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RE: Has anyone here been disappointed by "flagship" headphones?

My first high end phones were Sen 600, driven by a Headroom Max Amp. I found the presentation to be overly warm and they were unable to obtain the the volume levels I wanted without distorting. I then decided to bridge the pot on the Headroom and use a Placette passive for attenuation. This helped but the short comings in the 600 were still there. So, I upgraded to the Sen 650s, when the came out. They had even more bass, but not as overall balance and musical. I used a Cardas cable with both Sens.

I then moved on the AKG 701s, which I preferred to the Sens. A completely different animal, to say the least. But at the end of the day, I found them to be way too analytical and again completely unable to play loud with breaking up.

I then moved on to the Audeze LCD-3 with a Moon Audio Silver Dragon cable. I also replaced the Headroom Max, (which was quite good) with a Pacette Active preamp with a Placette modified Headphone section. (The mod allowed 6db extra gain over the stock headphone output), to help drive the power hungry Audeze.

This combo has proven to be, by far, the best I've heard. I don't think one can't overlook the upstream components, to include cables, when talking about headphones, or speakers for that matter. But headphone even more so.

I sold the Sens, but have kept the 701s. When the mood strikes, they still dig deeper into a recording than anything else I've heard. I find it more interesting than musical. Great insight into the mixing process.



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  • RE: Has anyone here been disappointed by "flagship" headphones? - getheleadout 14:38:30 10/08/14 (0)
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