Just saw this RIP
Despite being someone who has ‘encouraged’ me to spend what some people would consider ‘obscene’ amounts of money on audio, thank you @M0N. Gotta say I’m loving every minute of listening to music with the gear you (and others) have recommended. Given me (and others) many, many hours of enjoyment.
Also, thanks for putting up with the stupid questions 
yeah hes pretty koo
mon is never wrong and his opinions are facts #shill
Man, m0n is such a guy, I mean really, total guy. Pretty cool how he goes about things. The way he types, whoa. He’s heard some stuff. Can’t be thanked enough for things.
isnt he the best? i wish i could borrow money from him too like jeff. bet he would lend some too!
You sure he is never wrong? He is not very accurate with art.
Listening to Mon is a two edged sword. I love my Sundaras, but
now I want… 
Me an you both buddy. I just bit the bullet again.
Am very much looking forward to it though
he will always recommend some higher priced stuff too (not for beginners)
All in fun, Mon. Sincerely, thanks for all you do here!
Top bloke with the patience of a saint MON
some would say with the patience of jesus christ
Thanks to M0N for helping me settle on an Asgard 3 (which I’m really enjoying). I also appreciate his patience and demeanor. Never condescending, as some knowledgeable people on forums can be.
I stan Mon
Thread is back, lol. I wasn’t going to be the one to bump it, but I will take the opportunity to say thanks for taking the time to answer my questions and for treating me with respect even though I like THX amps and sent the RNHP to Amir, lol.
In celebration of your many thoughtful contributions, a M0Nument:
M0NT Rushmore
LOL, yeah it’s like waging war with him. but at the end of the day u can still be cool with eachother. actually in appreciation of mon, can i ask what u like about THX amps? I’ve never heard one and i haven’t heard of them besides the shit mon talks about them here
In all seriousness, I have a great appreciation for M0N’s depth of knowledge and willingness to share his time and expertise; I’ve never felt like my differences of opinions are unwelcome or any kind of conflict / war. More like mutually respectful exploration of a hobby space we both love. My comment should be taken as self-ridicule for my own failure so far to find the RNHP to be superior to THX amps, despite many people here sharing the opinion and experience that it’s clearly better.
My exposure to HiFi started with loudspeakers. I spent gobs of time auditioning local gear many years ago before deciding on Sonus Faber Cremonas for my home theater. Headphones / personal audio have been a more recent thing for me (only took off in the last 2-3 years). I’ve gotten in quite deep since comparable levels of audio quality from headphones are at least 10-20x cheaper than loudspeakers / 2-channel audio. And there’s a lot to explore.
I feel that a little context is helpful to understand my build-up to THX amps, which can be summarized as an evolution roughly like so:
Roughly a year ago I attended CANJAM SoCal and started collecting IEMs, and then last fall I went to RMAF. Those two experiences finally exposed me to tons of endgame-level gear, including HE-1s, Stax 009s on Blue Hawaii, the full line-up of ZMF stuff, etc. Even a quick listen to Zeos’ Abyss headphones in the HiFi Guides room. Here’s a snap of the “famous” 789 I took while there.
Although it has taken a long time to get to where I am now, my experience with headphones has been mirroring my earlier experience with loudspeakers. I lean pretty heavily toward an objectivist viewpoint, but without the dogmatic spin that insists that’s the only correct way to build an audio chain. Rather, I view it as a starting point from which to best understand headphones, and I aim to have both an objectively clean reference stack and at least one euphonically blissful subjective stack.
As I found with loudspeakers, it remains true for headphones that the entire playback chain needs to be as pristine as possible; speakers / headphones do the most to define the end result (voicing, technical capabilities, etc.). Meanwhile, I want my DAC and amp to “get out of the way” to the maximum extent possible and avoid adding any noise / distortion / coloration, etc. I don’t want to mess with EQ or anything. I just want a clear window into whatever various headphones do.
For me, that’s exactly what the THX amps do. With extremely-resolving headphones like Focal Utopia / Stellia, the detail retrieval I get from my D90 + 887 stack rivals the fluid clarity I get from my Stax L700s. It’s approaching a vanishing point of pure clarity that I think I’ve only heard unequivocally bested by the HE-1s. Meanwhile, the 789 and 887 supply ample power to drive about anything I’ve thrown at them (even 600-ohm 880s). There’s a great deal to like for a quite affordable place.
A common criticism of the THX amps is that they sound too bright / grainy / digital in the high end. I’m not convinced that any such effects are the fault of the amp rather than present in the recordings or headphone voicing (and maybe I’m really just saying the same thing, but less convinced that it’s a problem that the amp ought to address). One of the changes I noticed when upgrading my loudspeakers to McIntosh gear (including a C2600 tube preamp) was a slight smoothing of upper registers that made everything sound more agreeable–it’s like it just barely sanded off the rough edges. So maybe that’s a hallmark of a “good amp” (sure sounds great!), even though there is a such thing as the odd track that precisely calls for digital harshness:
Nine Inch Nails - Closer to God
If the static at the beginning, and even moreso at the end of that track does not make your eyes water, then it’s not harsh enough.
Not wanting to fall victim to pure measurements-worship, I picked up an RNHP (and sent it to AudioScienceReview for evaluation), hoping for a more “musical” amp. Instead, I found that while it doesn’t quite measure up to the THX amp, it delivers a more or less indistinguishable experience to me across a range of headphones. It also has no trouble driving anything and has the same wonderful transparency. The knob is way better, and I like the looks, but I haven’t found it to be any better or worse than the 887 for imaging, tonality, detail, etc.
I’m not sure that’s the final word–I just picked up a Violectric 280 based on both glowing reviews from M0N and some solid technical explanation of how the circuit is designed to bring out the best in headphones across a wide spectrum of impedance ranges. If there’s anything more to find beyond THX, I expect I may get tighter, more controlled sound, perhaps better imaging out of the Violectric. But those are just guesses based on the types of improvements I heard from upgrading the amp chain for my speakers…
Apologies for the entire essay on why I like my D90 + 887 stack, but I wanted to paint a complete picture of how that opinion developed over time, and how it’s colored by my own goals and expectations from that audio stack. I also have a ZMF Pendant tube amp on the way that I am beyond excited for that I’m looking to fulfill an entirely different goal of subjectively enhancing my listening pleasure with my ZMF cans and whatever else I discover to “like tubes.”
who wants to take orders for a print run on M0N’s forum avatar?
