[cosmopragma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nomad Perhaps you were listening to the L3000s in different moods by then? Not that I'm questioning your impressions. It's just that this is something that happens to some people sometimes.

It doesn't apply to the L3000s experience since we did have the direct comparison, but besides of that it surely happens to me.

 

[Nomad]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cosmopragma Lol, I deserve it since I never actually listened to the DHA3000. The amp I listened to was the japanese CEC HD53 with built-in equalization for the L3000s, and I was told by the owner that the DHA3000 provides a similar equalization. We did have another (stock) CEC HD53 at the minimeet at our disposal for direct comparison. The designer of the amp (Carlos Candeias who grew up in Germany and now lives in Asia) happens to be a fan of AT headphones.He has fine tuned an amp for his own L3000s and did offer this equalization curcuit to some interested Germans. He even plans to design an amp with exchangeable equalization modules for different headphones. However, the stock combo did sound too dark and generally too coloured for our tastes.The lower mids were often obscured by the strong bass.Overall it did sound laid back and sometimes even a bit lame, maybe suffering from intermodulation distortion, the latter similar to the effect you get when you try to equalize a K1000 into a bassy headphone.

Perhaps the stock amp was faulty

On a serious note there must be some truth on your impressions. Please realize I was kind of "cheating" because I used the PS-1 as example and it has some things in common with the L3000 sonic-wise. I don't like the amp with the R10 for example, although it's more of a resulting "grainy" sound than an unbalanced freq. response.

Was it the stock amp a quite "tubey" one? I usually find a very tubey amp providing the kind of sound you describe with the L3000. In my opinion the L3000 doesn't require tubes as it is romantic/warm/relaxing enough. That's why a bit of SS increasing speed, improving that great PRAT and tightening the bass a bit is the way to go. Better if the SS is a bit warm in order to avoid harsh sound because although the L3000 is quite easy-going, it is quite detailed too.

 

[cosmopragma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattigol I've had a similar discussion lately in another thread regarding the improvement that hardware-eq'ing or tuberolling can yield with the W5000. What do you guys think might be AT's rationale to deliberately design their cans to be such a pain to amp-match?...

This is not that uncommon.
For the engineers there a several design goals.Frequency response, being able to be driven by crappy receiver outputs since the majority of their target market doesn't own dedicated headphone amps (we are a minority), transient response, budget and whatnot, and these goals are often contradicting.
There are other examples where frequency response wasn't the major concern.
Think about the K1000s.These headphones are too analytical and bright for the consumer market, but the original target market wasn't the consumer.Originally they were mainly sold to studio engineers, and AKG offered the BAP1000 in order to correct the weird FR and even offered a customization service for fine tuning the BAP1000/K1000 combo to the individual HRTFs.The main goal was to provide an even FR without spikes and dips that are hard to equalize.Even an engineer not willing to purchase the complementing BAP1000 could always equalize the K1000s himself since he has the skills anyway.
To their surprise they did sell many K1000s to consumers.At first most of these consumers were elder middle european audiophiles that due to age had built-in treble roll-off..
Crazy head-fiers without the benefit of aged ears have to look for an amp that's somewhat flawed (we call it "synergy") when providing lots of current into a 200 Ohm load or have to live with the brightness.

 

[J-Pak]

Excellent impressions markl. Thank you very much

 

[shplorgh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cosmopragma Lol, I deserve it since I never actually listened to the DHA3000. The amp I listened to was the japanese CEC HD53 with built-in equalization for the L3000s, and I was told by the owner that the DHA3000 provides a similar equalization. We did have another (stock) CEC HD53 at the minimeet at our disposal for direct comparison. The designer of the amp (Carlos Candeias who grew up in Germany and now lives in Asia) happens to be a fan of AT headphones.He has fine tuned an amp for his own L3000s and did offer this equalization curcuit to some interested Germans. He even plans to design an amp with exchangeable equalization modules for different headphones. However, the stock combo did sound too dark and generally too coloured for our tastes.The lower mids were often obscured by the strong bass.Overall it did sound laid back and sometimes even a bit lame, maybe suffering from intermodulation distortion, the latter similar to the effect you get when you try to equalize a K1000 into a bassy headphone.

Sorry dude but that's bullcrap. An amp sounding better than it did un-eq'd after eq'ing is totally different from every other amp being worse than the DHA3000, and you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[cosmopragma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hungrych Sorry dude but that's bullcrap. An amp sounding better than it did un-eq'd after eq'ing is totally different from every other amp being worse than the DHA3000, and you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

Again, I never listened to the DHA3000/L3000s combo, and maybe I was misinformed about the DHA3000.
Besides of that, thanks for the kind words.
Markl's threads seem to attract ugly fights, but sorry, I'm not interested.

 

[markl]

cosmopragma, your comments are puzzling. You are quick to ridicule reports on the L3000 because they weren't attached to a DHA-3000 amp from AT.

Quote:

Well, Rick isn't around anymore and I'm shurely no substitute for his stubborness, but .......... You are driving the L3000s totally wrong, and this way you will never know what they are capable of. I don't know why you americans don't get it.The L3000s aren't meant to be driven by an amp that provides a flat frequency response.This is no separate headphone, it's supposed to be a headphone system.The matching amp DHA-3000 is tuned to counterbalance the wrong FR of the L3000s.The Japanese and the Germans do know this, it's common knowledge, and actually we do laugh about the american fools.

Yet, you haven't heard this headphone attached to that amp.

Quote:

Lol, I deserve it since I never actually listened to the DHA3000.

So, your "criticism" of my report is that I should have attached the L3000 to a headphone amp you haven't heard in order to obtain "valid" results?

And those of us who haven't listened to the L3000 attached to the corresponding amp from AT are "fools"? So what does that make you? You haven't listened to them attached to that amp either???

 

[cosmopragma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nomad Was it the stock amp a quite "tubey" one?

Frankly, I'm not sure.
Other amps we did have at our disposal for a comparison were a RKV, a Rudistor RP31 and a Corda Prehead.
The RKV is a tube amp anyway and not suitable for low Z cans without the so called "Impedancer".
I did listen to a Grado RS-1 connected to the CEC for a few minutes. I'm familar with the RS-1 since I owned one for about 2 years, and it did sound very good.
The L3000s/stock CEC did sound very similar to the L3000s/Rudistor, but when I think about it the Rudistor could be called "tubey" sounding as far as the term applies to solid state amps.According to Rudi it was originally designed for low Z cans like the Grados and especially the Sony CD3000s, and it's generally a smooth sounding amp.
I should have plugged the L3000s into the Corda to get a broader picture since this is a totally SS sounding amp, but I don't like it's edginess (I've once owned one) and after I've found the glorious synergy between the L3000s and the modded CEC I was not interested in anything else anymore.
The next 5 hours it was quite difficult to part me from this rig, and the owner was comfortable with it since he spent the whole time with my Corda Analoguer/RKV/K1000s rig.
Since then I tried to get a L3000, but to no avail, and the whole combo would stress my wallet anyway.I'd have to sell a few of my K1000s and a few K340s and the Benchmark and a few mid-fi amps in order to afford it.
I do have a contract with my spouse : no additional money into my audio hobby.
Maybe I should sell my spouse to an Arab, but it's a nice spouse and those are even harder to get than discontinued cans.

In the end these were only meet impressions of admittedly limited value, but that's not my main point.There are several owners of L3000s in Germany I'm aware of, and a few others did have the opportunity to listen to them.There's a general consensus that the L3000s have to be equalized in order to sound extraordinary.
Maybe german ears are different from other ears.
Wait, one of them is born in Israel and one is of hungarian origin.

Just local opinions, and YMMV.

 

[cosmopragma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by markl cosmopragma, your comments are puzzling. You are quick to ridicule reports on the L3000 because they weren't attached to a DHA-3000 amp from AT. Yet, you haven't heard this headphone attached to that amp. So, your "criticism" of my report is that I should have attached the L3000 to a headphone amp you haven't heard in order to obtain "valid" results? And those of us who haven't listened to the L3000 attached to the corresponding amp from AT are "fools"? So what does that make you? You haven't listened to them attached to that amp either???

I officially apologize for my flame joke.Obviously it wasn't that funny, and I never intended to insult you seriously or to ridicule your findings.
I'm the fool here, not you, is this o.k. with you?

Regarding the amp: I did assume (because they told me so) that the DHA3000 does provide a similar equalization to the amp I listened to.
It was quite easy to believe since the L3000s did sound way better this way, and that's not only to my ears.
Nevertheless assumptions without any first hand experience means walking on thin ice and is obviously foolish.
In the end it's only an opinion.

I will unsubscribe from this thread and add a line to my sig:
I'm an annoying fool.

Peace.

 

[gordie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cosmopragma Think about the K1000s.These headphones are too analytical and bright for the consumer market, but the original target market wasn't the consumer.Originally they were mainly sold to studio engineers, and AKG offered the BAP1000 in order to correct the weird FR and even offered a customization service for fine tuning the BAP1000/K1000 combo to the individual HRTFs.The main goal was to provide an even FR without spikes and dips that are hard to equalize.Even an engineer not willing to purchase the complementing BAP1000 could always equalize the K1000s himself since he has the skills anyway.

Actually, reading the literature on the AKG site (you can download a PDF owner's manual for the BAP1000), it seems that device wasn't intended to modify the frequency response, but rather to simulate the soundstage and presentation of speakers in front of the listener.

Quote:

To their surprise they did sell many K1000s to consumers.At first most of these consumers were elder middle european audiophiles that due to age had built-in treble roll-off.. Crazy head-fiers without the benefit of aged ears have to look for an amp that's somewhat flawed (we call it "synergy") when providing lots of current into a 200 Ohm load or have to live with the brightness.

The K1000s can be fairly characterized as bright, but I don't think that is due to an excess of high frequency, but rather because they have a lot of upper midrange (which we elders can hear just fine). My Stax 303s have more high treble than the AKG K1Ks, but the K1Ks sound a bit brighter because they have more upper midrange.

They sound great as a consumer can, I like to boost them 3dB at 64 hz (and 1.5 db at 125 to smooth the curve) but otherwise don't EQ anything else, and that's just because I like a bit more bass than average, due to years of playing out live and living with big speakers (and Grado RS-1s, which have been mostly retired with the purchase of the K1Ks and Stax the past year).

 

[Nomad]

Interesting. I'd like to try that amp with the L3000 one day and to compare it with the L3000.

Anyway I'd like to state that the flame joke from cosmopragma was... well, just a joke, stated as joke so please be fair with cosmopragma. He shared his experiences on the L3000. I didn't have a problem disagreeing with them, based on my experience (and I might be wrong) but there is no need to be harsh.

Anyway tx a lot for your review markl. I just bought yesterday a pair of Qualias in the FS forums. I had to try them. Hopefully they will sound better to my ears. But this is just wishful thinking. We'll see.

 

[jesse_w]

Well I could have sworn the title mentioned the GS1000, and maybe I missed something, but I didn't see it anywhere in the thread...

jesse

 

[Akathriel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesse_w Well I could have sworn the title mentioned the GS1000, and maybe I missed something, but I didn't see it anywhere in the thread... jesse

x2 hehe. I kept thinking Markl was gonna post about it in a later post, but I guess he hasn't gotten around to it yet.

 

[Todd S]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesse_w Well I could have sworn the title mentioned the GS1000, and maybe I missed something, but I didn't see it anywhere in the thread... jesse

He doesn't have them yet. From his original post.
Quote:

Soon, I will also be receiving a Grado GS1000 from an equally kind anonymous donor and will follow up when I get them, here in this very thread.

 

[mulveling]

Very nicely done, markl. For a while I was bracing for a scenario where you'd pan the L3000 - making me look more a fool for constantly raving about it

You've done an excellent job nailing down the strengths of the L3000. In regards to the weaknesses, I've not yet heard the Qualia or R10 - and the L3000 doesn't have weaknesses compared to something at the level of say the HD650, IMO.

The R10 is the 'phone I most desire to hear - based on your comments and the reviews of others, I think it's the most likely to dethrone the L3000 as my favorite headphone. Not too interested in the Qualias due to impressions threads like this one

On the great amp controversty - the L3000 does quite well with a number of amps I've tried. Though I do have a clear favorite L3000 amp, one need not spend megabucks searching for an elusive "magic" amp that transforms the sound. You can hear the essence of the L3000 sound with any decent amp. To my ears it doesn't need EQ either - sounds natural as is, though it could be a bit of culture shock for someone used to say, the SA5000, or even the K501/K701.