bit overblown….. at the very least it does not line up very well with my taste.

The caveat to that would be in a full size stereo rig.... In those scenarios the 650 sounds a lot better than most modern 32 ohm headphones.... The only 2 in my collection that best it on the integrated amp scene are my planar headphones... both of which have flat phase response and so don't do the poorly damped thing.... In a typical dedicated headphone setting.... to me, the 650 is a bit boring, however if you tether that same headphone to a full size integrated, like my own Sansui Godzilla vintage amps... The high output impedance of the jack, pours some much needed warmth and body into the 650's sound.

I do think there are a lot of normal people running around sites like Head-fi and audio review sites that want objectivity, not wanting to spend their hard earned cash poorly.... Most people use reviews to inform their future purchases, not just for fun and some view other people's words as gospel and spend according to expressed opinions. I've done this before and been sorely disappointed. Hell the HD650 is an example!. Because of some of the descriptive words I have heard people use, I think someone could get the wrong idea about the sound of the 650... when people call it dark, warm and full bodied, king of bass (BS!).... I don't know that these words do the phones tone justice. At least not without building your entire system around the HD650 . Contrasted against the greater landscape it is a bit light and lacking in body. Someone needs to say that.

I think the one thing that tells the story with the HD650 for me was that after I listened to it over and over and over.... I am always left wanting more than it gives... If it had just a little more body, a little more punch, a little more..... a little more

Violectric V90 - By Lake People

2012-09-05T14:46:00.001-07:00

The Violectric V series amps are consumer grade line of headphone amps and DA Converters from German pro audio house Lake People Gmbh.

Fried Reim, the CEO and head designer at Lake People/ Violectric, recently released a Lake People branded line of consumer grade headphone amps to go with his studio grade however I have opted to purchase/ review the runt of the Violectric line. The new Lake People G series line will include both balanced and unbalanced configurations.... The G103S (Single Ended) G103P (Pro - Balanced), G109S and G109P.

When looking for my desktop amplifier solution, I had initially planned on buying the Lake People G109 since it has received very high scores for its performance with orthodynamic headphones. But after some extensive research I decided on the Violectric V90 largely as an aesthetic decision.

So rather than paying 355 Euro for the G109S I opted to pay 359 Euro for the V90.

I placed the order by email to Fried's sales office (which was tremendously helpful and courteous through the process), and the amp arrived two business days later. Out here in California I did have to pay UPS a $30.00 import duty fee to take delivery of the amp. I mentioned this to another Head-fi'er who had recently purchased a Lake People amp but he did not have any import duty on his parcel. It may just be a duty fee associated with the Local Port of Long Beach or California. California is a fan of fees and taxes so this wouldn't suprise me but just in case, at least Californians should add $30 to your budget for this.

The Amp came well protected in an egg crate foam lined box with a simple 10 page owners manual, power cord and the amp itself.

Physical Appearance:

The V90 is the entry level Violectric amp and as such is not adorned with the same jewelry as his older siblings. Where the V100, V181 and V200 showcase the brands iconic gold chassis feet, the V90 makes do with simple rounded black rubber feet. Where the V100, V181 and V200 have 8mm thick aluminum face plates with beveled edges and beveled insets at the headphone jacks and power buttons.... The V90 has a simple flat face plate with headphone jacks and power button surface mounted.

It does have the same Violectric logo and model number laser etched into the face plate along the top and left edge, the same suede like Nextel coating around the remaining chassis, the same textured aluminum knob and the same deep blue LED below the power switch. But for nearly $200 less than the V100 and at nearly half the price of the V181 and V200 costs have to be cut somewhere.... I've gotta believe I am in the majority when I say I'd rather they cut corners on bling than components that affect the sound quality.

Overall however with the laser etched logo & the model number and the grey suede coating, it is still a very handsome and well built amp. Sitting along side my headphones and HP Envy laptop, it is still the best looking component in the bunch.... and looks like a high quality piece of kit... even without the gold feet!

As far as measurements, the V90 is a full 4 inches shorter than his older brothers but measures the same in width and height. 6.8" W x 2" H x 5" D. As far as how it matches up spec wise.... I'll leave that to you. If you are interested in the model by model breakdown, here is a link to the technical spec sheet for all 4 amps on Lake People's site:

http://www.violectric.de/Pages/en/technical-data.php

Intel of the Inside

Opening up the case the amplifier is neatly constructed in a dual mono design that is both clean and well executed. It runs signal in through a couple NE5532 opamps handling input buffering and 2 transistors mounted to small heat sinks at the gain stage. Power is run in through a linear supply (power cord swaps and tweakery are available through a standard IEC socket). Voltage spins its way through a 22 volt Alfamag transformer that is then routed through a bank of 8 1000uf capacitors.... 8000uf at the power supply for a 2.2 watt headphone amp! Most impressive.

Audiophile reasoning would state that this hefty endowment of capacitors will yield robust and full low end but that remains to be seen.

On the output side we have Burr Brown OPA551's which are high voltage high current opamps... High voltage, high current output is a fundamental part of Fried's design philosophy so the Opa551 mounted to the board at the output make complete sense. Finally an ALPS RK14 pot handles volume and headphones plug in through 2 silver plated Neutrik 1/4" headphone jacks.... I happen to like having dual jacks as you can plug in different headphones for different music/ and or listen to music while you burn in a set of headphones but be careful about sensitivity and resistance if you leave a headphone connected while listening through another because if you've got say a Denon D5k connected with very low resistance and are listening through a current hungry ortho.... you are liable to destroy the Denon in the process. It is also worth noting that plugging another set of headphones while listening through one, I heard no drop off, no volume change, no noise or static, nothing. The jacks don't seem to affect the performance of the other even the slightest.

A few other things to note is that there are jumpers to switch from AC to DC coupling and a ground lift jumper inside to alleviate hum in the circumstance that your power source is causing some noise.

What's It Sound Like:

Beyond all the prettiness and techno jumble it really boils down to one thing, and that is sound.

After running it in for the weekend tethered to my HP laptop, The first couple listening sessions I was staggered by just how good my Hifiman ortho headphones sounded. I had thought they had some serious limitations on them because I heard low frequency distortion and upper register frayed edges whenever I took it above a certain volume with other amps and my portable kit....

First in regard to its tone or sound signature, the V90 seems to have a very even, linear tone. Lows were present, weighty and full. Mids were smooth, warm and alive. Highs were detailed, crisp and snappy without drifting into sharp or sibilant. The full width of the frequency spectrum seems to have been amplified evenly. Kudos! I honestly do enjoy a bassy sound with thick punchy low end, but I would rather get this through the use of an EQ or tone controls upstream, not by default through heavy coloration of the amp.... The V90 does what it should.... amplify the signal that it is given.

The V90 has nearly 2 full watts of current on tap and the current exits the amp through an output with essentially zero resistance.... This allows the V90 to take a firm muscular grip on my Hifiman drivers and it shows in the sound. Damping is excellent. Low notes are tight, and controlled while still being forceful and satisfyingly visceral in their attack. Mid range while not being overly lush and romantic is still well played. Guitars ride a livewire to my ear and sound potent and fun. The grippy nature of the amp may also seems to sharpen up and straighten out transients that as of late have seemed injected with static out at the edges.

Moving to a very fun but testy headphone, my Denon D5k's also showed improvements with the outstanding damping and the bass that can creep into looseness was tightened up as well as sometimes over sharp treble seems to have had its frayed edges smoothed out without being clipped off.

All in all words like: Linear, Potent, Well Damped, Confident, Anchored all come to mind when listening to this amp.

A headphone can act very differently given the amp that it is tethered too. Headphones each have their own sonic attributes that they impose on a song.... My Ultrasone Pro900's will often fill the soundstage with this thick, dark, robust, bass throbbing air that subwoofer like low notes just naturally bounce out of.... likewise my Denon's will offer the same throbbing bass lines but will drain the thickness from the air drifting back to a more neutral point in between low frequency hits. They each have their own coloration..... my Hifiman HE400's have even less mass than the Denons and instead offer a natural airiness and crispness to the stage from which notes jump out but are more resolved, sharp and less rotund.

The V90 doesn't seem to impact the coloration of these headphones at all the Pro900s are still thick, murky and slamstastic, the Denon still lighter but just as visceral in their bass.... Rather it seems the V90 steadies them.... adds a level of stoutness and sure footedness to the songs and anywhere that there seemed to be some sloppiness or raggedness before is now full, anchored, damped!

Compared to my similarly priced portable amp.... it flat out leaves it in the dust. The portable simply doesn't have the horses to keep up.

The $565 ALO Audio Continental starts to get speed wobbles, ortho drivers are spooked and sound a bit nervous, split ends have regrown on the transient edges, low frequency stoutness has given way to a looseness and it all feels much less surfooted and confident.

The Continental is just that.... a 1967 Continental driving the freeway. Once up to speed its unsure and showing speed wobbles, your natural inclination is to take your foot off the gas and slow down. The Violectric is a BMW M5, smashing ahead violently fast, sure footed as f@#k, anchored hard to the road but without losing so much as an inch of form.... locked onto the highway... It's confident as it flies down the audio Autobahn at 200mph on its way to sonic bliss.

I am certain there are qualities in the upper range of this line that justify their significantly higher price tag.... but for the money... a scant $440.00 + shipping, I cannot think of a better amp to pair with planar magnetic headphones.

Little brother to the V100, V181 and V200 maybe.... but a bad ass nonetheless.

Firestone Audio - Spitfire

2012-09-05T14:41:00.003-07:00

DAC reviews always seem a bit like a crap shoot to me.... At least like trying to draw broad stroke differences between two items with very minute differences in sound. Usually I think your average DAC reviewer is painting a far more contrasting picture than actually exists. Differences between $1000 DACs like the Rega and $200 beater like the Firestone Spitfire are there.... but oh so difficult to identify.... Review sites like to characterize DACs as warm, full bodied, lean, neutral, lush etc.... but I tend to believe that a DAC leaves a nearly indistinguishable fingerprint on music..... if it were to do otherwise you could argue that it is malfunctioning but it does make for some good copy.

The Spitfire MKII sells for anywhere from $200 to $260 USD. Right now there are a couple different vendors selling on Amazon for around $206.00 however most audio focused vendors seem to be selling them closer to the MSRP $260.00 price point. And so with a couple clicks of the mouse, I had a Spitfire MkII on its way to my house.

The Spitfire MKII adds a USB 2.0 input, where the first run Spitfires were limited to optical and coaxial. The USB 2.0 input has to run through a USB 2.0 plug in your laptop or computer. If you plug it into a Super-Speed or power boost USB hub... you will be met with some nasty static and feedback in your signal chain that will not be so overt that it will be obvious... It'll will scratch and crack at the edge of transients... which drives deep fear into the music lover that their new piece of kit is either crappy or exposing their itunes library for a bunch of compressed junk... Take heart, simply move the cable into a proper USB 2.0 and you're all good. The Firestone USB 2.0 does not play well with USB 3.0 so make sure you're using the correct USB hub without "SS" markings or a lightning bolt.... Its one of those things that would seem obvious to some, but could cause some unnecessary grief for people who aren't aware of the class of their USB inputs. It's also not a cut and dry thing since I can use my little laptop stalwart Fiio DAC and my reference Rega through the SS and powered hub without a problem.... The Spitfire, for whatever reason, is not so forgiving.

The only real knock I have on this device is that the RCA jacks on the Spitfire do not inspire confidence. They seem very fragile and should I connect cable to brusquely or without taking care, are likely to snap of whatever connectors hold them in place. I cannot say for certain that they will fail, but seem likely to fail if one were to be pulling and re-connecting RCA lines constantly. Based on the uneasy feeling I got connecting it to my desktop amp, it is not the type of DAC you want to include in a semi portable set up that you are going to be breaking down each evening to throw in your bag. My own impression is that these jacks won't hold up. Rather than tempt fate, I've opted to just buy a pair of RCA cables specifically for the Spitfire so if I need to connect or disconnect another DAC or swap amps, I just pull the wires on the other side of the chain.

Intel of the Inside

The Spitfire uses a Burr Brown PCM 2704 USB Receiver chip to a DIR9001 digital audio interface on to a Burr Brown PCM 1793 DAC chip with 24/96hz capability. The PCM 1793 is a solid DAC chip though not quite a super desirable chip in view of the audiophile elite.... However implementations matter and I dare say Firestone has gotten as much out of this 1793 as most will get out of the much higher regarded 1794. Final output buffering is done by a socketed LM4562 opamp which can be rolled to affect the sound but I would recommend that most don't.... Things like gain, voltage, slew rate etc... can have a profound effect on audio signal quality and despite audiophile tendencies towards tweakery, swapping opamps from designers rarely results in positive results.... people may report or hear improvements but beneath the hood they may be causing harm to the signal for the sake of slapping in their favorite Burr Brown OPA627.

The USB input is limited to 16/44 but considering I won't be running anything other than iTunes through USB it's perfectly fine for me.... It won't be upsampling my music and to me that is all good. Many place a DAC's value in the so called resolution that it is capable of and see anything lower than 24/96 as primitive. I don't see (hear) much difference between 16/44 and 24/96 myself.... but I understand that I may be in the minority here.

For the sake of stirring the pot I'll just say that most if not all of the audible spectrum (key word there is audible!) can be captured in a 16/44 playback and certainly in 24/96... the freak or two out there that can hear beyond a -8db noise floor or wants to destroy their ears with 130 db onslaughts..... or happens to be able to hear beyond normal human range of 20khz well I guess they'll have to take exception to this rig. By all means they can spend more for 24 or even 32/192hz to capture sonic frequencies only a bat or dog can make out.

The reason 24/192 or 24/96 is used as a recording and mastering tool is essentially to provide a frequency buffer on either side of the audible spectrum when studios are miked up for a session.... they capture everything but when mastering is done this frequency fluff on either side is removed and you are left with 44Khz of range that is honestly way to wide for human hearing anyway.

If you don't believe me.... go buy a dog whistle.... blow it as loud as you possibly can.... you may in theory be able to pick up some piercing ultrasonic sound that is very very faint..... more likely you will hear nothing.... you know what frequency that sound is at? Between 24K and 50Khz... but audiophiles feel like they are being shortchanged and cannot truly enjoy music unless the range runs up to 96khz or 192Khz.... lately we've been seeing dacs coming out that are 384khz.... It really is just absurd gimmickry and people have got to get informed so they'll stop. OEM sell what the public wants... right now the public wants asynchronous USB, DSD and high resolution audio.... despite very little evidence that any of those things improve sound quality in the audible spectrum.

I'd rather an OEM gave me an awesomely implemented DAC for 16/44 maybe.... maybe 16/48 TOPS! but everything beyond that.... upsampling etc.... is a waste of money on stuff you can't hear!

Build Quality

Besides the big question mark I have regarding the durability of the RCA jacks, this really is a nicely executed device. I've done some more fiddling with the RCA jacks and though I see why I may have been initially pensive about their durability.... the more I look at them the more I am inclined to believe they are up to snuff. Because the overall build is somewhat dainty, I may have been expecting a bit too much.

The Spitfire is much smaller than I had envisioned as it measures a mere 4" long x 3" wide x 2" tall, however it is still a very nice looking little box. An array of LED lights along the front face display, power, signal lock, playback status, and USB connection status.... The black anodized aluminum face is roughly 10mm thick with a small grain blasted finish and the "SPITFIRE MKII" print on the face is printed with white paint.

The sides and back are anodized aluminum with a very fine grain blasted finish and ribbing along both sides. It's not exactly saying "LOOK AT ME" like some of the more handsome components in my collection, but it is a "cute" form factor. It doesn't scream high end, but it is well done for the price point it sits in. Also if I opted to build out my computer audio set up exclusively with Firestone Audio components, they are all shipped in identically sized enclosures so you can stack amps, PSU's and DAC's into a neat 4" x 3" tower without taking up much desktop space. I actually have the separate "Supplier" power unit coming so we'll see (A) if it adds anything to the sound and (B) just how cute these little boxes look stacked.

The Sound

Mind you I don't have extensive experience with DAC's. I've used some older NOS Chinese cheapies with my Stereo setup but usually played these out of speakers and I have a Rega dac that I use as a reference. And I assume my Krell dock system has an internal DAC but they are pretty tight lipped if not silent about conversion technology in the Krell Papa Dock/ Kid system.... hell they even go to the length of explaining that there is nothing serviceable inside machine (which you'd expect something servicable inside a $3500 digital integrated amp... but hey I was all about Made in the USA when I bought the Krell... Now they make their stuff in China.... oh well.

That said after listening to the Firestone Audio DAC I don't see any need to upgrade my laptop set up from this point or keep searching for my DAC. I have found it.

I did some switching from my Carver receiver, my Pioneer vintage rig my laptop staple Fiio E10 and the Firestone and the one thing that stood out with headphones (I did not test it through speakers) was the extra weight that Firestone brought to the fight. It sounds more dense, has more impact and is full bodied. I love the little Fiio E10 with iTunes using the little bass boost switch as it made a number of tracks pretty close to the tonal density I like and seemed to add some extra oomph and weight to the full spectrum of sound, but the Firestone out does it in every regard. The bass and mid range on the Firestone are strong, robust and hard hitting. But they are not overpowering even with bass heavy cans like my Denon D5000's. The bass is big and weighty and thick but does not get boomy to where it starts impeding on the quality of mid range sound. I actually was so surprised when I heard it that I went scrolling through my settings on my computer to see if I had the bass enhancer on in the Sound settings or a weird EQ set up in my iTunes presets.... nope. The Firestone people have done good.

What is more is that the Spitfire is able to mine down deep into the lower frequencies to get all the meat out of the song without forgetting about the quality of the upper-mids and treble. Transients like cymbal crashes, and the constant snap of the high hat have a more analog quality... The Spitfire provides a clear and clean upper mid range and treble. Some of my "hotter" recordings are older punk albums recorded in small studios with likely some sub par gear. In the wrong setting, with the wrong cans and the wrong volume level I can hit a note or two every once in a while that will scorch my ears and nerves with white hot treble.... kinda like that little knee buckling zinger you'll get every once in a while at your dentist when he zaps a sensitive spot along your root (egh it makes me shiver to think about it). With the Spitfire in charge of laying everything down, there is none of the high harsh sibilance or brightness that moves beyond enjoyable.... The treble is there, but it sounds like a cymbal being hit on a drum kit not a screeching hiss coming out of my headphones to claw at my ear drums.

The treble is detailed and its is present but it has a very smoothed out quality to it, especially when I contrast it to my Fiio and older NOS Chinese Valab knock off with its 40 some odd 1543 Phillips chips (kidding).

I imagine it sounds how it did when the band played it. The Spitfire has a very A N A L O G sound to its decoding of digital.

I guess the best compliment I can give this little device is that it made me excited about my music library again. I haven't been spending a lot of time with my iTunes library recently. With this little device tethered to the laptop I am excited to go back through my library and enjoy tracks that I hadn't for a while. If Operation Ivy sounds this good, how is Jawbreaker going to sound?

The Spitfire isn't exactly audiophile grade device. If only because it's Chinese heritage and diminutive form factor make it a non-starter for many a stodgy audiophile. However for the more common folk like myself who are interested in getting big gains in sound quality without breaking the bank and who simply want to enjoy their music library with a set it and forget device, the Spitfire deserves consideration. It has earned big scores from big shots reviewers and in my experience, it deserves it. It will give you huge improvements over your on board computer and leaves the budget grade DAC's in the dust. It makes inherently hot iTunes music sound much more analog and live.

It's an awesome little DAC.

Try it, you'll like it.

24/192 - The Emperor's New Bit Rate

2012-08-24T15:54:00.000-07:00

24/192. Audio Nirvana. Without this infinitely wide and laser sharp digital sampling rate, many Digital to Analog converter are often labeled as cheap, poorly engineered, archaic, and not worth the money that other upsampling 24/192 DAC's offer.

24/192.... sounds like a ridiculously razor sharp audio resolution.... Up to and beyond studio mastering up to and (sadly) well beyond what the human ear can even hear.
So what does 24/192 get us in a world full of 16/44 CD's and iTunes?

Not a whole lot.

The purpose of buying a DAC is because one wants to be able to access A.there music library from B. a digital source.... 9 times out of 10 the library (A) is iTunes and the source (B) is their laptop or desktop computer. Millions of people have billions of songs archived into iTunes libraries comprised of 256k and Apple Lossless formatted music. Many people rip CD's to completely uncompressed WAV format audio but even these are ripped from CD's

The highest end consumer grade recordings are generally 16/44.... so where does the 24/192 play into it?

It plays into it with a weird community of music lovers who obsessively and often misguidedly view 24/192 music as vastly superior to 16/44kz files. As a matter of fact damn near a whole branch of pseudo science has been created by these non-scientifically trained audiophiles to support their claims. There claims are that the total db spectrum of 16 bit files does not cover the full range of the audible spectrum.... this is partially true, but truth with a severe blind spot. The full audible spectrum of a 16 bit file is 120 db.... this would cover sounds varying from deafening, like operating a jackhammer without ear protection, to standing in an empty recording studio and being able to hear the buzzing sound of incandescent light bulbs in the room.

Now if some feel that they will be missing out because they don't feel they can "clearly" hear what light fixtures the Rolling Stones had in the room when they recorded their last studio album.... I am sorry but these people will never be happy. Likewise if they want to be able to drive themselves to hearing loss and hearing damage by hearing onslaught of sonic waves so potent that they damage their ears within minutes.... then by all means chase after Nirvana.... but the truth is that 16/44 or 16/48 pretty much covers the full width of audible hearing..... when audiophiles march into the 44khz, 96khz & 192khz discussion they often leave what human being are actually able to hear behind for the sake of pure sound waves, regardless of whether or not humans can hear them.

Full disclosure here. I am not a scientist. I am an engineer. But not in the audio or electronics world. I am simply a music lover who has read up on the subject and who has grown weary of watching DAC manufacturers chase after resolution (and the added cost of that resolution) when it provides no true value for consumers. The 24/192 resolution argument is largely based on the fact that master grade studio recordings are captured in this format.... the thing that well informed recording engineers know is that they record with 24/192 because that is what the equipment is able to pick up.... and it gives them safe zone padding on either side of the audible range. It is not to capture extra details in the studio and then rob consumers of them by clipping off the edges when they decimate the track for burning to CD's. The electronic equipment is able to capture at this level....well beyond the spectrum of human hearing. But it doesn't mean humans can hear all of it.

The truth is that 16/44 not only provides a full and complete dynamic range for people to enjoy their music but it does so an a very efficient and effective way. 192hz files are more prone to distortion because the wavelength being amplified is so long and can actually degrade audio quality in the wrong system.... Namely amplifiers that are not effectively linear.

And who do these DAC manufacturers market 24/192 to?
iTunes does not have studio grade master tracks that even come close to this format.... so who is using it?
A small minority of people who to some extent force themselves to only listen to certain artists that can be had on HD Tracks.

HD Tracks is to iTunes was Kismet or Tagged is to Facebook.... a small obscure narrowly focused version of the same thing.... Audiophiles frequent HD Tracks which is comprised of largely of Diana Krall, Norah Jones and Chesky Records albums..... to be fair some of the Chesky Records stuff is pretty cool and I do like Norah Jones.... but I could never limit myself to only listening to one record label or a handful or artists simply because they offer higher resolution files..... and the terms higher resolution is itself a misguided statement (although universally used)..... 24 bit music does not offer more bits per word therefore higher resolution.... it offers a slightly wider dynamic audible range that is comprised almost exclusively of db in neighborhoods humans cannot hear..... so what is it good for?

It sounds impressive! It certainly makes music lovers searching for a DAC more prone to view a 24/192 DAC as superior to a lowly 16/44 or 24/96 DAC and it costs more.... so OEM's can charge more.

I do agree that a less compressed audio signal sounds better.... but this is a whole different ballgame.... we're talking the frequency range and dynamic audible range of playback.... and in this regard a CD (16/44) does just fine.

And the truth is that the added cost of 24/192 robs consumers of improvements that could be made elsewhere that would improve audio quality.... smoother more linear circuit design, higher quality DAC chips, well engineered USB implementation, refinement of power sources, better connectivity options.... there are plenty of places where the sound quality and the devices themselves could be improved that would be money well spent.... sadly this is not one of them.

Music Lover or Audiophile? The LCD2/ Hifiman Challenge

2012-08-24T13:19:00.002-07:00

My first foray into the orthodynamic market was the Hifiman HE400 headphone. It offered the clarity of an ortho without the thousand dollar price tag... It also offers some tremendous bass and musicality in an orthodynamic package that is cheaper than many higher end Dynamic models from companies such as Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, Grado and Denon.

After having the HE400's for a few months, I knew that I wanted the Audeze LCD2 in my line up as well. I figure if the Hifiman sounds so sweet with a portable unit like the Continental and the National, so should the Audeze.

When I received my pair of Audeze LCD2's the one thing that is the most striking about them right of the bat, is their appearance... They have this sort of "High End DIY" quality to them with the wood cups, angled pads and large plastic grills. They are very heavy but when put on your head are some of the most comfortable headphones I have ever worn. I imagine on hot days in the summer, if you were to wear them outside you would experience some unpleasant sweat on the pads, but overall they are just beautifully crafted cans. I was not shy about putting the wood care wax on them and before I'd even strapped them on my head, they were glistening with a fresh coat of wax.

I plugged the Audeze's into my desktop amp, a Violectric V90 to take a listen.... It is my understanding that orthodynamic headphones do not require burn in or break in.... but to be safe I did run them for about 8 hours at medium low volume before trying them out.

After a full work day of sitting idle on my desk, I strapped them on to take a listen.... Very clear, very spacious, and I am happily bobbing my head to Creedence Clearwater Revival, a ripped CD in Lossless format. Shortly thereafter I switched over to some more modern music... Smashing Pumpkins, some Gorillaz and Vampire Weekend.

These are technically amazing headphones however doing A/B comparisons with my Hifiman entry level orthos I was left with one distinct impression.... "Where is that monster Audeze bass?" they did not seem to be offering much in the way of lower frequency horsepower at all...... as I continued to listen to them for maybe an hour or so with intermittently switching back to the Hifiman's, I began to understand the Audeze sound and the draw of these $1k cans.... To be fair they are beautifully clear and offer exceptional resolve. Probably one of if not the best studio monitoring headphones I could imagine are out there along with the Sennheiser HD800. However the clarity that they offer and the ability to see the bottom of the lowest lows and the top of highest highs has its drawbacks.

The LCD2's are a very laid back headphone. I do not mean laid back like mellow, or slow, I mean laid back like recessed. The sound seems just a hair bit too far away, especially through the lower mid range and upper bass. Which to me is one of, if not the most important parts.This was the area, based on other reviews, where I was expecting the LCD2 to be most impressive and the most forward. Instead what I heard is a headphone that can resolve the deepest hip hop, rock, techno and jazz bass lines and frequencies without blinking an eye. It can present tremendously complex passages with ease. Ridiculously fast and multi-layered low end as well as challenging complex layers of mid range can be heard without the slightest sign of distortion.... you just can't feel it at all.

I listened to a number of WAV. format ripped CD's to see if higher quality source material would bring the LCD's to life but sadly they are just built that way.... mind you they are still very musical, very wonderful and very comfortable. I listened to CCR's greatest hits and was enthralled by the music coming from these headphones..... A glass of bourbon, LCD2's and CCR are just what I needed Friday night, but the truth is that when I swapped them out for the Hifiman HE400's.... the HE400's had a much more forward, much fuller, richer and tonally dense presentation..... the Audeze's lacked the body and tonal density.... They seemed to be so recessed in such key areas that I felt I was missing out on something. They were technically far superior to the HE400s and the HE400's will distort on more challenging arrangements far sooner than the LCD2's will. But the Hifiman cans present the music in a far more engaging and "live" sounding way. The Hifiman phones are rich, dense, weighty and full bodied.... sometimes to their determent when something comes along that they cannot handle, but in between those moments when the HE400's are overloaded by sonic signals.... They are so much more enjoyable for a music lover.

The strength of the Audeze cans is their clarity. Any sound that you throw at them will be resolved and executed perfectly.... BUT (and it is a big but) they do so in a way that is more tuned for studio engineers to monitor recording than for a music lover to enjoy it. You hear it all perfectly and you can hear all the way through a song... But you cannot immerse yourself in the music..... they are monitoring headphones to me in that regard..... not high fidelity music lover cans.

As a headphone they are physically one the most handsome I have seen. All metal, leather and wood.... The only plastic on these cans is on the screens, and the adjustment blocks... but I am not an audiophile who wants to analyze music or criticize a piece of kit.... I want to experience the music, enjoy the music and feel the music... In this regard, between the 2, I imagine I would reach for the Hifiman more often.

Does this mean the Emperor has no clothes? Of course not. The Audeze headphones are some of the most technically proficient and well crafted headphones on the market. I am an American so want the boys from Fountain Valley to do well. What they are offering for $1K is maybe a slightly less musical headphone that hangs its hat on a level of precision I personally have never experienced..... And for some people, precision and perfection are top priorities.... for me not so much.

I still highly recommend that people experience these headphones.... but if you are going to drop $1K on a set of cans.... you should understand what you are getting..... you are not getting full bodied musicality, you are getting precision and technical performance, clarity and resolution..... all good things.... to the right person.

Full Throttle - The Continental by ALO Audio

2012-08-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

The Continental by ALO Audio

ALO Audio has been in the boutique cable market for a number of years offering up custom headphone re-cables, iPod line-out-docks, and other custom interconnects. They specialize in cryogenic treated copper and silver coated copper wires and their cables come with inordinately soft jacket. There is a great aesthetic value to these braided copper and silver interconnects and re-cables. And I do find myself wishing my cables and interconnects looked like theirs but the price range is just a little too steep for me.

In 2009 Ken Ball and his company ALO Audio served up their first foray into the portable headphone amplifier market with the ALO Rx. It was reviewed positively and was shortly followed by the Rx Mk2 which is still sold on their website today. After 18 months of product development and some sticky issues with their OEM in China ALO Audio released a hybrid tube amplifier in 2011 called The Continental. It was received warmly by the head-fi community. Too warmly in fact and the first wave of Continentals sold out in 2 months. The Raytheon 6111 tubes that ALO uses in these amps are limited old stock military spec tubes and sourcing them is difficult and finite. Once the supply runs out, it is gone for good. So the Continental is by its very nature a limited edition piece of audio equipment. Whether than means it'll retain value as a collectors piece for audiophiles remains to be seen. I honestly don't view audio equipment as an investment... it's all about the sound, but I would be lying if I didn't admit that I think there is something special about the Continental. After the initial run, ALO released the Continental V2 which included a low/high gain switch for use with IEM's and updated the casework from a glossy finish to a more eggshell matte finish.

Out of the box it is surprisingly big for a portable amp measuring 2 ¾” W x 4 ½ L x 1” thick. It is definitely one of the bigger portable amps I’ve seen and seems far more likely to serve as a desktop iPod amp or hand held portable than something I would throw in my pants pocket on the go. Size wise it's right up there with the Lisa 3 and in my world size = sound. It is a substantial piece of portable High-fi equipment and the build quality is top notch.

The overall aesthetics of it are some of the nicest I have seen. It comes in either silver paint with black graphics or black paint and silver graphics. I have the black version and really enjoy the eggshell finish paint on the new V2 version and retro inspired styling. It certainly takes styling cues from the 50's/ 60's era that birthed the suicide doored Lincoln sedan from which it borrows its namesake. The packaging and aesthetics exudes a very rockabilly look. Given my love for all things Social Distortion and Mike Ness, this is all good. I've long since retired my Doc Martens, and my slam dancing days are over, but if there is an amp out there using styling cues I can identify with, this is it.

Battery life is stated as just 8 hours with a 3 to 4 hour recharge. I am not a fan of running lithium ion batteries down to their to ground since I paid for this puppy. I will take their word for it on this.

It comes with a wall wart power supply with LED indicator light on it, and 3 ALO Audio tagged rubber straps. ALO also offers a cricket LOD for the iPod that works with the Continental and keeps the line out wire in a lower profile than the volume pot but I am not the type to spend so much on cables. So the Fiio L3 was my LOD for the review. One other note here for me. I am more inclined to strap the iPod on the side that doesn't have venting for the tube but this configuration means the input to the amp is on the left side. Most side exiting LOD, including ALO's cricket, exit on the right so you have to stack the iPod on top of the vents. I understand the vents and the graphics are the "Top" and you don't want to set it face down on the iPod but it would be nice if one or the other were inverted. I don't like setting my iPod right on top of the vents, not too mention all the styling cues end up covered by the iPod. Is it harmless? Probably. It's just a little hang up I have. All this stuff really doesn't matter in the long run. I can buy a straight interconnects to work around it, and I will overlook little design issues if it sounds good. Because ultimately that what it is about.

First Up - The Naked and Famous: Apple iPod

Running my Hifiman HE400's and HE300's direct from the iPod’s headphone jack the music was very forward and crowded. From the vocals, to the drums to the bass lines, everything was pushed into a tight space and right up in your face like they were standing right in front of you. I did get the distinct impression that the lead vocals were literally singing two inches from my nose. At the part in Vampire Weekends "Giving Up the Gun" when the drums come charging back into the song for the final sequence there was some nasty distortion accompanying the snare drum. It was likely part of the recording, because I heard it through the amp as well but it was overwhelming through the iPod. The sheer onslaught of sounds made things a bit muddled. At loud volumes the iPod generally produces chaos. Most of the details were there to be appreciated but I felt like I had to look past the lead singer or ignore part of the music to appreciate another part. Literally like you had to lean to the side to look past the lead singer to get a view of the sound coming from the background singers or guitar. And certain background instruments (like the congas during the breakdown) were nearly impossible to hear.

I had to turn the volume pot on the Continental to roughly 12 o' Clock on high gain to match the maxed out volume on the iPod using Hifiman HE400’s. This initially bothered me, as I didn't seem to be getting much extra power for the $565 I had spent.... high gain, twelve o clock and I've match the max power on the iPod. I was expecting a more responsive throttle from the Continental and more headroom. At 12 o' Clock it is a pretty healthy volume to listen at and my SQ comparison was done at this roughly matched volume. But I did want to know what this amp was capable of, so I throttled up the pot on the Continental to 3 o' Clock giving the Continental some room to open up, it obviously has a tapered gain as the last 1/4 of the pot exponentially increased the volume. It was responsive and fast and it ate up all decibels the Hifiman HE400 had to offer quickly bringing the HE-400 to its limit . However this didn't happen cleanly.... The amp didn't control the signal well at all. Instead clipping and distortion was very apparent at this point and we were still at a volume where I could listen without experiencing pain. Going much further beyond 3:00 would be beyond volume levels I imagine anyone human would want to listen to music at (besides hard core headbangers) and even then the model seems a tad underpowered for these current hungry planar headphones. So there isn't a massive amount of headroom but just enough. More demanding ortho-dynamic headphones like the HE-6 are certain to need a little more current that this amp has to offer.

So in regard to its most basic and fundamental duty, amplifier, the Continental does decent with the HE-300 & I dare say is a bit weak with the HE-400. It can easily take them to their limit decibel wise but I'd expect for this type of cash outlay to be able to push the volume with more linearity and without so much transient hash and clipping introduced into the sound. To be fair at 3 o' Clock on the pot it still was still very musical in its presentation. But the snap of snare drums and crash of the cymbals was a bit more harsh at this volume and I had expected the Continental to have bit more horsepower and not to go into speed wobbles so quickly on the freeway. Overall the Continental was able to soar pretty high but did show some break in form at high volume.

As far as sound stage, switching from the iPod’s headphone jack to the Continental, the most immediate and obvious difference that I noticed was that lead vocals are not as in your face, they seem to have taken five steps back to join the band or I have gotten off the stage and taken a seat in the front row. The sound stage is not as crowded in, upfront and narrow, we are not in a tiny club anymore (standing on stage) were at a concert hall. There is good, very good separation between instruments and everything is more balanced with nothing really overpowering anything. It really is amazing to hear the differences here.

I’ve always been quite a bit skeptical of the reviews talking about wide sound stages, warm colored amps, amps that are more bass heavy than others etc. I’ve always looked at these reviews with a grain of salt. I wouldn’t say I am a full-fledged objective guy, who thinks people hear what they want to hear but am definitely skeptical of some of the subjective audiophile tendencies to view amps like fine wine which has its own distinct flavor. However switching back and forth over and over I cannot deny that the Continental offers a significant improvement in the balance, presentation and virtual image through which the band is playing. With the vocals not so overpowering and in your face I was able to appreciate more details of the music and that is ultimately what it is about for me, enjoying music to its fullest.

Through the range of frequencies the Continental performed well. The treble could get a little shrill and cutting at high volumes but that probably has more to do with the source material than the amp if anything is softened and smoothed it compared to how it sounded coming out of the iPod. Mid range was very good, live sounding and strong. It is a mid low/ mid/ mid high voiced amp (if there is such a thing as a voiced amp) and definitely excels in and around the mid range. The Bass and percussion was full bodied, and thick through the mid lows on most rock, alternative, electronic etc. However it rolls off pretty severely on deep passages like Linkin Park’s ‘Wretches and Kings’. It wasn’t able to fully articulate the deep bass hits and this was a symptom I found multiple times in hip hop music and low bass heavy tracks. It just can’t quite get underneath it and push it. But I guess that is to be expected with a tube amp that is completely rolled off by 40hz as it's starting point for range of frequency. So this isn’t an amp for your die hard hip hop lover or bass head.Through your mid bass range which is omnipresent in electronic dance music, and is a more common bass rhythm in rock, pop and other popular genres it has plenty of bass and what is more, the bass is strong, thick and decent when not played to loudly.

In regard to sound quality, the more I listen to this amp the more the word "beautiful" pops into my head when listening to music at lower levels.... It doesn't have a tubey, syrupy analog sound, but it's almost like if a Solid State paints in black and white and a tube amp paints in color.... this amp just adds colors to the lines.... There is just this sweetness in the transients, high notes and mid range decay that is amazing. Places where you'd often find harshness or flattened out signal... like transients, symbal crashes, screeching guitars....the Continental just adds this small dose of sweet beauty to the edges.... It really is a wonderful portable amp in that regard.

It has a decent synergy with orthos through most mellow genres and some rock and roll type music. But it does lose composure with complex bass heavy music like Muse, especially as the volume gets higher... The amp is more apt to start clipping and sounding dirty. With heavy synth like Muse or Hip Hop I find myself switching over to my Ultrasone Pro900’s because of its thick low end sound it was able to help the Continental along in the lower end, but this invites a new problem as the Pro900 has a sharp frequency spike around 6k or 7k.... the Continental was able to smooth out some of the harsh treble that cuts through in the Pro900 but sometimes I still found the pairing to be severely fatiguing.... Sitting listening to music and counting the "S" sounds in a song is not my idea of a good time.

One big issue with this amp is its size. It is a full 4.5” x 2.75” x 1” and with an iPod strapped to it is quite a big brick of a portable sound system to carry around. It would work well as a hand held device or in a jacket pocket, but it is far too big to stick in your jeans pocket and is not practical in the gym. Portability is allowable with this amp, but not optimized. If someone is looking for a tiny amp to strap to an iPod that can be stuffed in their pants pocket or gym shorts for workouts... they may want to look at the much smaller yet potent amps from Ray Samuels or look at a CMoy.

Size = Sound but limits the portability of this amp

All in all I enjoy the Continental but given the distortion and clipping and seeming lack of current on tap for orthos.... I ended up shipping mine back to ALO for a refund.... Not to deride the people over at ALO but I had to make multiple phone calls in order to get them to issue a refund.... It's not a huge deal but it was a bit bothersome that they had the amp in their warehouse for almost a full month, and I had to make 4 seperate phone calls over the course of the last two weeks and hand to act a bit belligerent on the phone in the final call in order to to get my refund issued.... It's never fun having to be a squeaky wheel with a merchant.