Expensive Comfortable Open Backs

Curious to see what you think the ZDT does for you :+1:

Small signals - like pre-amps and most headphone amps don’t need many tubes, and generally not very expensive ones. I owned tube and hybrid pre-amps through the years.

Try retubing an ARC D-110 or big Manley with NOS tubes - whoa!

Before I bought my Ragnarok 1, I thought about the amp a step down (Mjolnir) that has tubes, easy to play around with those, and not bank breaking.

Most tubes that come with equipment are at best mediocre. However, tubes have a lot of trouble with bass (upper, mid, low) unless there is a lot spent on the design. Only partially true for hybrids.

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I mean, the stock tubes with a bottlehead crack are pretty good for the price, and the amp gets better with some nicely matched nos

Yeah I can understand that… are you the only person that has a set of Empyreans and loves them on the forum? I was kinda worried about that and the dark voice.

I think @BondDaBoom does as well. And I’m sure there are others who do too

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Yeah, he’s the only other person here that I’ve seen owning them. I know others have at least tested them. Head-fi has a very long thread dedicated to them, and the overwhelming majority of it is positive. Good resource to see what amps people have had success with

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I think the reason why it’s raved about so much it’s the great fit and finish, and the overall all rounder and generally agreeable sound. It’s just more of a complete package even if other headphones may have better whatever but have certain tradeoffs. Also the mezes are less amp picky than others in it’s price and performance class

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What a sales pitch M0N! According to your sales pitch Empreans are right up my alley.

Well, that just seems to be the general consensus, I don’t even own them as I didn’t think they were for me, but there you go I guess lol

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I did the who tube rolling thing with my speaker system. I personally don’t enjoy it. Assuming the tubes were originally selected for some reason other than they were cheap.I find it to be a lot of second guessing yourself, swap the tube out, go wow that sounds different listen to it for a while as the tubes burn it, then swap back, and while still noticing the difference I always can’t make my mind up which set I prefer (with some exceptions).

I might try a set of recommended tubes now, just to see, but building up tube collections I really have no interest in at this point.

The ZDT Jr is a SET design, those are usually predominantly colored by the output transformers, and they are supposed to be pretty well matched with the tubes they ship with.

Given I paid $250 for the Eddie Current I’d probably just move up a step or two, if I want more.

I’m looking forwards to hearing it, it’ll be interesting to see how it interacts with my headphones, probably give me an excuse to order a pair of ZMF or find another high impedence headphone to buy.

I get ya lol, the tubes in the ZDT are pretty good anyway, and I wouldn’t change them personally.

Also that’s a very good price for that amp

And something that gives you an excuse to buy more headphones is not a bad thing imo lol

Also wait why does that show as me but that’s Ohana’s post. Oh well lol

Yes apparently I have yet to master the art of the quote on this platform…

It was off Ebay, apparently NIB, and I don’t know if it was from the first or second batch where they added the shielding around the power transformer, so who knows. The mod is easy enough to do if it’s from the first batch.
Should be here Monday.

Lol I was super confused after reading, I was like ā€œwas that something I typed? I don’t remember saying thatā€ lol

Ok, glad you knew about the shielding issue the first batch suffered from. I’m not handy at all, so I would personally not want to deal with it. I got mine from the second batch and I have not seen them on Drop ever again, which is odd because it’s really great and it seems like people request it often.

The mod it trivial even for not handy people, it really is just remove the case and wrap magnetic shielding around the transformer. But I can appreciate not wanting to mess with gear.
I did some research before I jumped.

Some things just don’t seem to drop again, I would be interested to know how Drop dealt with all of the returns from the first batch, I wonder if defective costs get passed back to the manufacturer and with Drops extremely good return policy I have to wonder if the manufacturer just wasn’t interested in doing it again.

That massdrop version of the ps audio sprout II really made me mad when I missed it lol

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Abyss 1266 phi tc ear pads I got are not equal which cause more bass on one side. I switched sides and the bass traveled with the pad.

Very strange, that’s typically not something I would expect. Are you sure it isn’t fitment? I don’t have that issue with mine

would really like to know what you think of the Aeolus. Everybody’s been talking about it. Saying its has a exciting sound

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The pads are not close to identical but it could cause a fit problem. The pads are so visually different around the edges. Unless there’s issue with the headphone. I pray it isn’t.