click pics to enlarge. Top to Bottom: innards of MyZic, Corda and MF.Headphone Amp Meet: Micromega MyZic, Corda Swing, Musical Fidelity V-Can II, Schiit Magni 3 and Vali 2 (using Beyerdynamic DT-880 300 ohm)
For someone who hardly listens to Headphones, I sure have more cans and amps than some Head-Fi people! I really should sell of most of them, but so lazy am I. After the lockdown started I am by myself and the daily routine just gets boring. How many hours can one listen to music or write? Many, yes, but not all day and night! To put a little variety into it, I sometimes retire into my bedroom a little earlier and listen to a little music through the Headphone while reading. So! Might as well do so comparisons.
I use only the Beyerdynamic DT-880, not because it is my favorite (that would have to be Sennheiser HD-600 and, even more so, my Stax 2170 System) but because it may not be broken in (I have no idea about how long it takes). I deliberately did not include my Schiit Valhalla 2, and Schiit hardly needs more coverage. My AKG 701 and Grado SR-80 are also just bystanders.
For source I used the 14-bit Magnavox FD-2041 (here). Unlike the vast majority of head-fi people, I don't listen at very high volume and only classical music at bed time (sometimes I listen to WQXR on my clockradio).For all I know, except for the Corda, which I bought used (report here), all the amps are probably not quite run-in! The Corda is undoubtedly the best built, with a built-in LPS. The worst built is the V-Can II (fortunately I bought them cheap when it was closed out at a HK Show). The 2 Schiit's employ fairly hefty LPS wall warts, whereas the MF uses a small SM supply. The Micromega is SMS too, but built in. Surprisingly, almost all were not built in China. The Schiit in the US, the Micromega in France, the MF in Taiwan. The only uncertainty is Meier Corda, which says "designed in Germany", which I take to mean it was built elsewhere.
Sound There is going to be relatively little here. Given that almost everything is underused and perhaps not broken-in, I consider it a level field. My goal is to give praise to under-sung gear, and there are surprises here.
- Schiit Magni 3 and Vali 2 Using only high gain, the sound of the two are more similar than different. Tube rolling helps in the Vali 2 but not enough. Both, despite reasonable driving power, seem to constrict the sound to the center of the head, making these a failure in classical replay. Dynamics are blunt, with little subtlety.
- MF V-Can II This was very well regarded in its day (see here). Despite its built, it sounds pretty good and not electronic, very close to the Corda in presentation and air.
- Corda Swing Now, we are talking. The orchestra panned out, with superior micro- and macrodynamics. The symphony, whether Brahms 4th (Bernstein/VPO, DG) or Franck (Paray/Detroit, Mercury) has breath and depth. Pleasurable and musical. But the Crossfeed thing is useless for me. The Swing is a discontinued model, but I note that the next step up, the long running, well reviewed and similar Jazz, is trashed by audiosciencereview. I have read this site quite a few times. IMHO while this fellow may know something about measurement, I'd wager he knows little about music (like his trashing of Dayton B652), a manifestation of the worst of head-fi.
- Micromega MyZic This is the most distinctive sounding of the bunch. I was immediately captured by the sense of massed strings. More, there is a sense of separate instrumental groups, like when the Wind Choir chords. the sound field is also the widest in the bunch. Before fully warming up, there is a trace of veil, but musically it is faultless. The Official Page contains many review links, and it has received accolades in Europe and HK (I got mine at a good discount in HK), though it has no presence whatsoever in the US. It deserves to be better known.
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I have used a lot of headphone amps myself. Some I owned, some borrowed and some I bought and returned for a refund. The BEST headphone amp I owned was one built by a full time nurse part time amp assembler based on the M3 circuit. It had a tkd potentiometer and I rolled opamps till I finally settled on the BB2604. I tried the BB2134, AD797 800 series BB627 but the good old 2604 beat them all. This amp was used with a HD650 and also an audio technica W1000X. The hd650 was my go to headphone where as the AT was a little too airy lacking 'correct' body. I also had a chance to try the hd800 (too bright and leading for edge) beyer T1 (never understood why it was rated so high), Beyer dt880 (my no. 1 preference but i already owned the hd650) and the akg701(neutral but lacked harmonics). I did have a Meier concertina amplifier (if i remember the name right). It was his flagship and used AD797 opamps throughout. While I felt it was dead silent with superb decay I did not find it as engaging as the M3 build. As for the asr website the guy is like a fanatic, close minded and defining the parameters himself. It's like a cult or religion where you define what works and what doesn't and then go about judging based on that. Im sure if he measures a 12awg gotham speaker wire vs a belden vs say a simple jenving it will measure the same, but if you listen the wires sound different for sure. Maybe he needs to measure qbits or something. If we go by his measurements all you need is a topping dac, denon receiver and revel speakers. I pity people who are going to buy class d amps with 75db feedback just because he says they measure well. I myself bought a topping d50s after reading his measurements and the dac was bright and thin and laser like sounding. There was simply no music in it.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see asr measure an amps timing, rhythm or fluidity, micro dynamics, image size, texture, soundstage, ability to allow singers to sing off each other. Basically the art or soul of equipment. The only issue i have with the site is it is encouraging manufacturers who are afraid to be classified as bad by this influencer to tune their products to his parameters.
ReplyDeleteI guess all of us here knows measurements is just numbers. Otherwise, I'll trash my Sparkler S503 long time ago with such poor S/N ratio and low bits. However, I still believe that there are some outstanding equipment with high specification and high tech since they were designed by designers who has a pair of good ears as well as music knowledge!
DeleteE Lo,
DeleteHow's the tracking performance of the transport section of the S503? Does it handle dirty discs well? I believe it uses a Teac mechanism. I had older Naim CD players which were so finicky with certain discs especially CD-Rs while my shigaclone that uses a JVC boombox CD transport plays everything and tracks to 34 on the Pierre Verany test CD! Go figure?
In general OK, the Teac transport play most but one or two disc that refuses to play for no reason! Most of my discs are more than 10, 20 years and I never clean them!
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ReplyDeleteI am sorry I have by accident removed this comment. Chee said that basically he did not either got good result from Schiit with his 600 ohms DT880. He said a lot more, but I hope he can comment again. Sorry for the mistake.
DeleteNo issues there. It gave me a chance to revise my previous comment.
DeleteI do not have the amps featured in your article, but I have the DT880 600ohm version for a few years now and paired it with different amps. In my experience with Schiit Gungnir + Mjolnir 2, the soundstage is narrow for such a well received amp. There is little space between instruments and performers. Tube rolling made some difference to the flavor, but does little to space things out.
Since moving from headfi to hifi, I have sold most of my gear and driving the remaining headphones with the Elekit TU-8600R. Though not a dedicated headphone amp, it did better in terms of soundstage and imaging than the Mjolnir 2. Tone wise, there is a slight bass emphasis which I think the DT880 benefit from, especially when you really want to ‘feel’ the double bass in the jazz trio.
Many tube preamps (like my Nagra PL-P and Manley Retro 300B) and amps (like Elekit and Almarro) have headphone outputs. Generally they are very good.
DeleteThe current notion popularized in many forums, that for best result a SEPARATE headphone amp is a must, is pure nonsense. On the tube preamps and amps the signal goes through excellent tube amplification and then is either simply impedance matched or transformer coupled for headphone use. Unbeatable!
The same thing is said about a phonoamps too. Often people with old integrated amps ask whether they should purchase a separate phonoamp (even we got an inquiry). The forum people would say yes, but that is ridiculous. Many older integrated amps have SUPERIOR phono sections that cannot be easily surpassed unless you are ready to pay significantly more.
Just another one of the Audio myths!!
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