Here are some pics of the components that come in the boxes.
Couldnāt get a good picture of the headphone cable, it was too dark against the table to get any detail. But itās a decent balanced cable with 8 individual conductors. Easily a $50-60 cable.
Iām bypassing the interface box for now and using the Jotunheim R (baffle compensation off) to power these headphones. I am using this adapter to connect the two. (Edit: A custom adapter is required to use with the GL1200) Iāll be trying out the interface box with some (relatively crappy) amps my friend and I have this weekend.
Getting into the sound right out of the box: this thing is weird in great and strange ways. First off, the imaging is crazy. Not sure if itās realistic, but itās very interesting. Centered vocals sound VERY intimate and pinpointed to the center of my head. While at the same time, instruments and stereo effects sound super three dimensional. In some tracks, sound is clearly coming from above my head instead of from the sides like all the other headphones I own would normally do.
Iām going to hold off on diving into the sound signature until Iāve broken these in much more. Only an hour in and I can already tell the bass is still coming into its own. I will say though, that I did a frequency sweep and found what sounds like major channel imbalance around 8.5 and 11.5 kHz. However, shifting the headphones on my head changed the channel balance of the sound at these frequencies. It seems as if different parts of the ribbons emit some frequencies at different levels.
Which color is that? Linsoul.com lists a āsilverā option and a ātitaniumā option, but they only have one set of images.
This is the titanium option. Didnāt have a silver option when I ordered.
So this is a very specific question only a few will probably be able to answer. How do these compare with the GL2000. To clairify I love my 2000s, I just want to know what the main differences are with these.
I agree with most of what Resolve says here. That distortion in the bass is audible around 25 Hz on my set. But the thing is, it looks terrible on his graph, but it doesnāt sound terrible. Kinda reminds me of tubing speakers. I have to disagree about the pads though. I prefer the more even response of the pleather pads. The midrange is peaky with the suede pads, which I donāt find enjoyable. I also think the detail retrieval is on par with the HD800S. Itās actually easier to hear fine details on the GL1200. Often times fine details on the 800s come with an extra large helping of treble energy, which can drown them out.
Disclaimer though, Resolveās using the interface box, which I suspect has some kind of EQ going on like the SR1a box does. And all those resistors and whatever that black box is (coils I think?) would definitely affect sound in some way. That could explain the difference in opinion.
Just out of curiosity, how difficult would it be for you to do an A-B comparison with and without the interface box, since you have it? Would you be able to use the same amplifier in both scenarios? If not, presumably the presence or absence of the interface would color the sound as much or more so than the difference in amplifiers. Yes, it would be a subjective test, but Iād be interested in your impressions.
The Jotunheim R is designed to drive 0.2 ohm loads directly. I wonāt be able to hook it up to the interface box since that simulates a 6 ohm load. If I do an AB test, it would have to be with different amps.
Iām planning on trying the headphones with the interface box this weekend, but the amp is gonna be an old 100 Wpc into 8 ohm class D. Itās not ideal, but Iāll leave my impressions. Unfortunately, I donāt own or know anyone with a higher quality speaker amp to test.
gl2000 is under 450 bucks in china. It really isnāt expensive to make
I would guess it is current limiting (that resistor array) and a transformer of sorts (the black box).
What is less than ideal is enameled wires coming into direct contact with the case (and just flapping in the breeze).
vs. about $650 here, so the price difference isnāt large. However, this thread is about the GL1200 ($1399) not the GL2000 ($650). Different animals.
I know, the guy I was replying to said the gl2000 is expensive
Hooked up the interface box to a couple speaker amps. The difference between them and the Jotunheim R are night and day. Granted, all I used was an old Sherwood amp from the '90s and a Fosi Audio chi-fi desktop amp.
The Sherwood is 100 Wpc into 8 ohms. It sounded muddy and undetailed. Bass was elevated and bleeding into the mids. The highs were muffled and very veiled. Overall the sound was just an awful, bassy, smeared mess. Listened to this for about 20 seconds and moved on.
The Fosi Audio amp is 50 Wpc into 4 Ohms. It was much clearer and more detailed than the old Sherwood. The bass was still elevated compared to the Jot, but the mids and highs were much cleaner. Still sounded a bit veiled. The soundstage was smaller, but the imaging was just as good as the Jot.
The Jotunheim R (baffle compensation off) has tight bass with no bloat, crystal clear mids and highs, and is speedy and very detailed without being as harsh as something like an HD800S.
I think itās safe to say that there is some kind of EQ for the bass coming from the interface box. The Jot R has the baffle compensation toggle designed for the SR1a. Itās basically a shelf EQ that lowers everything over 500 Hz so the bass is more accentuated. Using this feature doesnāt sound terrible on the GL1200 if you want elevated bass, since headphone frequency response is so flat. The bass elevation coming from the interface box is more centered around the sub bass region I think, but itās hard to tell exactly where it starts.
All in all, these headphones are extremely amp picky. The sound will change drastically depending on what you are using to power them. I only wish I had a speaker amp that I knew was very analytical and detailed, so I could see if the interface box itself is causing the loss in detail compared to the Jot.
@heavyharmonies I was at 50-60% volume on the Fosi Amp for a decent listening level on most tracks. I went up to 80% for my quietest music. So I think the least you can get away with is 50 W into 4 Ohms, but if you want to mess with EQ, you should go for 100 W.
Well fark. I couldnāt resist, so GL1200 inbound from Linsoul. Sigh.
I think I will configure them with the Denon AVR-2807 for burn-in, and then compare that vs. the 2807 with preamp out to Phase Linear 400 (although thatās somewhat of a noisy amp).
I did the review on head-fi for the GL1200 and the GL2000- the GL2000 for the price is a steal imho for SQ. I can add I am loving both for different reasons but the GL1200 is truly unlike any other hp I ever owned. I use the B&K 125.2 and the Adcom GFA5300 amps and well I am undecided this day which I like best- but using the interface box from GP is likely very important to the tuning they intended. I will say next thing to do is try or consider is a gold ribbon option as I look into that with the two distributors and maybe making some different custom pads - I am still enjoying these like a drug and enjoying music all over again through them- they do not do everything perfectly but do more things perfectly that make listening to music so enjoyable. 3d space like nothing else- including STAX
GL1200 on sale right now on Drop for $1199 if there was anyone waiting on them.
I have to be honest, im very tempted to get those headphones. I have always been very big into vintage hifi, so I have a couple of amps that would be worth trying with these headphones. i do wonder though how much appreciation I would get out of a set like this. Iāve been using HD600ās with a magni2U/modi2 for the better part of 5 years now, and I just dont think I have enough experience with high end headphones to critically examine them. Maybe ill hold off for a another month or two and see some of the additional reviews come in. Saving 200 bucks on massdrop isnāt worth rushing into this type of purchase.
I just noticed now that the Drop units wonāt ship until June 16. F*cking hellā¦ I AM IMPATIENT AND I WANT MY TOYS NOW, DAMBIT!
Sigh.
Soā¦ I was explaining what inverted phase was to a friend of mine. Said he swapped the DAC cables around because he was too lazy to pull his speaker amp out from the wall to switch cables around after mixing up L/R. Told him it was fine as long as the positive and negative leads were in the right spots.
Then I thought, wait a minute, I had to swap DAC channels with the JotR because the headphone pinout was flipped. I had better not have been listening to inverted phase for two weeks! Looked it up, and yessir, the phase is also backwards. So it looks like a custom adapter is a must for non RAAL headphones on the JotR.
Here is a link to a headphones.com forum post about the pinouts in case anyone is going down this route. I ordered a custom adapter from Hart Audio today. Gave them the pinout blurb and asked for some heat shrink around the amp side.
