Personal Audio

Prem, just using the big standard cable at the moment but have a spare hd650 cable standing by for conversion to balanced. You can buy such a cable ready made for about £40 I think.

Richard Dane posted:

Prem, just using the big standard cable at the moment but have a spare hd650 cable standing by for conversion to balanced. You can buy such a cable ready made for about £40 I think.

Ok Thanks Richard.

Richard Dane posted:

I seem to be listening to the Pono/HD600 combo more than anything else these days

Off-topic question: do you prefer the HD600 to the HD650 or is there another reason why you use the 600?

Richard Dane posted:

I have a FLAC CD rip of Kate Bush's Never Forever playing and I'm in heaven...

... and another: what software do you use to rip FLAC?

I've got a little Fiio X2 that I use when on holiday with a set of Meze 99 Classics.  The sound is far better than you would expect given the modest cost of the Fiio.  The headphones sound brilliant fed by anything and are awesome fed by my Hugo. 

Jack, I have had the HD600s since they were first released (I wanted a pair of HD580 Jubilees but the HD600s had just replaced them).  I did try a pair of HD650s that were being used by a colleague and didn't see any reason to change.  

I have used DBpoweramp.

Well, it looks like the Pono may have to be my primary music player for the next few days, maybe a week, maybe longer...  We had a temporary generator installed this morning to give us power until the poles up the road are replaced, and it must be injecting lots of noise on the mains because the hifi systems are picking up a low level whine/hum and the SQ is not that great.  So, I've switched off the power amps for now until we're back on mains power again.  I've been told it should be done within a week, but could take longer as the road needs to be closed.  Then we'll see how long it takes BT to get the phone lines back up again...

Great timing for this thread as it coincides with a recent project of mine.  I have been using my iPhone running Tidal uncompressed for listening to new music.  I have been researching headphones this past month due to losing my trusty Etymotic ER4 IEM's which served me well for the past 10 years.  Wireless Bluetooth headphones have been exploding lately due to the absence of a headphone jack on the new iPhone 7.  I currently have two wireless pairs I am playing with at home - the B&W P7 Wireless and the B&O H9 with noise cancelling.  I have to admit both are extremely impressive.  The P7 Wireless is considered to be a substantial improvement over the P7 wired and I have to admit I am rather impressed with them.  It is incredible they are wireless.  The B&O H9 also do not sound bad - however I do not like them as much as the B&W.  Their main advantage is noise cancelling - and my main requirement for these headphones is for something to use on the plane.  With this scenario the B&O win out for use on the airplane - but the B&W P7W are so fun I might keep them to play with at home.

Here are my questions.  Before I commit to the P7 wireless for home I might want to explore further up the ladder.  My requirements are for something to use exclusively with my iPhone and Tidal - I do not want to get into a big headphone system with external amplifiers etc.  I have the 500 system for real listening.

Something to consider is the B&W P9 which is the top of the line wired headphone just above the P7 wireless.  I am also intrigued by the new Focal Elear - perhaps because I am under the impression (true or not?) that it may have a Naim sound due to the obvious link.

Sennheiser no - I had the HD650 a number of years ago and did not like them - imho no PRAT and boring.  I replaced them with a Grado RS1 in 2008 and found them much more to my liking.

My other question has to do with a portable amplifier/DAC.  Since the iPhone 7 has eliminated the headphone jack it almost seems to be a requirement - the phone's output is digital through the lightning port.  Apple supplies a $9 dongle with built in IC DAC/Amplifier however it is obviously lacking.  There is the Audioquest Dragon black or red - which would be ideal as it is a small dongle running from the iPhone.  There is the Chord Mojo - obviously larger however something which is right at the limit of what I would attach to the iPhone.

What I want to be able to do is sit in my chair holding my iPhone and using Tidal to sample the 30 million track all you can eat buffet of recorded music.

glevethan posted:

What I want to be able to do is sit in my chair holding my iPhone and using Tidal to sample the 30 million track all you can eat buffet of recorded music.

My Sony NW-ZX2 runs Tidal and sounds excellent with in-ears - I use it with ShureSE846. It has good battery life, and avoids caning the battery on your phone, which I find useful. Maybe not so good with on-ear headphones, but I haven't tried? 

With an iPhone buy the Lightning USB 3 dongle. This has a USB port as well as a Lightning port. With the Audioquest dragonfly in the USB port you can plug a charger into the lightning port. I use this in my car since the Dragonfly uses the iPhone/iPod battery when using the camera USB 2 dongle. 

First things first: I am an "olive" NaimHead. Bought Pono (but was considering A&K because it is much pricier, LOL!!) simply because Stereophile mag mentioned "Naim-sound" with Pono. You can see my Pono rig in System Pics 2017, IMHO it does not drive HD600 the way Lehmann's BlackCube does. 

Balanced cord for Pono is a Must! otherwise you are not getting what Pono is capable of!!!!!!! Buy an aftermarket cord or spend 15min with a soldering iron: I posted "how to" for Sennheisers at Pono community.  

My uneducated opinion is that Pono in balanced mode beats all my iPods, iModded or not fed into Emmeline SR71 or Hornet. 

Battery life in my aging Pono is about 5hrs with 16/44.1, so get ready to spend another $20 for an external powerpack... recharge after each listening session

Go balanced with Pono!!

Kirkpg posted:

With an iPhone buy the Lightning USB 3 dongle. This has a USB port as well as a Lightning port. With the Audioquest dragonfly in the USB port you can plug a charger into the lightning port. I use this in my car since the Dragonfly uses the iPhone/iPod battery when using the camera USB 2 dongle. 

The newer Lightning USB 3 dongle is apparently now a requirement. The original dongle, though preferable due to size, is confirmed to give the Dragonfly problems with the iPhone 7. 

Do you use your Dragonfly in the car or do you also it with headphones?  What is your take on it with headphones?

I have a Dragonfly Red in my office and it's very good indeed - a very mature sound. It's small, so people maybe dismiss it, but it really is superb, with a SQ very close to a Mojo at under half the price. I use it with Grado SR325e headphones and it's perfect. I think that set-up will meet your needs exactly. 

The Dragonfly Black is also excellent for the money - it's a bouncy puppy of a DAC, perfect for commuting. I use it with B&W P3 'phones, which are a bit lacklustre but the DAC makes them sound quite lively.  

For use at home, I would always go open-backed if it's socially acceptable. The P7s are very good, but not in the class of the Grado, Hifiman or Senn open-backed alternatives IMHO. 

sevs posted:

First things first: I am an "olive" NaimHead. Bought Pono (but was considering A&K because it is much pricier, LOL!!) simply because Stereophile mag mentioned "Naim-sound" with Pono. You can see my Pono rig in System Pics 2017, IMHO it does not drive HD600 the way Lehmann's BlackCube does. 

Balanced cord for Pono is a Must! otherwise you are not getting what Pono is capable of!!!!!!! Buy an aftermarket cord or spend 15min with a soldering iron: I posted "how to" for Sennheisers at Pono community.  

My uneducated opinion is that Pono in balanced mode beats all my iPods, iModded or not fed into Emmeline SR71 or Hornet. 

Battery life in my aging Pono is about 5hrs with 16/44.1, so get ready to spend another $20 for an external powerpack... recharge after each listening session

Hi Sevs, Just got a Pono will try balanced to hear the difference. A quick question regarding transferring music onto the Pono. I have tried ripping a CD in Pono music vault and then transferring to Pono. The rip worked ok eventually but the transfer is hopeless it is so slow and then fails. How do you transfer your music onto Pono?

Thanks Prem.

Solid Air posted:

I have a Dragonfly Red in my office and it's very good indeed - a very mature sound. It's small, so people maybe dismiss it, but it really is superb, with a SQ very close to a Mojo at under half the price. I use it with Grado SR325e headphones and it's perfect. I think that set-up will meet your needs exactly. 

The Dragonfly Black is also excellent for the money - it's a bouncy puppy of a DAC, perfect for commuting. I use it with B&W P3 'phones, which are a bit lacklustre but the DAC makes them sound quite lively.  

For use at home, I would always go open-backed if it's socially acceptable. The P7s are very good, but not in the class of the Grado, Hifiman or Senn open-backed alternatives IMHO. 

Have you compared the Dragonfly (B or R) directly to the Mojo?  I would be very interested to hear more.

Yes - I still have my Grade RS1 (open back) and a Dragonfly (or Mojo if I want to stretch going larger in size) should do the job for those out of the iPhone7+.

That is why keeping the P7 (closed back) for wireless might be a nice compliment.  Something though keeps itching me to try the top of the line P9 even though they are wired.  I really am impressed with what the P7 wireless are doing.

Still curious about the Focal Elear

I could not make PMV work on my PC, had to buy JRiver software. I transfer files using Windows, transfer does occasionally slow down to ~300kbps, then I just stop the transfer and start again. (My son explained to me why this happens, but I forgot. Will ask again).  With MicroSD cards I use the option of sticking 'em direct into laptop

glevethan posted:

Solid Air posted:

I have a Dragonfly Red in my office and it's very good indeed - a very mature sound. It's small, so people maybe dismiss it, but it really is superb, with a SQ very close to a Mojo at under half the price. I use it with Grado SR325e headphones and it's perfect. I think that set-up will meet your needs exactly. 

The Dragonfly Black is also excellent for the money - it's a bouncy puppy of a DAC, perfect for commuting. I use it with B&W P3 'phones, which are a bit lacklustre but the DAC makes them sound quite lively.  

For use at home, I would always go open-backed if it's socially acceptable. The P7s are very good, but not in the class of the Grado, Hifiman or Senn open-backed alternatives IMHO. 

Have you compared the Dragonfly (B or R) directly to the Mojo?  I would be very interested to hear more.

Yes - I still have my Grade RS1 (open back) and a Dragonfly (or Mojo if I want to stretch going larger in size) should do the job for those out of the iPhone7+.

That is why keeping the P7 (closed back) for wireless might be a nice compliment.  Something though keeps itching me to try the top of the line P9 even though they are wired.  I really am impressed with what the P7 wireless are doing.

Still curious about the Focal Elear

I compared the Dragonfly Red to a Mojo. 

The Mojo was a fraction better to my ears. It has a transparency and musicality that was very impressive. However, it was a very close call, and by no means was it a clear winner with every track, especially with the Jitterbug included (I use it with a computer rather than a phone). For all the enthusiasm for the FPGA technology, the two DACs both sounded very good, and I chose the Red because I wanted to keep my office set-up lower cost. 

For portable use I use the Black, and I haven't compared that to a Mojo, but I have to my Red. Definitely not as good if I compare them side by side, but it does have a puppyish quality which is rather appealing. It lives in my P3 headphone case so I have it to hand if I'm commuting or working somewhere noisy. The Mojo was a non-starter for this use as it's too big.

If you want the best sound quality, get a Mojo. But if you want to be able to use it on the move, or want something at less than half the price of a Mojo, the Dragonfly Red is very good.

I like my original Dragonfly 1.2 - although it does need to warm up to sound its best by being powered up for a while - its great for computer music and listening in the office - but if I am honest its poles apart from a Hugo or even a Naim DAC - the Dragonfly sounds clean and articulate but also a bit hifi - not that analogue sort of flowyou get from the other two DACs mentioned and certainly not the immersive feel from the Hugo

Ok the Dragonfly Red is supposed to be an upgrade on the original Dragonfly and the Mojo is supposed to have have a lesser performance that the Hugo - but even so its quite impressive if those two are sounding quite close in your setup?

Yes, to my ears the Red is a big step up from my old 1.2 (which developed a dodgy USB connection, hence getting the new Black). In fact, even the Black is better than my 1.2. And the Jitterbug really does seem to make a difference with the AQ DACs.

I do think the Mojo is better, but it is also more than twice the price for a small gain. I almost plumped for it anyway, but I just don't want my office system getting expensive - I only use it as background while I work, not to focus on the music, and the Red does a very fine job indeed. 

I have had a pono for many years. A James Taylor signature one if I remember rightly

i will not give another penny to pono. Their Eshop has been nothing but an ongoing set of lies and missed deadlines. It's not that I have zero faith in them - I am at -100 on a scale from 0 to +10 

May they rot in hell. 

you're a fan then?

Agreed! Excellent player (weirdly shaped for portable use though) but they decided to encroach onto HDTracks, Apple bought their service provider from under their feet and now they are in trouble. 

I hope that after Muso Naim will look into this and make a portable player. Whatever the cost, I will be the first to buy it!

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

you're a fan then?

My love is undying. A stupid shape. Awkward ui. Disgraceful desktop software. No eshop. 

Whats not to love?

Santa got me an AK 100II HCC DAP for Xmas. 200Gb capacity easily holds my 4,500 rips, including lengthy 2 hour Radio 1 Essentials mixes (MP3s).

While I wouldn't say it has a Naim sound, there is detail in my music (even in MP3) that I have not heard before. Of course the 'phones you use will make a difference. I use AKG Y50s for commuting and Grado 225s when at home.

The thing I especially like about this DAP is the fact that it can connect to my home network via wifi and stream my entire music collection without a single track being saved on the SD card.

Have not gone the balanced route yet, where I imagine there is even more detail to be had!

nj451 posted:

Santa got me an AK 100II HCC DAP for Xmas. 200Gb capacity easily holds my 4,500 rips, including lengthy 2 hour Radio 1 Essentials mixes (MP3s).

While I wouldn't say it has a Naim sound, there is detail in my music (even in MP3) that I have not heard before. Of course the 'phones you use will make a difference. I use AKG Y50s for commuting and Grado 225s when at home.

The thing I especially like about this DAP is the fact that it can connect to my home network via wifi and stream my entire music collection without a single track being saved on the SD card.

Have not gone the balanced route yet, where I imagine there is even more detail to be had!

For a fleeting moment I contemplated looking into DAP's.  In the end I decided that my phone is always in my pocket - even while at home.  I am going to use this primarily at home - and I want to also be able to run the TIDAL app so I can stream music I do not have.  I believe that some of the Sony DAP's run Android and thus can run Tidal.

Are people not enamored with the iPhone as a "transport" - i.e. housing FLAC files and streaming from Tidal?