(EU) Upgrade from zen stack & DT 880 600 ohm?

Headphones Headphone Discussion / Help
42

Unfortunately I don’t have much to compare to but I went back and tried the Bose Quiet comfort 35 on those tracks and I prefer the DT880 across the board except in one category and even then, the bass.
The Bose are just so much thicker in the bass, louder yes, but it feels much more dense too. They also don’t loose as much “sound” when I bump up the bass in volume, although they distort much quicker on the same volume.

I still think the DT880 sound better in the Bass, but it’s just not nearly as alive as in the Bose.
I find the Bose to be tinny and hollow in comparison but what stood out to me was also that they can become shrill. People complain about the beyer peak but in that thunderdome track, at 24:18 there is a very high pitched track that sounds clean and fine on the DT880 but on the Bose I found it painful to listen to with the same pads. I used the Dekoni Elite sheepskin on both (they barely hold on the Bose but seem to work nonetheless)

43

Been looking at different sound demos, hard to find sound demos of the th900 though.
Found this one:

To me it seems the TH900 are too dark, and the bass drowning everything else.
The T1s sounded more natural to me, but the HD800s sound pretty good, that said, it’s less natural sounding to me. In general from sennheiser I am getting a hollow feeling and a lack of bass. Not so much there but they have a certain “headphone” sound to me, despite being known for their soundstage.
That could be a sideeffect of me listening with dt880s with additional “room” effect from redscape audio.
Soundstage wise they all more or less sounded the same to me.

Listening to other tests, though not including the Fostex or denon (could find any with them), the Beyers usually sound better to me, more natural. What I don’t get though is that the T1s always sound positevely anemic in bass by comparison? Even compared to the DT880.

This one was the worst case:

The 880 sounded best to me here but I would have taken any of them. I found them all to be very close to each other, except the T90 and T1, didn’t like either but the T1 was just horrible there. I mean they sounded bad to me in every sound demo (still more natural sounding than others), but this was next level bad. So I would say those are off the table for me.

Judging by the first demo I think I wouldn’t be too happy with the TH900 either. Bass yes, but none of the things that I like about the DT880 otherwise. It make me curious again about the Denon 9200 though.
Anybody got a demo for them?

44

soooo… while waiting for DuerumBens feedback, I found another lost relic of times past.

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This will never work…but…what if I could hook up this thing and use the actual subwoofer to support the headphones. The reason I wear headphones is mostly for when using team speak. I can’T have my speaker running and listening to people since the microphone would pick that up.

AI can mask a lot of that, but I tend to speak louder this way.
But… a subwoofer?..That should stay unheard…and I would actually feel the bass.
…

Assuming I don’t burn my house down with these two rustbuckets…let the jank commence!

45

So it appears I had blown a fuse on the subwoofer back in the day, luckily there was a replacement fuse still inside. so I got this working.

PC into Zen DAC, into tube preamp, into … well, whatever that home cinema contraption is called.
In parallel, using the 4.4 pentacon connection from the DAC to the CAN and plugging the headphones into that.

I was expecting sync issues but honestly? If there are any, I can’t tell.

And it … works :open_mouth: …sort of
The effect is VERY subtle, but it does round out the bass and give it a bit more low end without altering anything else. I can also feel it in my feet obviously and through out my body, even at low volumes.
Not a lot, but it’s there. This matter though.

It’s the kind of thing where you only notice it when you take it away.
Also only really does anything on the DT880, on the closed back QC35 it’s basically not noticable.
This was using it only for the low end around 70HZ and about 9 on the sub volume dial.
Don’t want to wake the neighbours after all .

Now I could see this having more impact if I play around to find the sweet spot.
And as a bonus I get to use a sub with the monitors which makes a WORLD of a difference.

Only issue is that, like the sub only being noticeable after taking it away, I now realize that the tube preamp had WAY more effect than I gave it credit for. I kind of don’t want to go back to using only the 4.4 now XD Even this little tube is definitely the way to go for DT880, but I also want to keep trying the sub + headphone combo.

The added sensations at a bare minimum are like using the headtracker.
There is just something that is difficult to put in words, even with very subtle movements of the head, the sound changes just a liiiitle bit…but it’s enough to REALLY open the soundstage. I’ve tried a blind test with my sister as well and If I volume match the speakers (that you can definitely hear through the DT880s), I could take out switch between speakers and headphone and it was very hard to tell the difference.

There is just something about fixing the sound to a location as you move your head that fools your head into thinking you can’t be listening to headphones. And the added sub is the same. At first I felt like it made no difference, but after a while it just felt wrong without.

So I need to find myself a 4.4 pentacon to RCA I guess.
That would allow me to keep the tube for the DT880 and feed the DAC into the decoder as well.
And the CAN does have a 4.4 balanced out so I could even keep the tube for the decoder…not that it would make much of a difference I suppose.

So PC, to DAC, to tube, to CAN…to decoder to sub XD
Not sure I can skip the decoder with a long enough balanced to RCA cable?
Being a powered sub I suppose I only need to care about the signal right?

46

I’ll have to try some more and then see if I notice a difference by removing it.
It’s VERY subtle and VERY sensitive to where I sit, especially now that I moved it under the table.
But it adds a little bit of resonance in a good way.

Like if you hear a bass heavy instrument, it seems to penetrate further. Those feel more “real”.
Those being at such low frequencies that I can now feel a slight rumble throughout my body where before it was just around my ears. that makes them feel more present than before.
So far I don’t think I would spend a lot of money on this, but…it’s a little better.

That said, it did wonders for the monitors, there it would make sense.
This sub is awfully boomy but it’s not really noticeable with the headphone on, the boomyness I mean.

47

Wondering that did you choose to upgrade to?

48

Nothing yet, given that I was waiting for @DuerumBen :smiley:
Then, since that seems have gone the way of the dodo (and that there was a sale at Beyerdynamic I could not refuse), I got the modkit and am now considering to get the dsp EARS kit to record some comparisons for the DT880 that I could not find myself.

Mind you I am not relishing the thought of shelling some 300 or so euros for a measuring device I would not use anymore after that test (but hopefully others could benefit from ) Plus I would want some sound demos and apparently this is not great for that.

Aaand since I am having some serious issues with my PC all of a sudden, at worst case I would have to get a new one, in which case this would have to wait.

(also haven’T installed the mod kit for this reason since I want a base comparison if I go through with this)