[pevsfreedom]

My first time doing anything like this, spent about 3 hours listening and trying to decide which to keep.

I have a new house and a lot of new equipment. I bought the DT770 80ohms and had some serious issues, so I read a lot and bought some other headphones to test it out against. These are 5 new pairs of headphones.

Playing thru laptop > master flac files > focusrite solo [dac] > schitt heresy.

I mostly listened and critically compared playback thru about 5 songs: Pink Floyd - Time & Great Gig in the Sky, Grateful Dead - The Music Never Stopped off Dick's Picks 18, and Electric Wizard - Return Trip for something different.

Some rambley uninformed notes between the pairs:

HD25 (F)
Cable sucks
Very uncomfortable
Definitely more everything than 600s. Rumbly bass. Fatiguing. Gets distorted. Lower resistance obviously.
Return trip sounds a bit lacking… all sibilance.
Time: kinda boring compared to 600
Loud as hell for being closed
Just kicking you in the face with frequencies

DT770 250 (D)
Same fit as 80s
Kinda like the coiled cable

Bass kinda flat? Sibilant.
More kinda static and… bland than 80s. Fatiguing. Also slow. Struggles to keep up it feels like.
Max volume seems sorta quiet.

Guitar struggles to shine.

Great gig: No mids or urgency to woman’s screaming. Sibilant and fatiguing. Ears ringing after.

Feels like everything is in a tunnel

DT770 80 (C)
More clamping force than 880’s. Weird fit on ears IMO.
Uber muddy bass on.. everything. Including Return Trip.
Time: guitar solo a bit boring; fatiguingly sibilant. Definite lack of mids - missing airy quality (probably from being closed).
Great gig - piano and organ override the screaming of the woman

Muddy and breaks up. Distortion and almost clipping.
Glaringly sibilant and blending between instruments. Piercing. Feels slow? Can’t keep up. Want to turn down.

Double stops sound like painful exploding crystals in your brain

DT880 (C)
Actually adjustable; nice cable. Best build so far?
Kinda flat @ max volume.

These are pretty quiet @ max. Guitar solo struggles a bit on Time. Relatively low bass.
Very flat.
Not enough mids. Just feels totally flat compared to 600’s.
Everything seems to be sitting behind a curtain

HD600 (A)
Comfy, bit tight. Lower bass. Awesome mids. Nice treble.
100% still not terribly loud on anything

Ears a bit hot; probably from clamp. Made the other pairs feel a bit hot as well. I read about "initial clamp force" from new set.
Long weird cable.

Time: Nails the guitar solo better than anything else.
Great Gig: Pretty nice at max. Screaming feels very present.
Music Never Stopped: Lower volume: Relaxing. Nice blending of instruments. Makes me wanna turn up. 60% at around 6:55 double stops = bliss.
Electric Wizard Return Trip - bass failing a bit. Sounds alright.

Best atmosphere and instrument separation.
Just absolute definition. Most human sounding. Never distorted on me.

After all testing I found them probably the most comfortable, though the pads were a bit hot on my ears.

---

It's kinda obvious what I liked the most. Honestly the HD600's won by a mile.

 

[ADUHF]

Very nice write up, pevsfreedom.

I'm still a bit confused about the logic of some of the connections in your setup though. And wonder if those might be impacting the sound quality, and some of your impressions.

 

[pevsfreedom]

Which aspect? The focusrite as the DAC? I've read good things and it works for what I need it for.

I think I was talking to you in the other thread. I wasn't using the S501 for this particular testing.

 

[ADUHF]

Perhaps I just don't know enough about the particular gear you're using. But I don't understand why you're using an interface like the Scarlett Solo with the Schitt Magni Heresy, since the interface does not appear to have any connections that are directly compatible with the -10 dBV consumer line level RCA inputs on the amp.

 

[pevsfreedom]

Perhaps I just don't know enough about the particular gear you're using. But I don't understand why you're using an interface like the Scarlett Solo with the Schitt Magni Heresy, since the interface does not appear to have any connections that are directly compatible with the -10 dBV consumer line level RCA inputs on the amp.

Solely for convenience. I record guitar with the Focusrite and it just works easily. I've read rather extensively it's a decent DAC and a lot of people use the headphone out jack into a headphone amp, just the way I was. I did not dig into the technical specs, just user reviews and discussions. I had no other DAC to use and this is my first forray into much beyond plugging directly in with a 3.5mm cable into powered speakers

I'm just using these from the Focusrite to the input of the Heresy. It seemed to work pretty well honestly.

 

[ADUHF]

Solely for convenience. I record guitar with the Focusrite and it just works easily. I've read rather extensively it's a decent DAC and a lot of people use the headphone out jack into a headphone amp, just the way I was.

Not people on this forum, I hope!

 

[pevsfreedom]

Might you please explain to me what is "wrong" with the set-up? Asking in a sincere I am interested kind of way

 

[ADUHF]

Might you please explain to me what is "wrong" with the set-up? Asking in a sincere I am interested kind of way

I am working on my reply. I want it to make sense though, so it may take a bit longer.

 

[pevsfreedom]

All good things in all good time.

 

[ADUHF]

What you're doing in your current setup is considered "double-amping", which is generally a no-no in enthusiast circles like Head-Fi. It may be the only option with your existing gear. But you will most likely not get the best performance from your components with this type of approach. Because it's not how they were designed to be used. And because each stage of amplification has the potential to increase the noise and distortion in your system.

Most of the headphones that you seem to be interested in are higher in impedance and lower in sensitivity, which makes them harder to drive to louder volumes from an amp with fairly limited power. I assume this is one of the reasons you bought the Schiit Heresy. Because you wanted an amp with more power to drive these kinds of headphones to louder volumes than you're able to get from the headphone output on your Focusrite interface. The problem is that the Schiit amp doesn't really have the right connections to work with your interface. So your only option (at the moment) seems to be to double-amp.

One simple solution to this is to use a headphone with lower impedance and higher sensitivity, that doesn't require a separate amp. And plug it directly into the headphone output on the interface. The AKG K371 is one headphone that might fall into this category. It is, in fact, one of the loudest headphones I've listened to... But I'm not a big fan of its design. And there are some other potential pitfalls to using such sensitive headphones, especially with some louder and higher impedance amps.

Another solution would be to get either a different interface, or a different headphone amp than the ones you're currently using.

There are interfaces (and standalone DACs) with unbalanced -10 dBV consumer line level RCA outputs that could be connected directly to the unbalanced RCA inputs on your Heresy amp. And there are also headphone amps with balanced +4 dBu inputs that could possibly be connected directly to the balanced monitor outputs on your Focusrite interface, with either balanced 1/4" cables, or balanced 1/4" to XLR cables. Either one of these solutions might potentially allow a simpler and maybe also better connection between the interface and amp than using the variable headphone output on the interface as your amp's source.

I'm not necessarily recommending this, but the Bellari HA543 headphone amp that I'm currently using has balanced +4 dBu XLR inputs, and also unbalanced -10 dBV RCA inputs. So it allows both types of connections. And it only cost about $100US.

Another solution is to get an interface with a better and more powerful headphone amp already built in, so you don't need to get a separate amp to drive the higher impedance headphones to a decent volume.

Imho, any of the above solutions would probably work better than what you're doin now. But none of these may be an ideal fit for your particular use case. And you may have to experiment a bit more with some other kinds of gear to determine what is the best solution for your particular goals, setup, and needs.

 

[helloh3adfi]

What you're doing in your current setup is considered "double-amping", which is generally a no-no in enthusiast circles like Head-Fi.

Is the Focusrite functioning as a pre-amp then even if you use its balanced line-outputs? But many people use it for active speakers, thus it would also be "double-amping", wouldn't it?

@pevsfreedom
Thanks for reviewing them. Now you need to compare the HD560s und Beyerdynamic DT 700 Pro X.

 

[pevsfreedom]

What you're doing in your current setup is considered "double-amping", which is generally a no-no in enthusiast circles like Head-Fi.

I believe I read that the Focusrite doesn't really amplify, and at max volume is considered a line level signal. From what I saw people who use a headphone amp with it just max the volume on the Focusrite which acts as the line level/unbalanced signal going into whatever amp you decide to use.

Theoretically what am I "losing' with this set-up? Just volume? My plan was to ditch the Heresy and use the laptop > Focusrite > S501 with that connected to turntable, and just plug headphones into the S501 when I want to use it for that. The Focusrite is only in the set-up really for guitar recording and playback, it just works well as a DAC too - I mean I could always have that just for guitar and another DAC for music but that seems... redundant.

 

[ADUHF]

Is the Focusrite functioning as a pre-amp then even if you use its balanced line-outputs? But many people use it for active speakers, thus it would also be "double-amping", wouldn't it?

That's possible, helloh3adfi. And I've re-tweaked my previous reply to hopefully reflect that. I'm just not familiar enough with this type of gear to really offer a highly informed opinion on it.

I think the balanced inputs on some headphone amps are generally designed to pair with a DAC that has a fixed line level balanced output. But I could be wrong about that.

 

[ADUHF]

Theoretically what am I "losing' with this set-up? Just volume? My plan was to ditch the Heresy and use the laptop > Focusrite > S501 with that connected to turntable, and just plug headphones into the S501 when I want to use it for that. The Focusrite is only in the set-up really for guitar recording and playback, it just works well as a DAC too - I mean I could always have that just for guitar and another DAC for music but that seems... redundant.

These are all good points, pevsfreedom. And since I have not used any of the gear that you're considering, it's possible that I could be steering you completely in the wrong direction. I don't think you'd be losing volume with your current setup though. If you are, then I really couldn't see any point to using the Heresy with the interface at all. Because more volume would be the only legitimate reason for using it in the way you currently have it set up.

Plugging the Heresy into your interface's headphone output is certainly not going to give you any better sound quality than simply plugging your headphones directly into the headphone jack on the interface. Because the headphone jack on the interface will probably be the limiting factor in terms of sound quality in either case.

The only reason I can see for plugging the Heresy amp into your interface's headphone jack would simply be to get more power and volume, to drive a higher impedance headphone like the 300 ohm HD 600 or 250 ohm Beyers to a better volume level. As far as I can tell, there would be no other sound quality advantages to doing this... unless you happen to think that more noise and distortion results in better sound quality.

 

[helloh3adfi]

I would better use the 2 line outputs of the Focusrite for that. Dunno if you can do balanced->SE without a converter?