Headphone random conversation

[ipman]

Yes it was that link you've posted and it says don't repair or disassemble but that might be for other reasons like warranty and if you've seen the replacement batteries you have checked it out.

I just dislike this idea that when a battery is end of life and it can be after 500 charges which with daily use may only be less than two years.

 

[Colif]

i will confirm with them before i do that but to me, disassemble would be actually take everything out.

It wouldn't make sense to have it only held in by 2 screws if you aren't meant to be able to do it yourself. Most others the back is glued on.

 

[Colif]

R6 Pro 2, BTR7, Samsung Galaxy S10 for scale

Not perfect yet. Tidal being a pain to get to logon and Firmware won't find the latest version. Its odd, I can see latest version on PC but if I go to site on DAP, it only sees 1.30 which already took 4 tries to get on. Did a few system resets in that time, then I worked out part of update fixed USB and I had it plugged in charging. Let it almost get full power and tried one last time.
Put google music on so I could hear it... had it 4 hours, only on 2nd song. I don't need high gain, medium is enough. I haven't tried class A yet.

note: the latest version on PC is for the R6 Gen 3, not my model... it took me a while to work that out.

 

[ipman]

Yes I'm still getting used to this Bluesound Node. I like it because I don't have to worry about battery drain.

I asked the sales guy in the Hi Fi shop and he'd used one and had the app on his phone. It hasn't got great bluetooth range but I specifically asked him about connecting to two specific online radios. He reckoned there wouldn't be a problem, but both aren't available in my country. I can get them on my PC though.

It did take a while to get used to and set up, and am still exploring the possibilities, finding new stations etc.

 

[Colif]

Someone asked about audio drivers on win 11, asked about settings... one thing led to another and I been listening to my Focal headphones for last few hours.
I don't think they have ever run out of battery, but they really don't get a lot of use. Need to listen loud to hear them best. They don't have as much bass as my other headphones either.

I wonder if anyway to attach them to my new DAP. I have my doubts, they have their own DAC integrated into headphones, and if plugged into a DAP run at 100% volume. It can't be changed. Shame, they might not get a lot of use.
I don't think they can be attached via line out. They still work attached to PC, so I have that. They could be what I listen to at home...

Would I have got all this stuff if I hadn't bought Bathys? Something had to start the ball rolling. Shame I bought it all in wrong order. It was only after I got BTR7 and IEM that I thought I could replace phone completely... the phone itself was only new when I got them both so it was how I had been listening to music for about 10 years so it made sense at time.

I don't think any of it was a waste of money, they all good for something... just have to find a niche.

might need to find a inexpensive soft USB C cable. Of reasonable length. I don't need a charging cable as a lot of those have stiff connectors and are annoying to use attached to my headphones. I have one already.

 

[Colif]

This time a week ago I had just realised my new DAP was dead. A firmware update had turned it into a black brick with a blue light. So after a lot of swearing I arranged a replacement and after a week I can see the new one is on its way to my local mail centre but as its Friday night, I won't get it until about 3pm on Monday. The thing that broke it won't happen again - the shop has updated it to latest firmware. Shame I know there will be a new one in coming months, they adding more features.

Most of last week I didn't want to know about audio reviews, it was too painful. Now I can watch them again.
I want to try MSEB (Magic 8 Ball) - its a way to tune sound like Graphic Equalizers but its slightly easier to understand.
Its built into my DAP.

Overall temp - ranges from cool/Bright to Warm/Dark
Bass extension - Light to Deep
Bass texture - Fast to thumpy
Note thickness - Crisp to thick
Voice - Recessed/Crisp to Forward/radio edit
Female Overtones - detoxed to intoxicating
Sibilance LF - Soft to crisp
Sibilance HF - Soft to Crisp
Impulse response - slow/Musical to Fast/Hard
Air - Soft to Crisp

those are from player, below explains them in more detail.

MageSound 8-ball (MSEB):

1 -- Overall Temperature is a tilt of the whole line towards treble (cool) or bass (warm)
2 -- Bass extension 70Hz and below
3 -- Bass texture 100Hz (medium)
4 -- Note thickness 200Hz (wide)
5 -- Vocals 650Hz (very wide)
6 -- Female overtones 3kHz (tight)
7 -- Sibilance LF 5.8kHz (medium)
8 -- Sibilance HF 9.2kHz (medium)
9 -- Impulse response 7.5kHz (very wide)
10 - Air 10kHz sloped all the way to 20kHz

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...me-subjective-thoughts-about-hiby-mseb.10385/
Has 3 levels of adjustment - Fine tuning, Medium Tuning, Excessive tuning

Now when I hear someone describe things as Warm, I might have some idea what they mean as I can set DAP to demonstrate it.

I never got a chance last week. I only heard about 10 songs on it at most. It sounded good enough that I didn't need any adjustments.

I need to pick up an sdcard reader at same time I get sdcard just so I can put music onto it from PC. I could just attach DAP to PC via Wifi or USB and do that

 

[Alm]

I used to have a Sony NW-A306 and it sounded amazing. But listening to 192khz music put everything else to shame and I couldn't get many albums at that quality. I ended up not using it very much and sold it.

 

[Colif]

I used to have a Sony NW-A306 and it sounded amazing. But listening to 192khz music put everything else to shame and I couldn't get many albums at that quality. I ended up not using it very much and sold it.

It is easy enough to find them on tidal now. Most of the albums I have collected in there seem to be about that. Some are lower. Some don't make sense to be Hi res... The Ramones still sounds the same.

Sony music players have always sounded good, had a few over the years. Think my minidisc was a Sony since they were the ones pushing idea. I avoided them this time around as I heard their units in my region are lower powered than other regions.

 

[Colif]

i had a problem logging into Tidal on my DAP last week, kept calling me a bot... said I was typing to fast to be human... I for one know that is unlikely. I am really fast at hitting the wrong keys, so maybe.

I was waiting to see if the replacement does the same but I just found out the Hiby music app that is built into the player has tidal integration... its on the google play store so I put it on my phone, tried to find tidal in app... wasn't in an obvious place but it appears to work. It took a while to import my library so at first it could just see the home page... which is hardly useful.

tidal app worked on phone already. I was just looking.

If I struggle to get logon working on DAP, there is another way. Hiby Music App can act as a server. I can set phone to stream audio to the DAP. I would prefer not to have to carry phone around all the time though. I want to download my play lists onto DAP storage so I am not constantly online. When I go for walks...

Can't do that until I buy the sd card. I know one of my old phones has an sdcard in it but not sure I know which one. Easier to get a new one, its going to be faster anyway.

I was curious how much of the 64gb of internal storage would be free, and not used by OS... On mobiles you don't get it all. System uses 15gb of my Samsungs S23's storage for instance. it doesn't matter when you have 256gb of storage but its noticeable when you only have 64gb.
I see when i get it I guess.

 

[Colif]

Take 2.

managed to login to Tidal on both HiBy app & Tidal one... the 2nd is better as its easier to play all my songs. And lets me download playlists. including all the songs on them. seems to play more randomly than the hiby. Guess it has to find all the songs.

 

[Colif]

Learning curve. Went out this morning and dap seemed really quiet. I seemed to have volume higher than last two days... get home... figure out why almost instantly.

Unit has 4 choices for output on the bottom (excluding USB)

The left two are line out, right two are headphones. They are labelled but good luck reading them.

I had the headphones plugged into Balanced Line Out.
Its easy to do when you not thinking and both inputs are the same size, and dap is facing down in your pocket.
I will have to be careful next time but it won't damage headphones as if anything the volume is lower...

I don't think the onboard amps do a lot in line out mode. I did notice the choice of AMP was greyed out but I thought that was because I am using a power saving mode.

 

[Brian Boru]

Hey, nice shoes! But didn't Mom ever tell you to take 'em off on the bed?

labelled but good luck reading them

My fav laws from Creative Land are:
Color on color
Visual aids calibrated for microscope

So even if it wasn't black-on-black, you still couldn't read it anyway

 

[Colif]

So even if it wasn't black-on-black, you still couldn't read it anyway

“It’s the wild colour scheme that freaks me,” said Zaphod whose love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight, “Every time you try to operate on of these weird black controls that are labelled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up black to let you know you’ve done it. What is this? Some kind of galactic hyperhearse?”

A quote from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

It’s the wild colour scheme that freaks me,” said Zaphod whose love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight, “Every time yo...

www.goodreads.com

what you get for stealing a spaceship that has one role... crash into a star at end of concert to cause a super nova... who needs fireworks?

​

 

[Colif]

Added 512gb sd card, now moving the few things I had downloaded over to it, and clear up internal storage. Shame only way to "move" is to remove off device and download again, with a different destination folder. I think I download a few albums now... no rush.
500 tracks = 30gb... approx 8500 tracks fits in 512gb
i don't think i have that many... i don't need to download all the albums I own, as I can just use wifi most of the time.
Downloaded tracks are used when not online.

 

[Colif]

Added 512gb sd card, now moving the few things I had downloaded over to it, and clear up internal storage. Shame only way to "move" is to remove off device and download again, with a different destination folder. I think I download a few albums now... no rush.

that worked for play lists but I had downloaded 531 tracks individually and clearing those isn't as easy as just deleting one icon that represents a playlist. I didn't notice at first, I simply unmarked them as downloaded and then (once tidal set to use sdcard) downloaded them again. It was only later I noticed that tidal's user data on DAP is 36gb when it should be way less.

I still have 12gb free on dap so its not like its squished but it should be way emptier. I also have about 450gb free still on sdcard so any music can just go there. It only really restricts app installs and I don't really have any I need on there... that aren't on my phone already.

I think only answer is to delete user data which also deletes user names. I also not sure if it will delete all data on sdcard or if not, would the new install recognise the files on sdcard?

it removed everything off DAP and SDCard, 48gb free on DAP & only used 4.7gb on the sdcard so far. Tidals memory usage down to 100mb where it should be. Only downloading playlists and albums now, easier to clean up after.

 

[Colif]

Ugh...

complains its not a phone, no camera, microphone or speaker - none of these would help as it also missing a radio, and gps. Its not a phone on purpose
complains it has no audio outputs?? He means a speaker (again) - its really dumb to say with 2 headphone outs
Complains that android uses 15gb of storage - it does that on my phone too. Its the same on any android phone... i don't know about Apple but probably. The operating system has to live somewhere...

reviews DAP and leaves sound to end... um. What? then doesn't actually listen to unit, just talks about features listed on website... thats not a review in my eyes, Did you try the features?

The fact he calls it an MP3 player was all I needed to know. One of the "Why use a DAP when you have a phone" crowd. Except worse as he complains about all the reasons its not a phone.

 

[Colif]

I need another set of headphones to plug into DAP to test if some things I hear are the source or the headphones. Occasionally things sound off but its only the occasional song. Most of the time it sounds fine. Could be DAP as it needs to be used a lot more to get burned in.

That is my excuse anyway. I picked up a pair of these tonight

LETSHUOER S12 PRO- Magnetic planar earphones Hi-Fi planar in ear monitors for audiopiles and music lovers

LETSHUOER S12 PRO utilizes a custom 14.8mm large-diaphragm driver with great details retrieval, punchy bass and clear trebles. LETSHUOER S12 PRO comes with a stock cable that is constructed with silver-plated monocrystalline copper and a swappable jack with 2.5mm / 3.5mm /4.4mm.

letshuoer.net

Still trying out different things and a planar magnetic IEM is different enough. They aren't the best planar IEMs, but they are the best I can actually buy. The pairs that are more highly suggested are either not on sale here or out of stock (and have been for 4 months now). It was 3rd best choice.
Its not that expensive compared to the other headphones I have bought. I can pay it off right away. There is another set I may buy in coming months but its not so cheap and also not out yet. Its why I got these instead.

After buying them I find they released a S15 which is an updated version of the S12 Pro but:

1. Its more expensive by about double price
2. Its not available here anyway
3. It sounds different.

New doesn't always mean better. I have to re evaluate how to judge some things. Sennheisser HD600 are still highly rated and came out 25 years ago.
More drivers doesn't mean better, it depends how they tuned.
More dac chips doesn't mean better, it depends on what they are. And how they are used.
More doesn't always mean better... basically.

 

[Colif]

I noticed last night when i started dap for first time that tidal took over a minute to play any song right away. But once it did, it was fine for rest of night. I was looking up one thing on google about dap just to find that behaviour is common for Tidal app on any DAP, whenever you have data on an sdcard. Seems to relate to amount of ram on the dap as people with daps with more ram have less delay at startup. daps with less can take up to 20 minutes to start.

When phones can have over 12gb of ram now, my dap only has 4gb and I think the most expensive daps now might only have 8gb. ram only needed to buffer music, so it doesn't need that much.

it happens every startup. talk is the program scans entire sdcard before starting up. Takes just over a minute. Gives me time to put headphones on. I can adjust to it.

If i didn't want music on sd card to listen to on buses, I could just remove it off card too... but I can live with the delay. I know its not my DAP, it is the program. Other programs don't have the delay.

 

[Colif]

New headphones must want more power than my DAP pushing out as they not very loud even on High Gain and Class A. Could be I need to try larger foam tips. get a better seal... feels pretty good now.

It can depend on the song, not all of my songs are consistent volume level so I have been able to drop amp/gain levels down and still get reasonable sound. Some are soft but raise it too much and next might bite head off.

They have less bass than my other IEM but more than my Bathys.

Could just need to be worn in. Only had them two hours. Using a newish DAP and new headphones together, they both need more usage. Still seem to need more volume to get same effect. I can hear my keyboard... quiet song though.

Seems more you pay, the longer the cable is. I feel like most of the people who use these things must be midgets, not sure how you meant to carry dap in pants pockets and have cable long enough to wear IEM actually in my ears.

I am sure my other IEM cable is about a foot longer. It was twice the price I guess.

Looks at price of replacement cables... um, maybe I get a pair of IEM I like enough first. Also need to make sure the connection on IEM is right before buying wrong cables.

Really, only one other IEM I might get anyway. Then I should stop for a while. Save up for whenever these are released here

Hadenys - Open-back headphones | Focal

Hadenys, Open-back headphones : enjoy your favorite music wherever you are with Focal headphones. They combine modern, elegant design with high-intensity sound.

www.focal.com

edit: i think i already have biggest foam tips in. The ones in the container look smaller now.
It doesn't have an amazing ability to block outside noises. Maybe my ears bigger than I knew.
The shells do disappear into my ears but sound might be getting in as well.
Need to take them a walk tomorrow and see how good they are in public.

notices he has a plug in active on his DAP. Disables it... suddenly more volume.
That helped a lot. Means i don't need to be in the 70's or use class A or High Gain.
I wonder when I set that up. I never noticed on other IEM.
It might actually have some bass now. Rethinks entire post...

 

[Colif]

They smaller than my other ones, need to push them further into ear cavity to get a good seal. Really easy to not be in far enough and hear outside noise.
Can play a major factor in how good they sound.

I did put largest foam eartips on, maybe I need to try smaller ones. The foams may not be going in fully each time. It changes how much bass you get. They in well now, don't want to take them out of ears.

could be i need to tip roll with these but I don't have a lot of additional choices.

 

[DXCHASE]

New doesn't always mean better. I have to re evaluate how to judge some things. Sennheisser HD600 are still highly rated and came out 25 years ago.

Bought the drop x sennheisser HD6XX's with a DAC when they came out and i dont think i can ever go back to regular plug n play in a pc or wireless bluetooth. These cans are amazing. If they are designed like the first pair from that long ago (assuming the HD6XX is in relation to HD600) then im impressed.

 

[Colif]

I think they were first released in 2018

Drop x Sennheiser HD 6XX review

Wholesaler Drop is offering a Sennheiser HD 650-like set of headphones: the Sennheiser HD 6XX. Explore the more affordable set here.

www.soundguys.com

Probably get a pair of Focal Hadenys sometime later in year, before Xmas.
They meant to be very close to HD600 sound.

Only released this month so not many reviews yet

 

[Colif]

if I turn my DAP off, the next time I restart it, it won't be able to connect to my internet unless I restart router - as otherwise DAP cycles through 3 states:

1. disconnected
2. connected but on 2.5ghz
3. connected on 5ghz but soon goto 1 again

sitting next to router when it reconnects seems to fix it. Its normally fine once its connected.
my router: https://www.tp-link.com/au/service-provider/xdsl/vx220-g2v/

If I leave it on, it just drains battery... guess I just keep it charged.

I had forgotten its losing connection thing.

I have re enabled plug in that caused the sound problem when I first got headphones, I must have changed some of its settings as its default settings didn't change sound at all. New IEM seem to have a wider sound stage, or perhaps I can just place musical instruments better - does depend on the song,

 

[red_5ive]

Bought the drop x sennheisser HD6XX's with a DAC when they came out and i dont think i can ever go back to regular plug n play in a pc or wireless bluetooth. These cans are amazing. If they are designed like the first pair from that long ago (assuming the HD6XX is in relation to HD600) then im impressed.

I had the original 600s as well, they were nothing short of awesome, but I don't like wearing cans for too long as I start getting headaches and hot flashes. But that might also be a silly excuse for me to have assembled a 5.4.2 get up for the mancave (with Auro3D to boot), as I much favor an audio system and just run an external noise cancelling mic when needed.

And speaking of audio systems...

I have 5.1 speakers but I can't use them and play a game and also have my door open.

I also have the same problem, and even the fans kick in on my amps (external). But it's a trade-off for me as like I mentioned the headaches from headphones, which is even worse for me in the summer months. So I pick the lesser of two evils. But I compensate by enabling DRC on my processor to level out the sound so that I don't have to turn things up too much with the door open and can still hear everything. But it also helps that my wife is kind of hard of hearing due to her previous profession lol.

 

[anort3]

Bought the drop x sennheisser HD6XX's with a DAC when they came out and i dont think i can ever go back to regular plug n play in a pc or wireless bluetooth. These cans are amazing. If they are designed like the first pair from that long ago (assuming the HD6XX is in relation to HD600) then im impressed.

The HD6XX is a version of the Sennheiser HD650. Most people say they aren't a 1:1 copy but they are VERY close. I always found the HD650 too dark. Like someone poured syrup over the music. The midrange is spectacular though. Replace the pads yearly with OEM Sennheiser pads for the best sound. They get even darker with pad wear. I've owned the 600, 650 and 660S among many others.