Ether Flow vs. HD650?

Most older metal is totally uncompressed in mastering with only kick drums and guitars compressed in mixing.

All of the more "commercial" pop crap is usually recorded, mixed, and mastered worse than quick and dirty recordings done in real studios or guys bashing stuff out in garages and basements. You can play Slayer and Emperor on three-driver floorstanders or less compressed near fields and have the recording come alive. That will never happen with the more commercially written and recorded metal not the huge bands like 80s Maiden, Metallica, and Megadeth. Autistic perfectionist guitar wankers, idiots digitally inserting symphonic samples to caveman rock, and digital rehash albums generally totally fall apart musically and sonically when you pay attention to them.

Idiots in bedrooms all make music the same way now regardless of genre. It's like masturbating to porn rather than dating and sleeping with someone:

1. Guitar plugged directly into an audio interface and digitally reamped rather than micing a real amp.
2. EZdrummer samples way worse than 90s rock and metal samples from old Akais and Rolands.
3. Cut n paste trickery with time correction and sample replacement. The whole thing might as well be Soundblaster MIDI when they're done.
4. Compress everythang at every stage of everything.
5. Have everything sound like flat, sterile digital shit and totally fall apart on on decent hi-fi setups with everything actually recorded (cymbals and snare usually) often being audibly clipped.
6. Not that all of this matters as usually these idiots had no decent/intelligent musical ideas expressed in demos in the first place so they were unable to convince anyone with half a brain to give them money for real gear or pay for studio time, which is why it was recorded into a Focusrite -> MacBook -> pirated copy of Protools. Often the idiots will actually pay some small label to press it and a PR agency to shill it for them. Which small labels are pay to play is fairly obvious just like with concert promoters. They're just totally hopeless and nobody would have payed to released their crap from 1960-2000.

Black metal is worse on lo-fi gear as you can't even hear what's going on.

I think your war is with the Jot man. It's thin and bright beyond neutral solid state to "objectivist" and beyond levels. You probably won't like anything off the Jot. Just sell to and buy something else like the Mjolnir 2, Speedball Crack, or one of the Meier amps are you're in Germany. How can you appreciate a painting if the sun is in your eyes?

 

XTZ are great speakers, i have the 99.25 mkII. Used to have the 99.36 mkII but i moved to a smaller place and they were too big. Can't wait to sort out the acoustics on this setup, kind of waiting on schiit's power amp as well.

 

Bifrost 4490 -> Mjolnir 2 -> TH 900 = chaos dunk

 

I use a class D amp with mine (this one: http://www.d-sonic.net/products/stereo-amplifiers/ ) and it sounds amazing FWIW.

 

Aha, yeah i use class-d as well but i'm considering upgrading to a Freya with the Schiit power amp i mentioned. Right now i'm using a Lyngdorf SDAI-2175 which is good but i want some tube goodness tbh. First i have to change the room setup, intall bass traps and some absorbtion for the early reflection points.

Edit: Sorry for OT maybe we could use a general 2 channel discussion thread somewhere?

 

I took my balanced HD650 to the local store and compared them to the LCD2 (balanced), Elear and Utopia and I also switched pads. Amp was a Questyle CMA600i.

The bass department of the 650s sucked major ass again in comparison. So I know now that my impression in post #1 was "correct". Cans with better bass response make the 650s wimpy to my ears, when compared directly.

Again, listening to the 650s at home with Gungnir Multibit + Jot is a pleasure and I don't have any issues with the Jot at all.

But since I want that bass at home as well, and I don't believe changing amps will help (the 650s just don't have it), I fancy the Utopia now.

 

I wouldn't lead him on a wild goose-chase. Getting meatier amps and modding the HD650 might make small improvements to its bass in our funky audiophile minds, but in the grand scheme of things, if you want that bass, you just better get a headphone that can actually do bass better.


Jotunheim has been praised as a very good amp, and a marvelous pairing with the HD650 on this forum. Why all of a sudden is it not good enough for the HD650 when somebody questions the HD650's bass prowess?


Having said that, I find LCD2, Elear, and by extension the Utopia uncomfortable headphones next to the HD650. Your mileage may vary though.

 

Yes, I haven't modded the 650s, because:

1. I can still return them (very undecided if I should)
2. while I do believe there might be some improvements to the bass, I guess it won't be enough as @TMRaven states, plus I am also worried there might be tradeoffs as Kattefjaes states on page 2 of this thread
3. I still don't know which of the many mods is the one for bass response
4. I am not fond of my technical skills, so modding is nothing I am overzealous about.

Regarding amping of the Utopia my plan is as follows:

1. try it with my current Jot
2. I plan to get a Freya for my speaker setup anyway, so I will try Freya + Jot
3. if Freya + Jot + Utopia has not good synergy, I might get a Mjolnir 2 or something similar

Getting a balanced cable and the Elear pads would be future upgrades. Even without the Elear pads I find the bass of the Utopia much more satisfying than the HD650's.

Next saturday there's a headphone event at one of our local stores. I always try to listen to the recommendations I get, so hopefully there will be some cans which were mentioned in this thread that I couldn't demo yet.

 

Could you explain more or point me to a link where I can read more about this? Looks like the OP's requirements/context match mine quite a bit and I was already leaning towards a planar + MJ2. And I didn't consider Audeze because of the inconsistencies I read about Audeze on this forum. If EF also suffers from the same, I might have to look elsewhere.

 

These two threads are fairly short and detail some of the issues with the Mr Speakers Lineup:
http://superbestaudiofriends.org/in...ether-flow-impressions-and-measurements.2824/
http://superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/ether-c-flow-measurements-and-impressions.3095/

 

I bet this one does. Well, perhaps not precise.

Big orchestra drum certainly hits hard and without any electricity to manipulate it. When it becomes reproducing it headphones do shitty job, but at least good dynamics headphones will give hints of the real thing. Planar like LCD-2 really is laughable when it tries to reproduce acoustical percussion.

 

This is probably one of the reasons why big companies with great quality control stopped making planars in the early 80s.

 

Many thanks again for all your contributions

The outcome of this:

Foobar2000 + DMG Audio EQuilibrium
Schiit Wyrd
Schiit Gungnir Multibit
Schiit Mjolnir 2
Focal Utopia

The EQ comes in handy when I want a little more bass or to tame spikes at 1,3 + 3 + 4 KHz. Still experimenting with EQ, not sure what will be the outcome.

Jot + HD650 are at my office desk now.

Rolling tubes comes probably some time in the future, but for now it's speakers time!