out of those? 1990 or T1.2… 880 is semi open and has smaller staging.
2nd gen is harder to get due to 3rd gen… 3rd gen is a warm very very bassy headphone and like the polar opposite signature… definitely no good.
power yes… potentially of course, just due to that I haven’t tested it… it’s fantastic for the 1990 though
Getting them loud isn’t the only factor… it needs enough amps to make them sound correctly. At the same time you also have scaling and the like with higher quality amps which goes based on the headphone.I believe the GOXLR powers around 100 impedance comfortably but can struggle depending on the sensitivity per decibel. At 250 ohms it just needs an amp… even motherboards that properly drive the 250 ohm beyers already have small amps built onto the motherboard itself. It’s just quite power demanding… even if it gets loud the sound quality could go all over the place… theres a long drawn out explaination as to why this happens but put simply… higher grade amps deliver better sound in most cases and lacking power gives you weird results such as lacking bass or bad imaging. Let me give you an example here… I had the Harmonicdyne Helios in house one day… tried a test to run it off my motherboard it struggled so I used a small little usb dongle dac that’s said to help with power… it got loud just fine but suddenly I noticed all the bass is gone plugged it into an e10k from fiio now the bass is back but the mids sound off and the highs are grainy as hell but it’s definitely fully powered from just the e10k… plugging into a liquid spark definitely loud enough … bass and tonality is all there but it feels a little bit congested… plugging it into the asgard suddenly it’s like a veil was lifted and the sound completely opened up this same effect happened upon using a liquid platinum connected to dan clarks aeon or T1.2. Scaling, appropriate amplification, and amp synergy(amps give different traits of sound… you wouldn’t want to use an amp that tends to make things sound brighter if your already using a bright headphone for example)
That makes much more sense, I was looking to get everything on amazon because of the ease of returns so the 1990, T1.2, and 800s are the 3 options and of the AMPs you recommend I only see the RNHP but from reviews it seems solid! I take it the T1.2 are harder to drive than the 1990s but not quite as much as the 800s ?
DT 1990 250 ohms Least scaling Doesn’t need expensive hardware but helps… RNHP would be the maximum I would go for this one.
HD 800S 300 ohms 103.77 dB /V SPL · Sensitivity by power: 100.10 dB /mW SPL · Average impedance : 429.42 ohm · High grade hardware demands proper equipment. Amps and dacs in the $500+ range recommended per unit. Can still be ran off same gear that T1 uses and sound alright
T1 2nd generation 600 ohms Sensitivity by voltage: 100.20 dB/V SPL; Sensitivity by power: 99.34 dB/mW SPL; Average impedance : 819.27 ohm extreme scaling, can work with wide variety of gear but needs $200 and up setup to sound appropriate.
I have the AP2000ti and while I think it’s an amazing headphone and probably my favorite I feel like with how good the HD800S is at imaging that it might be the better choice for gaming. Now where the AP2000ti would beat it is in the low-end because the bass on the 800S is very light so hearing sounds in that region wouldn’t be as good, not that the AP2000ti is a bass monster but it’s better than the 800S. The imaging on the AP2000ti is still very good just not quite at the level of the imaging king.
You’d need a separate amp to go with it since it’s 300 ohm which you wouldn’t need with the AP2000ti.
I really don’t think you can go wrong with either and both a comfortable and light so using them for hours wouldn’t be a problem though with leather pads the AP2000ti can get a bit warm. When it comes to imaging the 800S wins but in every other area I feel like the AP2000ti is just as good plus it’s closed so you have better isolation.
Yeah, as an open-back headphone guy, isolation is something that’s drawn me into the IEM world for gaming, inadvertently. I’m definitely not a fan of closed headphones because of the heat and generally worse performance compared to opens(although the Mobius surprised me with its sound), and I’ve found IEM accuracy to be excellent, very likely better than all of these ~$500 headphones I’ve been going through over the years so far. I wonder if we’ll be able to get open-back headphones that have some kind of outside noise cancelling tech, to get everything we want.