The All Purpose Advice Thread

Getting some buzzing and noises on the right IEM of my Orion's. Figure there's something stuck on the driver, but I can't see into it. Anybody know if disassembling the Orion voids warranty? And if not, can I use distilled water/Alcohol to try and flush it safely?

 

Sweat perhaps? Maybe let the iems dry? Just a thought, happened to me a lot riding bikes in the summer with Westones.

 

I'll throw em in a bag of rice and see if it fixes overnight, but it's been happening for a few days now.

 

Yes, it happened to mine to the point where the sound went completely out in one channel. A few days of rest and drying in our colorado air and bam back in business.

 

I'll give it a shot and let you know if it works then!

 

What I did instead is, after reading Tyll's very good review of ATH MSR7, I ordered a pair and trying it right now. They sort off fit this description of flat with lowered base. They definitely have their place: I found out that I can use lower volume, particularly outside, without lacking any details.I am trying to get the volume to the lowest level where I can hear everything without any effort and it works better with this can than any other.

That's my concern as well so I ma not sure if I keep MSR7. So far it it's doing what I wanted for portable headphones but I ma not sure if being able to use lower volume reduces the risk you described.

 

I was wondering if you guys knew of a good global EQ for Macs (I like to use iTunes). That 10-band thingy doesn't quite cut it.

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

 

It seems better now, but I can still pick up some buzzing and distortion. Gonna give it another day and see if it improves further, or if I have to send it back in. Thanks for the advice!

 

I had a Chance to listen to both the Elear and the Atticus... I frankly preferred the Atticus, both had a nice open sound [the Elear being open back had a touch better width] but both had a nice bump in the mid bass with sweet mids, though I found the Atticus to have better presence overall. Seeing as you've got a pretty nice tube amp I'd give the Atticus a shot, the TH X00 I'm not as impressed with... switching from the Atticus to the TH X00... it's a similar sound signature, with the TH X00 adding a touch more sub bass umph... but what the TH X00 lacks compare to the atticus is clarity. Drums and bass guitar riffs... are a bit softer... there's more umph but a lack of power and clarity... and lastly the mids! There's a awesome sweetness in the mid range on the Atticus, that you lose with the TH X00... but the two are simmilar. Still If you have the budget for it, the Atticus is to my ears a very straight forward upgrade to the TH X00. I should mention though I have Alpha Pads on my TH X00

Moving onto Jazz with the TH X00 vs the atticus

I swapped over to jazz from the Th X00 to the Atticus, the first thing I noticed was how the sound stage really opened up! Not in terms of width but in definition. The sound-stage is more cohesive as a whole, some of the low notes on the cello would be strong in one channel and absent in the other, where as with the Atticus it was stronger in one but still present in the other... the TH X00 would present the Trumpet STRONG in one channel and absent from the other, where as the Atticus gives me a stronger in one and a touch of echo in both the sound isn't limited to RIGHT channel, but rather it originates and spreads out from the right... this improvement in overall clarity and resolve is obvious!

 

For the record, I think the Alpha pads make the TH-X00 sound much worse. Bass gets boomy and treble gets pretty harsh. Dekoni pads sound much better to me.

 

You could be very right, though I do remember the Alpha pads increasing the sound stage overall... as far as bass goes, there is a touch more of it and it plays nicely with the added sound stage, but I wasn't really concerned about the mids when I picked these up... so I went for something to make them more... fun!

I'll quote myself from HF as that was back when I had all three pads, Lawton, Stock and Alpha '

Ahh so yea, tighter mid bass and a touch more sub bass with added sound stage is what my Alpha Pads got for me... I can trust my ears and taste from back then... as that's when I still had my LA D5000 [really miss that headphone but I think the Eikon is a very worthy upgrade]

 

Great description! Also, the shootout of closed backs over at earphiles has really gotton me excited for the Atticus. I'm eagerly awaiting @a44100Hz findings as well.
The only things is that I just realised I may have to pay a ton of taxes and import duty if I buy the Atticus. There are no sellers in the EU

 

Can someone recommend a relatively inexpensive XLR splitter, preferably with switching output? Right now I'm manually swapping the XLR out from my Gungnir Multibit between monitors and headamp but I would rather have a toggle and avoid all the un-and-re-plugging.

 

Maybe not the right solution for you, but Winders has had a pair of XLR "Y" adapters made for him by Dyson Audio. Costed about $50.

I will use this solution for my Gungnir Multibit as well.

 

Thinking about ordering Freya, because I can use it (her?) in the future either with active nearfield monitors or with Vidar.

Right now I have an integrated amplifier and wonder if both would fit nicely.

I think so, but before ordering I'd like to reassure myself: I can separate the power amp section and the input impedance is 20 kOhms.

As far as I can tell, this will work with Freya, right? It's my first preamp, so...

 

Unfortunately, I figured out what was wrong with my Orions. Seems the drivers are flexing even after being dried out thoroughly. Thankfully they're pretty much brand new, so I can just send 'em in for the warranty.

Hell I'd ask about paying for an upgrade if I had the cash on hand. Love to hear their other models.

 

Anybody has any experience with the Fireye HDB portable amp that is available on MD? I am looking for a decent portable solution for the HD 650 for travel and those moments when being hooked up to a desk amp is not the thing to do.

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/firestone-fireye-hdb

 

Looking at getting a nice SPL Meter, seems to be a LOT more options on Amazon than I remember. Though I found a nice one from Sweetwater [they charge more for everything but the c/s is spectacular in my experience]

The lower priced Model I found has 4 ranges, the total dynamic range is only 30dbs... the higher model has a dynamic range of 50db, I think I'd rather have the higher dynamic range now. An grab the other gear when I need it... an now looking through Amazon there's a few that have some MASSIVE ranges...

I wound up just grabbing the CM 140 Galaxy I found on Sweetwater, running through a few threads quickly, it compared to the amazon products had the recommendation certifications. That an I like Sweetwater...

 

I have a pair of hd800 and an SPL Auditor currently being shipped to me. However, I can't conceivably spend much more on a DAC.

Is there a suitable DAC for this set up <$300? I am aiming for transparency, the purpose of the set up is for studio monitoring, mixing, mastering.

I don't know where else to turn; the searches I've conducted have led to threads wherein individuals are suggesting considerably more expensive DACs tandem the auditor.

Would a Modi suffice? Anything else? Thank you so much y'all

 

Okay SBAF friends, I've run into a technical issue with my audio system and I have no idea why it's happening, it's driving me nuts. I asked Schiit technical support but frankly I'm not sure if the problem is with their gears, and they haven't been much helpful either. I hope some of you could help me diagnose the cause of this problem and solve it.

My current audio chain is as follows:
iMac -> USB cable -> Wyrd -> USB cable -> Gungnir Multibit -> XLR interconnects -> Mjolnir 2
-> RCA interconnects -> Torpedo 3

The USB, XLR and RCA cables used were Schiit's PYST cables (which are short).

I recently bought the Torpedo 3. While it was an incredible sounding amp, I noticed a rather loud background hum on the T3 when there was no music playing and the volume knob was turned up to the max. The hum faded when I turned down the volume, and got louder and the volume was turned up. I initially thought the T3 was faulty and that the hum was T3's inherent hum, but when I unhooked the T3 from Gungnir Multibit, the hum was completely gone. So that means that the hum was coming from upstream of T3.

Strangely, I heard absolutely no hum with Mjolnir 2, even when its volume was turned up to the max. In contrast to T3, the Mjolnir 2 was not picking up any noise from the source. Maybe because T3 is a much more sensitive amp and could therefore pick up noise better? But, doesn't Mjolnir 2 output more power than T3? Anyway, I'll get back to that shortly.

To find the origin of the hum, I took Wyrd out of the chain. It's unlikely that Wyrd, which was designed to filter USB noise, would introduce even more noise. As I expected, having or not having Wyrd in the chain made absolutely no difference, the noise was present as ever.

With the Wyrd out of the chain, I connected my Gungnir Multibit directly to my iMac via USB cable. However, when I unhooked the Gungnir Multibit from the computer, the noise was completely gone. Hooking it to the computer again reintroduced the noise. To confirm my suspicions, I pressed the input selector switch on Gungnir Multibit to toggle different inputs. As I expected, the hum was only present when Gungnir Multibit was receiving audio input from the computer to its USB input. When the input was selected to BNC, RCA or TosLink, there was no hum.

So, the culprit of the hum was the computer, right? Case closed!

...Or so I thought. As it turned out, after trying some other tests, I found some contradicting and even baffling evidence that doesn't make sense if the computer was really faulty. Besides, I don't think I've ever had any hum issue with this computer I've been suing for many years.

First of all, if the noise was coming from the computer, then why doesn't Wyrd help at all? The hum was rather loud, and while I didn't expect Wyrd to remove the hum completely, I expected I would at least hear a slight, but noticeable reduction in hum, but no. People who don't hear a difference with Wyrd are people who are already using a very quiet, noise-free high quality source. The opposite is true in my case.

So, this time I brought 2 more computers in my house, a desktop PC and a laptop which I bought fairly recently. However, using these 2 computers also presented the same hum. And again, using Wyrd didn't help at all. Could it mean that all my computers, iMac/PC/laptop are really this much unacceptably noisy?

Then I thought, why is only T3 picking up the hum and not Mjolnir 2? The Mjolnir 2 was dead silent when it was hooked to Gungnir Multibit and its volume was max. The only difference was that T3 was connected to Gungnir Multibit's RCA outputs, and Mjolnir 2 was connected to its XLR outputs.

So I unplugged the XLR cables and connected the Mjolnir 2 to Gungnir Multibit with the same RCA cables.... and the background hum could be heard from Mjolnir 2 very clearly. The same dreadful hum I heard on the T3. Switching back to XLR, the hum was gone. I made sure I toggled the input selector switch on Mjolnir 2 properly when the inputs were changed, and even played some music to make sure.

Whatever the reason of the hum was, having a balanced connection with XLR interconnects completely eliminated this noise. Again, I was using Schiit's own PYST cables which are less than a feet long. I know that sometimes RCA cables are more susceptible to noise than XLR cables, but that usually applies when the cables are really long. For really short cables, it's not supposed to make such a night-and-day difference.

Just to make sure if my PYST RCA cables weren't faulty, I took out another spare pair of RCA interconnects (0.5m long) I had. The noise didn't go away at wall.

So, I addressed the above issue to Schiit, but they told me that it might be a grounding issue. So I used my multimeter to make sure all my outlets and power strips were properly grounded, and even had an electrician come home and test it himself. Heck, I even tried using different grounded power cables to rule out a grounding issue. Nothing helped so far.

So, to summarize,
1. The noise was only present when the Gungnir Multibit was receiving USB input from the computer, regardless of having Wyrd in the chain.
2. The above would imply that my computer was the culprit of the noise, but switching between all 3 of my computers didn't do anything to reduce the noise (of course, it is possible that all my 3 computers are unacceptably noisy).
3. If the computers are really the cause of the noise, Wyrd didn't do shit to make the noise go away, I didn't even hear a slight reduction in noise.
4. Strangely, the noise was only present if the RCA outputs of Gungnir Multibit were used. Using its balanced XLR outputs completely eliminated this noise.
5. For the record, both RCA and XLR interconnects were really short cables, and I tested with another short pair of RCA cables to make sure it wasn't the cables that were faulty.
6. Everything was properly grounded.

So, could any one of you experts help me diagnose the cause of this hum? Is it really the computers that are making noise, and I should buy a better computer? (Gungnir Multibit's buy-better-source LED doesn't light up, by the way) And if so, why does using RCA outputs of Gungnir Multibit present this noise while using XLR outputs make it all go away? Could it also be that the Gungnir Multibit's RCA inputs are at fault? (Gungnir Multibit has 2 pairs of RCA outputs, I tested both and got same results)

Please help!