Yet another headphone thread

cyrax wrote:
Scott128 wrote:

Just when I was going to purchase the 5.8 Mixamp, Astro is now only bundling it with the A40's.

If anyone has a 5.8 Mixamp that they are looking to sell, I'd be interested.

Wow, that's dirty/unfortunate. I've had the 5.8 for over a year now and I get saddened when I'm unable to use it. Good luck to you, it's a great device.

Thanks, and yes it is dirty - I'm bummed. I just order the PC360's today, now I just need the 5.8.

In response to a question on their Facebook page, Astro Warblade hinted that they have something "brewing" for the near future. I wonder what it could be? I'd be happy if it was a 5.8 Mixamp w/ multiple optical ports, doubtful though.

In the meantime, still looking for a used 5.8.

Scott128 wrote:
cyrax wrote:
Scott128 wrote:

Just when I was going to purchase the 5.8 Mixamp, Astro is now only bundling it with the A40's.

If anyone has a 5.8 Mixamp that they are looking to sell, I'd be interested.

Wow, that's dirty/unfortunate. I've had the 5.8 for over a year now and I get saddened when I'm unable to use it. Good luck to you, it's a great device.

Thanks, and yes it is dirty - I'm bummed. I just order the PC360's today, now I just need the 5.8.

In response to a question on their Facebook page, Astro Warblade hinted that they have something "brewing" for the near future. I wonder what it could be? I'd be happy if it was a 5.8 Mixamp w/ multiple optical ports, doubtful though.

In the meantime, still looking for a used 5.8.

Hopefully it will be an updated Mixamp with more battery capacity That's my only real complaint, the fact that they went with AAA batteries.

heavyfeul wrote:

I would check out the Skullcandy Aviators...

I took my own advice. They pair very nicely with the 5.8 Mixamp, including the inline (iPhone) microphone and thye are just as good as I remember for music. They are very portable, well constructed, and the 6ft cord is fully removable. I can go from the Mixamp, the mobile amp fed from the PC, and the iPhone without any adapters and with a built in fully functional microphone. They are closed circumaural headphone with a nice soundstage. They do not feel claustrophobic at all.

There are two main drawbacks. They mesh cord is made of a rough material and it transfers quit a bit of microphonics. They could have avoided the problem by moving the cord plug forward on the earcup. It will rub and make an audible noise if I am wearing a collar. The other drawback is the sensitivity. When it is connected to the Mixamp the wireless hiss is slightly more audible. They are fairly transparent and that can work against them if your source has noise. It is not an issue with the iPhone or my little Nuforce amp.

I liked the Carcharias quite a bit as well, but the microphone did not work well with the Mixamp. The Detonators had a laundry list of issues and I feel dumb for giving Tritton another chance. They were absolute sh*t. With the headphone cord halfway inserted I actually picked up an AM radio station loud and clear and I could hear the Xbox drives spinning and clicking when everything was plugged in. The voice monitoring feature was so loud and of poor quality it was unusable.

Anyway...I have used up enough virtual ink. Big thumbs up on the Aviators.

I got the HD 439s today! The removable cord is awesome because I can either order a new cord from Sennheiser (Looks like I'd have to call them to do that), or at worse, I can just buy a 2.5mm to 3.5mm cord. It comes with one short and one long cord, so that should get me through a year or two. The plastic is still cheap feeling like the HD 428s, but the cloth covered earpads are much nicer. Also, these headphones have a touch more clamp than the HD 428s which tended to slip off my head easily. I've been wearing them at work today, and they are still very comfortable.

Paired with an iPhone, the sound is pretty good, as good or better than the HD 428s. They definitely sound good for just 100 bucks and being closed. There are things that don't come through as good as my AKG K702s, but that's to be expected. For example, the pedal and related noise in a solo piano piece is just barely there on these but really comes out on the AKG K702s (that might be due to the mobile device). I listened to Esperanza Spalding's Radio Music Society which sounds very good. The electric bass and stand up bass both sound really punchy and accurate. Because of the slightly higher clamping force and cloth earpads, the HD 439s keep sound out much better than the HD 428s. That'll be nice when riding on the bus.

I'll probably try them out with my computer setup to see how that sounds. I bought them as on the go headphones, so I'm mostly concerned about what they sound like with a mobile device.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/IGf8Fl.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/eDdYzl.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/BYwgal.jpg)

I figured I'd plop this here because it makes more sense than anywhere else. I dunno.

...Anydangways, Emotiva, a local (Franklin, TN) and well-regarded home theater equipment maker, has recently branched out into a "pro" line of active monitors. They have some crazy ribbon-esque technology for the tweeter, and the woofer comes in 4.5", 5.25" and 6" varieties. They hooked us up with all three since we're in the area and a pretty large music company, and I have to say: DAYUM. For the price, these are going to be really, really hard to beat. $400 per pair for the 4s up to $800 per pair for the 6s.

They have one of the most impressive soundstages I've ever heard for any speaker that's not a full 18" studio system, and a really smooth response across the crossover. I can't hear any distortion from the tweeter at all. Personally, I like the 5s best -- the 4s, though admirable, don't have quite the depth, and the 6s get just a touch muddier in the low end than I like (I'm not a big fan of the Mackie HR 824s, for instance). All I can say is, these would make the best computer speakers ever. Especially for the price. And a 30-day guarantee, apparently. If (and that's a cataclysmically big if) I land this job I'm hoping for I'm buying one of these the next day for my Female Doggoin' office sound rig. Check 'em out! Y'know, for when you don't need headphones.

Scott128 wrote:

Just when I was going to purchase the 5.8 Mixamp, Astro is now only bundling it with the A40's.

If anyone has a 5.8 Mixamp that they are looking to sell, I'd be interested.

UPDATE:

Astro posted that they have a limited supply of 5.8 Mixamps for sale. I went ahead and ordered today and it went through! I was just about to order the Mixamp Pro too, good thing I waited.

Anybody in the $100-$150 range looking for a pair of fullsize closed headphones, there's a new set getting a ton of attention.

The Brainwavz HM5 is making the rounds as a new go-to recommendation in that pricerange. A lot of people are picking them over old standby sets like the Audiotechnica M50's and a few other longtime favorites.

There's a lot of things they do at $140 that you don't get in some significantly more expensive headphones. They even include a spare cord and a spare set of earpads. It's kind of ridiculous.

Hey guys,
So I've been fairly happy with my HD 555's, which I've had for some time. I'm in no rush to upgrade, but I have one big problem with them - they are really hot during the summer months. I wear headphones a ton as we have relatively small place, and they've just gotten to uncomfortable to wear when it's really hot outside. I'd prefer not to use earbuds at my PC, so can anyone recommend a decent pair of headphones that are cool and breathable? I'm willing to sacrifice on sound quality for comfort, and am hoping for something in the 100$ range.

They are out of your price range, but the Yuin PK1 earbuds should give you that big circumaural headphone sound without the big cans. They are a bit more difficult to drive than the HD555's, though.

Dysplastic wrote:

Hey guys,
So I've been fairly happy with my HD 555's, which I've had for some time. I'm in no rush to upgrade, but I have one big problem with them - they are really hot during the summer months. I wear headphones a ton as we have relatively small place, and they've just gotten to uncomfortable to wear when it's really hot outside. I'd prefer not to use earbuds at my PC, so can anyone recommend a decent pair of headphones that are cool and breathable? I'm willing to sacrifice on sound quality for comfort, and am hoping for something in the 100$ range.

The 555's are already open and about as breathable as headphones get. IMO, the only way you do better is going on-ear or doing the earbud thing.

Thin_J wrote:
Dysplastic wrote:

Hey guys,
So I've been fairly happy with my HD 555's, which I've had for some time. I'm in no rush to upgrade, but I have one big problem with them - they are really hot during the summer months. I wear headphones a ton as we have relatively small place, and they've just gotten to uncomfortable to wear when it's really hot outside. I'd prefer not to use earbuds at my PC, so can anyone recommend a decent pair of headphones that are cool and breathable? I'm willing to sacrifice on sound quality for comfort, and am hoping for something in the 100$ range.

The 555's are already open and about as breathable as headphones get. IMO, the only way you do better is going on-ear or doing the earbud thing.

I wonder about the classic Koss Portapros? Wonder how he'd like those?

Out of curiosity, Dysplastic, are the ear pads in contact with your ears in any way? That would be the only reason I can think of that would make your head hot. Velourish material plus huge ear cups makes for a cool headphone. The AKG K702s don't make my head or ears hot at all. The Sennheiser 439s will get my ears a touch hot, but they're not bad. I had an old Steelseries headset that would make my ears really hot because of the leathery earpads coming into contact with my ears.

No, they're not in contact with my ears. It's actually not my ears themselves that get really hot, it's the sides of my head where the pads touch the head.
Sucks that that's about as breathable as they get...maybe I will in fact go on-ear. I'd really prefer not to use earbuds.
The Koss Portapros look like they could be up my alley - how's the sound? Any other on-ear suggestions?

Sennheiser PX100
Koss KSC75

Dysplastic wrote:

The Koss Portapros look like they could be up my alley - how's the sound? Any other on-ear suggestions?

They've been known as some of the best bang for the buck headphones forever. Heavy's recommendation of Koss KSC75s I believe are similar, they just clip onto your ears. I've had a pair for a decade, but they've never been comfortable on my ears. However, they've updated the design a bit since I've had mine.

Anybody know of a good and cheap place without really high shipping to buy 3.5mm 4 pole/conductor plugs and jacks that I can use to modify my Razer Carcharias cable? I'd like to make a disconnect that would remove a lot of the length when I'm using it with my Astro Wireless Mixamp. The Mixamp uses a basic 4 pole jack like a smart phone does, but provides and adapter for PC headsets. So my thought is to be able to have the short cable plug directly into the Mixamp (or phone if I wanted) without the adapter, but I'd still be able to add the rest of the cable as an extension if I use the headset on PC.

I found a cheap place with no shipping for the plug, but the jack's are harder to find. I did find one that's kind of reasonable on ebay from the UK that might be an option, but I was still shopping around.

Have you looked at monoprice.com yet?

Rykin wrote:

Have you looked at monoprice.com yet?

Yeah, nothing shows up. But their search is kind of bad.

Yea I usually have the best results browsing there. Except that I end up seeing like six other things to buy before finding what I need.

Rykin wrote:

Yea I usually have the best results browsing there. Except that I end up seeing like six other things to buy before finding what I need.

Yeah, I just noticed they have a couple of mechanical keyboards and went down that rabbit hole.

I figure this is about as good a place as any to ask: Has anyone here made a warranty claim with Sennheiser? The band on my HD555 is about completely hosed from normal use after about 14 months. Looking at the site it's still covered, but how easy is the process, ie how much hassle is this going to be?

I haven't made one myself, but the original 580 had a problem, and posts at the time said that Sennheiser was very easy to deal with to get the fix. That was quite a long while ago, but I haven't heard anything different since.

Sennheiser's customer service is considered very good, at least by most impressions I've ever read.

okiedoke, I'll look into doing that in the next day or two. I really love the headphones, but it'd be nice to have a band that wasn't fractured the way mine is.

Just want to thank those who recommended the portaPro's - they feel like nothing on my head and have fairly decent sound, so they're perfect summer headphones. Only complaint was that the cable was a bit short, so I had to get an extender.

Anyone going to give the Tweaked earbuds a test spin? They do not make a traditional earbud, so they will not work for me, but I am curious...

I've got an update on the Maverick Audio A1 and D2 that I purchased late last year. The D2 has been working perfectly, and I have no complaints. I ran into two issues with the A1, however. Firstly, the left channel would take awhile to kick in (more than 5 seconds) right after I unplugged the headphones and it switched to the speaker circuit. That was pretty annoying, and I'm not sure why it was happening. I figured I could live with it because jiggling the volume knob a little would fix it. Secondly, the power LED went out. Two issues were a bit much, so I contacted the fella at customer service since it has a year warranty, and he said they would ship me a replacement unit with stock tubes. I think he actually forgot to ship it but quickly DHLed that sh*te once I reminded him politely after a couple weeks had gone by. I wasn't in a huge hurry anyways so no big deal. He's even letting me keep the defective unit as it's too much hastle to ship it back to Hong Kong. So, I swapped in my "better" tubes to the good unit, and it works perfectly. I put the "stock" tubes into the defective unit and am using it as a tube preamp for my living room system. I just hook up my mobile phone to it. I haven't done any blind tests to see if there's a difference, but I'm going to try this weekend doing a vinyl versus digital+tube preamp versus digital without tube preamp. Should be fun. I can set it up so that you can swap back and forth between the 3 options really quickly. I realize that digital option isn't a great setup (just relying on the DAC built into the phone and the digital files end up being lossy). I'm not really concerned about it in my living room because I generally listen to vinyl because it's more fun.

A couple cons I've noticed other than the above mentioned issues are: The cover is really hard to get off. You really have to push hard to slide it off after you take out all the screws. It's not impossible, but it's a little annoying. Secondly, the tubes are really hard to replace. They have a wire cage which you have to sorta undo then you have to wiggle the tubes a lot to try to loosen them while removing. All the while, the space is really cramped. Definitely not an easy task and I could see myself effing up a tube or the mount. I held the tubes with a bit of styrofoam wrap to keep from getting fingerprints on them which seems to work okay. Thin gloves would have made it easier. On the defective unit, when I was putting the tubes in, the wire cage touched a component and I got a couple sparks. Definitely some charge left in those massive capacitors. Anyone know a good way to drain those things for whenever I have a tube die and have to do this again? Would grounding the unit by taking a UPC, cutting off all pins but the ground pin and sticking that in a socket help at all? I really have no idea if that would be a good or bad idea. That's all I can think of doing. Surprisingly, the unit works perfectly as a preamp other than the power LED issue. The spark didn't seem to damage anything.

To finish up, still super happy about the purchase. Everything about the sound is perfect for me. I just wanted to mention the above issues in case anyone was curious or wanted to get one sometime. The guy at customer service is outstanding, and I haven't minded the issues because of that and the cheap price.

Hopefully the new unit will hold up just fine.

How has that D1 held up Thin_J? Do you use it much?

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

How has that D1 held up Thin_J? Do you use it much?

Use it almost every day and it's been great. My PC audio setup has sounded really nice for a while but wasn't exactly simple to switch between sources or change whether those sources were going to just headphones or to my speakers.

From an audio quality standpoint, I tend not to use the headphone out on it. I still have my Little Dot for that and IMO it just sounds better. If the tube in the D1 wasn't just on the stereo RCA output the thing might have replaced the Little Dot entirely though. I can't tell the difference between the two when using them as a pre-amp for my 2.1 setup. I'm not sure I understand why he chose not to have the tube be a part of the headphone out.

I leave my SH 555s plugged in all the time. All sound goes through there even if the speakers are on. Just wondering if this is bad for them or not.

I'd say it's only an issue if you're maxing the sound when not wearing them to use them as crappy desk speakers. If it's the same [reasonable] volume as when you wear them then I don't see an issue.