I own a Fostex TH900 (lawton mod). Campfire cascade as well as hyla sarda iem.
I only own some portables to drive: Fiio q5s type c and a simple topping bc3.
Hyla sarda sounds beautiful on both. Depending on how Thick I want my bass, I pick one of the two.
Cascade is actually best on the topping bc3. The fiio makes the bass too bloated.
Th900 I donāt love on the q5s. Itās fatiguing. Just something that hurts my ears.
Obviously looking at choice of headphones, I love my bass. But also crisp highs, however not painful or fatiguing.
Iām looking to build a stack for my desk now. I see the options listed here in the thread but most are quite expensive. I donāt feel like forking over 3 grand or even more.
Iām also interested in a lokius, just to have a few minor tonal control options in between dac and amp.
Is there anything that would be a good dac as well as amp that would fit my collection nice but also doesnāt break the bank. Letās say 1500 tops.
4,4mm would be nice since I have audio forza cables with 4,4 male made for all of them. However I also hear 4,4 to xlr is a thing and so could expand options.
Iāve heard about singxer sa1 that might be good. Maybe with a modius + lokius.
Iāll start the suggestion of with sticking to your portable theme with the Ifi signature as it will have enough grunt for most cans and you can use it as a DAC. For a balanced solution the Gryphon is hard to beat at the price and features and will sound similar to the signature.
For desktop the singxer is great! Smooths everything in a nice way but still retains a ton of detail. Iāve paired it with my gryphon and it was a nice pairing specifically with xbass and xspace.
The lokius is nice but Iām probably going to sell mine down the road as I generally just use it to boost bass.
Iāve tested the portable market a little bit before. I owned (briefly) an ifi signature as well as dethonray honey. However I did not appreciate the sound. Specially that of the ifi signature with my headphones. The Hyla Sarda is a pair thatās very much āaliveā, deep bass, yet still well defined voices and crisp highs, but with the ifi, I found all the life kinda got sucked out of there.
Even though both these units are double the price of the q5s, I kept my q5s and sent others back. Itās pretty insane how different headphones sound on different amp/dacs.
Portable wise I think Iām good. The bc3 and q5s do their jobs quite nice for the IEMs.
Desktop: well. Thereās eventually a LOT of choices one can make. And all will have their differences. The singxer does have my attention, but Iāll keep digging a bit to see whatās out there.
So, the Th900 treble is hotter than the Cascades oneā¦ A lot of people has talked about how the Th900 can be too hotā¦
What about the bass? Is there such a big difference in terms of bass quality and quantity?
I really have enjoyed listening music with the Cascades, they do really hit the spot for my library. I can see that they might not be for all kinds of music, but they work very well for electronic and classic.
The cascade has always in your face bass. Theyāre definitely more dark (is that the term) than the th900.
However the th900 has way more detail in them. I feel like. When I listen to my th900, I hear things that I donāt pick up with my cascades.
The bass on the Th900 is very good, if you have the right source gear. Itās not always as in your face as the cascade. But if the track is meant to have a lot of bass, your headphones will give you plenty.
The 900 is epic for metal and electronic. But it can be a little hit or miss depending on different tracks. Sometimes itās just awesome, sometimes itās just not that.
The red and emerald cups are the base th900 sound signature, the sapphire, pearl white, and purple are the limited edition tuning. The limited edition tuning basically tones down the brighter v of the stock and adds a bit more midrange warmth and weight, and slightly relaxes it a bit more. Similar technicalities from my experience, and similar ish source pairing although I might say the og tuning is a bit harder to pair but itās really more down to preference
I might say the anniversary tuning are a bit wider and more spacious at the cost of some precision/accuracy in comparison, but itās not that massive of a deviation from stock th900
I think the bass level is actually raised a bit on the limited tuning, but itās also a bit less punchy and instead more weighty in exchange, if youāre after maximum tightness and tactility the stock might be a bit better there, but both are awesome in the bass and I wouldnāt call the ltds neutered in punch in slam in comparison. The ltd add a bit of pleasant roundness as well
I donāt think Iād give a percentage but I think itās enough to sound different enough to be worth taking into consideration lol. I donāt think that if you absolutely hated the th900 that a ltd tuning would save anything for you, but if you were on the fence with a std tuning, the ltd could be a big enough change to potentially make. Stupid comparison, but think like hd600 vs hd650. If you hate one, youāre likely to not like the other, but if you enjoy one but wishing it had a bit of a different tuning and a bit different technical focus it might be worth trying out the other. Also comes down to source gear synergy, I think the ltd tunings end up sounding a bit more pleasant with a wider range of source gear vs stock
