Thanks for the insight. My heart though is leaning towards the rebel amp.I want my next amp to sound more fun and not exactly neutral and analytical just like what I have now, the 789. The rnhp sounds a little like that but Iām sure not as boring.
Seems pretty nice, Iām waiting until they come back in stock lol, been trying to place an order and they are out of stock lol
Nowhere near as boring imo, I really donāt think I would call the thx neutral, itās moreso acoustically dead, there is no life to be had, a good neutral amp would sound more lifelike imo
Yes the thx seems so lifeless. I was really disappointed when I first got it. Especially from all the hype. I emailed rebel amp and they say there should be stocks available at the end of the month. Fingers crossedā¦ 
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I am excited as well lol
I maaaay snag a rebel amp as well. Not sure yet.
Did this site ever land on what they were going to do as far as a dedicated buy/sell thread? Iāve got a friend who is trying to hunt down a used pair of NDH20 off of my recommendation for them and donāt want to spam a great conversation thread with purchasing requests.
Not that I know of.
But I recommend using hifishark.com for tracking down the best used market prices. Great search engine for Audio.
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At this point just making a post on an official thread saying you are selling a pair or looking to buy and pm me for more info is fine imo
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Make offers on ebay. I scored mine brand new for $400 from a dealer.
Iām torn on selling mine.
Edit: Giving them a solid listen with newer music and some recommendations from some people. I have to say it took getting my GS-X Mini to power them to the point of truly appreciating them. These headphones may not need a lot of power to make a fair amount of sound, but they do take a lot of power to really make the drivers move to enjoyable amountsā¦ or tubes (so Iāve been told).
If you see these for sale for $250 ishā¦ worth enough to pounce on for sure if you have an amp that can handle them. I have to say I REALLY do not like these on the THX 887 or the Schiit Heresy. RNHP was moot but ok. On the GS-X Mini Iām liking them which makes me thing maybe Class A or tube only with these headphones.
Would the FiiO BTR5 be a good match for the NDH20 for use with a laptop (wired) and on the go with a mobile device (Bluetooth)? Does anyone have any experience using this combination?
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Iāll try it out tomorrow. I canāt remember when I tried it last time.
The BTR5 worked good for on the go use. The NDH 20 likes power, but you need desktop power for desktop performance. Nothing beats the BTR5 in portability tbh
Soā¦ trying it out now. Itās good. Itās not like some surprising god tier that the Dragonfly Cobalt + HP-3 is. While it plenty loud enough for me with the NDH-20 + BTR5, if you listen to music cranked then it might not be the best. But at volume levels 30 or 40 out of the 60 on the display (on high gain) it does sound on the edge of too loud for me but more importantlyā¦ sounds REALLY good for this headphone.
To put this in perspective, I could totally see myself traveling to an office and using this setup and being QUITE happy. I hereby declare the NDH-20 and BTR5 a good simple pairing. The pairing cost ME personally $500 (I got a discount on the NDH-20ās + buying them used). I will also say that NDH-20 also has a nice spot on the bottom of the ear cup for a mod mic microphone.
Iām going to emphasis this is a GOOD pairing, not a GREAT pairing. If you listen to rock the mids are slightly recessed with this pairing. Which is strange to say for the NDH-20. If you listen to a lot of EDM. Iām convinced the NDH-20ās need a tube to open the most (or an amp that has stupid amounts of power of them like the GS X mini).
Talking about DAC AMP combo FiiO Q5s. I always listen on Low Gain and if you go over 1:30pm (inputs facing upwards) after it it starts to loose bass. it seems there isnt enough juice. On high gain I feel no difference with the NDH20 and I always use my PC on 100% volume and force myself to to 10:30 for gaming / videos and 12 or 1:30pm so high gain messes my PC volume settingsā¦
The Q5s sound great with the NDH20. PS3 sounds so good with Toslink. PS1 is cleaner than PS2 audio over RCA.
So, the only comfort issue Iāve always had with the NDH20 is the lack of adequate padding on the headband. Today I had a thought, maybe the hd600 headband pad is the same as the NDH20 in the way that itās mounts to the headphone. At quick glance it looked very similar. I have a spare hd600 headband pad laying around, so let me give it a shot. So I took the stock one off the NDH20 to compare. Turns out they are similar in how they mount, but the HD600 pad is slightly longer and wider than the NDH20 stock pad.
After careful trimming of the HD600 pad, it fit like a glove and just like that my comfort issue of over a year is solved.
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Using 3-4 Dekoni nuggets affixed to the original headband worked for me. Nice to see that the hd600 bands works too though. Always looks more comfortable than the 650 band
got a picture of yours with the nuggets on? Curious to see what that looks like.
Sry didnāt take a pic before I sold my NDH 20.
This was my primary concern when I was choosing my portable dac/amp. The q5s just doesnāt have enough juice (both in mwatts and current) on its non-balanced outputs for the neumanns (imo, and the reason why I returned the q5s). I chose the xduoo xd05 plus over the q5s, and I have to say, this thing is an absolute monster of a dac/amp especially with the bluetooth module for more connectivity options.