Achieving High Fidelity Sound
Printed From: Graham Slee Hifi System Components
Category: Classified Section
Forum Name: Achieving High Fidelity Sound
Forum Description: Ask Ash
URL: https://www.hifisystemcomponents.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4160
Printed Date: 26 Mar 2026 at 7:25pm
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Topic: Achieving High Fidelity Sound
Posted By: Ash
Subject: Achieving High Fidelity Sound
Date Posted: 09 Mar 2017 at 12:02am
A few years ago, I began a quest to obtain genuine high fidelity sound. It started a long time before I discovered the existence of Graham Slee Projects Ltd and was inspired purely by a love of great music. The music of video game and film was my main motivation. Since then, I have bought and sold my way through a lot of equipment, in order to learn and teach myself. Here are a few photos. The headphones featured in this first photo are the Audio Technica ATH-M50, AKG K550, Sennheiser HD600, Sennheiser HD250 (both Linear and Linear II versions). I compared them all using Graham Slee's Bitzie USB DAC and Lautus USB cable. In my opinion, the HD250 was the best sounding, followed by the HD600 then K550 then ATH-M50. The M50 had a closed-in sound with an accentuated bass response. The K550 was quite neutral in its sound IIRC but its dynamics were quite flat. The HD600 had much better dynamics than the K550 but the upper bass exhibited some thump, altering the overall tonality in a way that others would call "warm" (I would call it "not transparent"). The HD250 Linear II was maybe slightly better spatially than the HD250 Linear (Mk1) but the differences between them were very small. Both HD250 models were excellent and were the first headphones that I used that I considered to be true high fidelity and faithful to the recording. They had neutral transparent tonality and great resolution of small details. The stereo image size was also great for a sealed headphone design.  Comparing HD250I to HD600, the upper bass emphasis of the HD600 was even more obvious in a side-by-side comparison. The upper bass thumped more than it should on some of my CD tracks. It wasn't long before I sold the HD600 and moved on to the HD250.  This was my first venture in "hi-fi" speakers. I bought a kit LS3/5A kit pair and a pair of Equator D5 audio monitors among other things such as Graham Slee Spatia cable and links, Proprius speaker monoblocks and a Solo Ultra-Linear Diamond Edition headphone amplifier. I embarked on many different listening sessions with the various equipment. The speakers, whilst more spatial than my headphones, were coloured due to their design and because of various room interactions. I ended up being left unimpressed and sold both. The Solo ULDE was great but I found that the Bitzie was so good that I had no need to connect the Solo to it as there was little to no performance benefit to be had. The Proprius were exceptional too but their future was uncertain as I had sworn to not use speakers again. I ended up selling the Solo ULDE and kept the Proprius pair to be used for headphone amplification.  This is when I was using the Bitzie and Lautus USB cable to compare four vintage Sennheiser headphones: HD540 Reference (mk1), HD540 Reference II, HD250 Linear (mk1) and HD250 Linear II. Many of the parts were interchangeable between each model and I could thoroughly compare them all for hours and hours. All sounded great. The HD540II sounded the best to my ears but the HD250II was great and sounded extremely close to the HD540II when I swapped the 540II velvet pads onto it in place of the pleather pads. The pleather pads sealed the earcups thoroughly whereas the velvet pads allowed sound pressure to equilibrate across the pad and gave a more natural imaging, to my ears.          (I will continue to expand this post over the coming weeks) ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Replies:
Posted By: Dave Friday
Date Posted: 28 Mar 2017 at 1:30pm
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Hi Ash ( and the rest of the gang) I want BBC radio in my van ( I'm in Spain ) so I need a phone with good sound quality to plug into the car radios aux input,reccomendations please. ------------- lp12,oc9mk3,ca610p,krimson40watt pa,kef105.4 |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 05 Oct 2017 at 10:58pm
 HD250 Linear disassembled.  HD540 Reference II disassembled. 
HD560 Ovation II disassembled.  One of my HD540 Reference II headphones that I used to own. I'd re-foamed and cleaned the earpads before selling to a forum member. I found that increasing the ear-to-driver distance by using thicker and slightly firmer foam rings in the pad skins really aided the stereo imaging of the headphone, really helping to bring out best performance its fairly small approx diameter 36mm drivers could achieve. This is still my favourite conventional style open-back headphone. Very simple and lightweight as well as easy to amplify compared to the AKG K1000 (which is the best headphone device I have ever listened with). ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 06 Oct 2017 at 5:58am
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Ash, based on your detailed photographs it looks like the HD560 Ovation II differs from the HD250 Linear and HD540 Reference II by the addition of what I can only describe as a whizzer cone. Can you elaborate on that and give us your opinion on the sonic differences please? My most expensive headphone purchase was the HD800, but I hardly ever use them, preferring the HD250 Linear II. They aren't as 'involving' as the HD250 Linear II and I am unable to 'get into' the music. Which headphones allowed you to really 'get into' the music? ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 07 Oct 2017 at 10:07pm
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There is no whizzer cone. The shape of the waveguide on the HD560II is just different from the 250 and 540 models. The 250 and 540 appeared to share an identically shaped waveguide and I suspect the driver size/technology was exactly the same too. All three headphone models are single driver designs. The HD560II was almost identical in sound to the HD540II and I compared them extensively side-by-side through the Bitzie. They had the same sensitivity (listening by ear) and same 300 Ohm impedance. The HD560II conveyed the same sound balance as the 540II but was more spatially constricted; it was unable to project as expansive a stereo image as the 540II model. This difference was even bigger after I stitched thicker foam into the 540II velvet pads. The 560II sound seemed a bit further away and in a position where I felt it did not immerse me as much. The frequencies and phase characteristics were the same though. I did some part swapping between 250 and 540 as well. I tried the HD250 Linear mk1 with the velvet pads of the 540II clipped in and this made the 250 and 540 models sound pretty much indistinguishable to my ears. Ear pad material and thickness were both very influential in the perceived ability of the drivers to project a sense of space. The HD800 was a superior headphone to all of these vintage designs in terms of technical ability. The resolving ability (microdynamics) of the HD800 is the best I have ever heard from a headphone. It's more resolving of lowest level detail than the AKG K1000. However, I did not enjoy them as much. I don't think the phase integrity and rhythm of the HD800 was as good as the other headphones I've mentioned. The sound was bigger and clearer than the vintage Senns and with improved bass weight and an even cleaner upper midrange/treble projection but I didn't find it particularly engaging. To simplify, the HD800 really impressed the mind but didn't emotionally move the heart. If you could have heard my K1000 headphones Graham, I think you would have agreed that they absolutely blew the HD800 out of the water in the ability to project an enormously spatial and rhythmically engaging sound. The massively increased space around the ears of the K1000 compared to the HD800 allowed you to hear some sonic details more clearly and effortlessly, despite the driver sensitivity of the K1000 being considerably less than the HD800. I began using the K1000 after using the highly resolving HD800 and was still hearing things on recordings that I had not previously noticed. The enclosure characteristics of a headphone are just as important as the driver technology and calibration. Headphone fit is a very personal and individual experience as well. The K1000 and HD540II are still my favourite headphones although a HD250II is more versatile than a HD540II as it can be used for closed-back applications. The K1000 ticked all of the performance boxes for me; it was spectacular. The others were all mediocre in direct side-by-side comparison to be completely honest. But none of them are speakers and speakers can be better; much better. When listening to well-mastered music in a cool quiet room, on your own with nobody else around, wearing a fully open AKG K1000 on top of a beanie hat was very much worth looking like a dumbass for. The sound is simply amazing. Only bespoke specialist speakers can beat it IMO. The reason I removed the temple pads and wear a beanie hat is to distribute clamping force over more of the head, to allow it to grip the head much more securely without shifting position when I move around or lie flat. It is also to keep the headband clean and free from hair grease/moisture and most importantly, it allows more customisation of position on the head as the hat effectively changes the shape of your head so the drivers can be even further forward of the ear pinnae to further improve binaural perception.  ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 07 Oct 2017 at 11:06pm
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In my opinion you did very good work on refurbishing and slightly improving the Senns you sold me Ash. I like the 540/II a lot but use the 250/II more due to the isolation from outside noise. At some point I will arrange, presuming your consent, a visit to hear those K1000's and bring my own large beanie hat! ------------- Jon Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC. |
Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 08 Oct 2017 at 6:03am
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Thank you for your reply Ash. I've often found that a technically correct design can be less engaging, and I'm on dangerous ground for saying this because if what I do is quite engaging it suggests my work is technically incorrect; this isn't the case. I too use the HD250II because of their isolation from external noises; mainly from fans: extractor fans; heater fans; desk fan (newish house built any old how); as well as computer fans; hens clucking in the paddock next to the golf course with its constant drone of tractor mowers (otherwise quite lovely). And your cardboard baffle speakers remind me of me. I have never been able to hear many of my 1970s albums as good since. It often makes me wonder why doing the "right thing" is so wrong. Sounds hide sounds: bass hides melody and can change tempo, but without it there is no foundation - but with it much is lost. And as for room tuning...? I can only conclude that speakers and headphones leave so much to be desired, and it will always be like that. ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 08 Oct 2017 at 7:56am
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I've never really been a speaker enthusiast until recently. I'd always enjoyed hearing exactly what the recording should sound like without significant sound signature and colourations. Both passive and active box speakers that I'd tried could never do much of what my HD540II and later K1000 could do. The speakers were more spatial and three-dimensional but apart from that, they were just an awful coloured mess. The breakthrough moment for me personally was putting an Alpair 12PW and Alpair 7P together on a cardboard open baffle. The12PW is a dedicated woofer and it can go very low indeed, without needing much of an enclosure to do so. At probably about 1.5m away from each woofer, wow... bass. No hump and thump. It scaled properly and whilst lower frequency bass had less energy, the clarity and audibility was superb. I will be using this driver as my main bass unit. My next decision is which full range driver to blend it with. 10P, 12P or perhaps my newly acquired 10MAOP (micro arc oxidation process) drivers. I'm thinking the 12P for its microdynamic resolution but one of the 10 drivers may have a better treble reproduction. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: mitch65
Date Posted: 10 Oct 2017 at 5:20pm
Glad to see you still have the same passion since your first post Ash. I still have the pair of HD-540 Reference II you sold me an age ago and still going strong. Recently bought a Solo amp and finding my way back to headphone listening.  ------------- Greg Rega Planer 3 Gram Amp 2 Audiolab 8000A Auralic Aries Mini Russell K 50 |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 10 Oct 2017 at 8:49pm
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Glad to read that they're serving you well. They are lightweight, easy to maintain and sound great. Exceptional price to performance ratio for what they are. Whilst nowhere near as difficult to source as the HD250, the 540II is still quite hard to find in good condition with decent earpads these days. The earpads are the most significant thing for getting the best sound. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: RichW
Date Posted: 13 Oct 2017 at 10:45am
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I still enjoy using the '540 Ref 2 too. They go to show that newer isn't necessarily better. ------------- Majestic/Enigma, Accession MM & MC. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2017 at 3:55pm
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nor how much you pay for it. Whilst I still like the HD540II and AKG K1000, I have no use for either of them anymore now I've got some well-engineered speaker emitters/drivers. I never knew how superb speakers could sound until recently. I may buy a single HD250II as a listening reference and for applications that require a sealed headphone. It will mainly be to help me get the best sound out of my speakers. It's nice not to have to wear anything on the head. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Benja
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2017 at 8:57pm
| i also still enjoy the hd540II that i bought from you Ash. i did to have to buy a new cable for it though. because only one side was working. |
Posted By: BAK
Date Posted: 15 Oct 2017 at 2:58am
I feel the same, Ash... "It's nice not to have to wear anything on the head." As I have very big ears, It can be uncomfortable to wear headphones. I do use headphones for referencing sound levels and recording cues at times; they allow concentration to avoid distractions as well. A good pair of speakers can give the listener a feeling of being "in" the environment produced by the sound emanating. I have had high efficiency speakers that give a pleasing environment with only 0.01 watts (yes 1/100th) per channel.
------------- Bruce AT-14SA, Pickering XV-15, Hana EL, Technics SL-1600MK2, Lautus, Majestic DAC, Technics SH-8055 spectrum analyzer, Eminence Beta8A custom cabs; Proprius & Reflex M or C, Enjoy Life your way! |
Ash wrote:Posted By: dillon
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 3:49pm
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Amazing work Ash mate! I love headphones too. But at the end of the day, there is absolutely no substitute for a well set up, room treated speaker system for room filling being there sound. For me of course. I need to FEEL bass and sub bass in the pit of my stomach. Regards ------------- Nottingham Analogue/Origin Live/ PS Audio/ Burson Audio/GSP/ John Cadman |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 9:30pm
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Thanks. Yeah, my AKG K1000 does not mimic speakers at a distance but it is a step up from conventional headphone listening, to my ears. You need to have a very well thought out speaker system and listening environment to beat these in tonal accuracy and rhythm, I think. I soon sold all of my other headphones after using these for a while and pretty much stopped listening with headphones altogether. I only look at speaker stuff these days but most importantly, I keep doing what I've always done and focus on music and composition, which is what I enjoy. As someone who wears both glasses and contact lenses, I would make the following spatial comparison.
If: Headphones=glasses Then: Speakers=contact lenses I personally achieve my best vision with contact lenses. Much improved ability to appreciate and perceive 3D space. It's the same with decent speaker drivers that are set up properly; it conveys more space and scale. With contact lenses, the thickness of the corrective lens is greatly reduced compared to glasses, letting more light through to the retina and improving absolute resolution in low level light. High resolution speaker drivers at more of a distance allow your ear pinnae to work as they're intended to and give more directive sound information and allow certain nuances to be more clearly heard without needing to concentrate as much. In my experience anyway. So yeah, contact lenses are like speakers for me; I prefer not going back to glasses/headphones unless I have to. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: dillon
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 9:52pm
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That's such a cool analogy Ash. Rooms are the biggest factor in achieving your hifi goals I have always said. Not easy in our smaller spaces compared to the USA for example. I have had big speakers in tiny spaces and in bad spaces. Luckily, I have had biggish spaces most of my adult life. Until recently, none of those were treated. Sounded OK, but still not right. Then I discovered the wonders of room treatment with bass traps, diffusers and absorbers and life was never the same. It can be done as cheap as you like DIY too. My gosh what a massive difference! Now I have my gear set up using the classic 3rds methodology in a dedicated room. The speakers have disappeared! Soundstage is massive, sounds come out from 10 feet behind the speakers, 10 feet from the sides blah blah. The walk through and touch soundstage at last. ------------- Nottingham Analogue/Origin Live/ PS Audio/ Burson Audio/GSP/ John Cadman |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2017 at 10:08pm
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I like close proximity speaker listening where each ear is only about a couple of meters from each driver. This means lower listening volume required for clear dynamic sound so less room/baffle interactions, less diaphragm excursion and almost no speaker box enclosure needed for a nice extended low bass response. This is just my style of listening; it wouldn't suit everyone. But for me personally, it's when speakers sound best outside of a dedicated listening room with extensive acoustic treatment. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 20 Dec 2017 at 4:17pm
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Nearfield is the standard term for what you describe Ash. It's the closeness to the speakers to the listener relative to the walls of the room, so the direct sound is dominant. I sit about 2m from my speakers in a room roughly 4m x 4m, luckily it's not actually square. A bigger room would give me more options but I have used some acoustic treatrment and careful placement to get a decent sound. ------------- Jon Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 30 May 2018 at 3:19pm
To any of my past customers on here who purchased a Sennheiser HD540 Reference II headphone from me, would any of you like to sell one to me?   Assuming its still in really good condition. Otherwise I may have to get on the restoration path again to generate one for my own use. It's gonna be a Linear I or Reference II that I use to monitor my speaker adventures but to produce either of them in the form that I want is likely going to resort to a multiple purchase part salvage, like last time...
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Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 30 May 2018 at 6:53pm
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Can do. Please PM me. ------------- Jon Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 30 May 2018 at 8:34pm
| Thanks Jon. The HD540II can plug into my Bitzie and allow for comparisons against two different pairs of speakers. |
Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 30 May 2018 at 8:38pm
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Glad to help Ash and thank you for the excellent restoration you did on these HD540/II's and on the HD250/II's I have kept. ------------- Jon Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 25 Sep 2018 at 11:48pm
I have purchased a new reference headphone, which succeeds my low serial number AKG K1000. It is none other than the MySphere 3.1, from the same engineer team that produced the K1000, although they are now part of LB-Acoustics in Austria. The purpose of the project was to revive the core concepts of the K1000 but produced with modern materials and manufacturing techniques and with much higher design tolerances that were simply not possible thirty years ago. This is all combined to achieve a consistent and high performance product. Here's a mugshot showing the fit to my head. More info to come soon. |
Posted By: Aussie Mick
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2018 at 12:27am
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Wow, Ash! They even look they sound good. Mick. ------------- Rega RP8 - Apheta 2 - Accession MC Enigma PS -Solo ULDE (Focal Utopia) - PS Audio M700 - Fical Kanta No2 |
Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2018 at 7:48pm
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Glad you persevered Ash and hope the Mysphere sound is an entrancing as you found the K1000's. ------------- Jon Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2018 at 11:09pm
They even work with my beanie hat...   so they're secure if I lie flat. Great after a long day at work when I want to relax. They use the proximity effect for low bass so its extension is variable depending on the ear-to-driver distance. Frequency response is pretty much as flat as a pancake.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 19 Oct 2018 at 12:07am
I must say, the MySphere 3.1 is an astounding headphone. This could quite possibly be the best performing headphone ever made. With these, music of all genres is a real pleasure to listen to. For me, it takes the best qualities of the Sennheiser HD540 Reference II (musical, rhythmic, no frequency emphasis) and the "bass heavy" AKG K1000 (extremely spatial soundstage, transparent sound, great bass weight) puts them together and THEN SOME.  This is a very musical headphone with extraordinary sonic precision. It is effortless in its presentation of a neutral, transparent sound with very high resolution and is truly capable of full frequency reproduction. The upper midrange and treble have a very clean projection with no hotness or fatiguing quality. The bass extends very very low and deep depending on ear-to-driver position and amplification. The sense of perceived space for headphone sound is world-class; really spectacular ability to project a sense of space. This headphone excels with excellent recordings that have been mixed and mastered very well. Tonality is spot on; instruments sound as they would in real life. Timing is fast and responsive. Foot tapping and rhythmically engaging sound. Emotion is well conveyed through voice, piano, cello, violin et al. This is probably the ultimate sound engineer headphone, if an open design is suitable for the application. This is a "broadcast level" of device. Physically, I also love the short, lightweight cable that only plugs into one side of the headphone bow. Much better than having two wires hanging down next to the face. High driver sensitivity makes this device really simple to power. I have no regrets buying this product, regardless of how expensive it was. It's so great to finally be free of the slightly elevated (1-2dB) upper bass to lower midrange region of the K1000; this is as flat as a pancake in comparison. This headphone gives the critical, experienced listener a very clear vision of how the sound would translate to speakers in front of them. I am very lucky to live in a time where application of modern technology and materials allows a reproduction of this high standard.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 25 Dec 2019 at 10:59pm
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So I haven't updated my section here for quite some time but I still have been motivated to pursue high fidelity sound reproduction. I have recently been faced with a little dilemma; I have the MySphere 3.1, which is a superb sounding headphone, but did not possess any Graham Slee electronics to connect it directly to, as I had sold my Bitzie and Solo ULDE quite a while back and only have the Proprius from the Majestic now. The MySphere 3.1 have low impedance (15 Ohms) and high sensitivity (around 96dB/mW, same as HD800) so hardly anywhere near an ideal load for the Proprius. The dial position on the monoblocks would have to be so far anti-clockwise to avoid overdriving and hissy noise floor, then there is impedance matching. I bought a resistive cable when I purchased the headphone, which increases the impedance of the 3.1 from 15 Ohms up to 110 Ohms (close to that of the AKG K1000, which is 120 Ohms) for a slight drop in sensitivity. Although the sensitivity would still be close to that of the Sennheiser HD800. Still not an ideal load. So, I got wondering how I could make them a suitable load for the Proprius, seeing as if I couldn't, I would have to pay to re-buy a Solo ULDE in order to drive them from the Majestic. I got talking with Heinz Renner again, the creator of the headphone. I described my intentions of using the Proprius with the MySphere 3.1 because his past creation, the old AKG K1000, was such a great pairing for the Proprius and I wanted to imitate that compatibility because both the Solo UL and Proprius were equally capable at driving the K1000; I could not tell the reproductions apart from one another. So Heinz kindly went away and did some calculations based on the specs of the equipment then soon after personally made a voltage divider cable for me with banana plugs that plug straight into the Proprius terminals and posted it off to me for testing. Well I received it a few days ago and still need to test it, which I will do over the next few days. This cable allows me to use the MySphere 3.1 symmetrical/balanced with the Proprius and should grant the MySphere the same impedance and sensitivity characteristics as the AKG K1000. So I should be able to connect them both simultaneously as well and directly compare the reproductions, which will be very useful for analysis. Now I have abandoned the sale of my Proprius and will not require the Solo ULDE after all. Excellent, as it saves me money and still grants me the option of connecting speaker drivers if I need that facility. Over the next few days, I will be able to verify all this. I may try connecting the Majestic OTG USB to my LG V30 and check if that works too. Shall update soon. 
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Posted By: Aussie Mick
Date Posted: 25 Dec 2019 at 11:33pm
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That’s an interesting development, Ash. I look forward to hearing the results. Mick. ------------- Rega RP8 - Apheta 2 - Accession MC Enigma PS -Solo ULDE (Focal Utopia) - PS Audio M700 - Fical Kanta No2 |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 13 Apr 2020 at 8:55pm
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Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 13 Apr 2020 at 9:39pm
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Nice looking set up Ash, hopefully it sounds even better? ------------- Jon Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC. |
Posted By: patientot
Date Posted: 13 Apr 2020 at 9:50pm
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Those are some very unusual and exotic looking headphones! ------------- SL-1200 MK7 (modified) + Reflex M + PSU-1 used with AT150-40ML, AT VM610 MONO, AT VM95ML, Stanton 680mkII + Ogura, and Shure M35X cartridges. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 13 Apr 2020 at 10:22pm
| So it has been clash of the earspeaker titans tonight. Been comparing the K1000 against the MS3.1 for a few hours. Both are an equivalent load in my setup and are connected in parallel to the Proprius. The smaller driver size of the MS3.1 has not put it at any audible disadvantage as far as I can hear. Both have a virtually identical stereo image size. The K1000 has an obvious upper bass diaphragm resonance which the MS3.1 does not have. I think the MS3.1 goes a little deeper in frequency and has an overall purer reproduction. Both are very musical but there is a clear winner, as the successor product is simply more enjoyable to listen to. K1000 will be sold in due course now I am satisfied that it does not beat the MS3.1 in any area. Need to replace the standard PSU1 with an Enigma and buy more of my favourite music on CD so I can enjoy the best quality files. I was considering comparing MS3.1 against RAAL Requisite SR1a ribbon earspeakers but I can't really be bothered as the expense is too high and it won't sound like speakers so pointless. MS3.1 is probably a more natural listening experience than the SR1a anyway. Cheaper to put my Mark Audio Alpair 11MS in cardboard boxes and buy a second pair of Proprius. Will be using MS3.1 to judge digital parametric EQ adjustments needed on my speakers. Pretty much gone as far as I want to with headphones. If Heinz builds any prototypes for future projects, I will ask to be a tester. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 12 Jun 2020 at 10:24pm
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Stepping into the world of single board fanless computers seems to be a step in the right direction in terms of preserving signal fidelity for the very best audio reproduction. Compared to my previous Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro gaming motherboard, whose i7-9700K 8 core 8 thread CPU had a huge heatsink with a fan, the PC tower had a fan and the power supply unit had a fan and some coil noise, my new Hystou mini-PC is wonderfully silent. Now, the "noisiest" part of my computer is the 32GB of RAM chips and even this is pretty quiet. SATA SSD too, no moving parts at all.
------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 02 Jul 2020 at 9:35pm
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Fan noise is just one of 'artifacts' of trusting your home PC to deliver your music well. But I will persevere whilst admiring your quest and the single board systems other forum members have set up over the years... ------------- Jon Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC. |
Posted By: mdnicke2
Date Posted: 30 Aug 2020 at 12:35am
| I (and my wallet) do appreciate knowing that going down the rabbit hole to chase the dragon is a common occurrence. One reason I’m looking into Graham Slee is I do want “endgame” pieces for a reasonable price. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 30 Aug 2020 at 8:28am
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I have used Graham's products for years and I consider the Majestic-Proprius combination to be among the best money can buy for listening enjoyment and critical listening, for digital sources. Product specifications and statistics have a lot in common; they can both be manipulated to give a false information. I have very limited trust in the entire industry. If I were a primarily vinyl user, I would use a minimal AccessionMC-Proprius combination instead. I prefer trying to adapt headphones to work with the Proprius rather than having a separate headphone amplifier. This is so I can either drive them symmetrical/balanced OR use the inverted phase from line-level, which I am led to believe avoids common mode distortion from being carried forward. A sensitivity/impedance adapted MySphere 3.1 provides incredible sound quality with Graham's Majestic-Proprius but sadly costs more than the combo. I have no regrets though, despite the £7000+ expense. Cheap for cutting-edge technology, relatively speaking. I don't collect equipment, I sell on whatever doesn't provide the sound quality expected. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Pushpaw
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2020 at 3:56am
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Ash, this thread is fascinating. As far as I can tell, you seem to have gone from headphone listener to speaker listener then back to headphones with the MySphere? Where have you landed? ------------- P******t Debut Carbon, Goldring 1042, GS Accession MM w/Enigma, GS Solo ULDE w/PSU1, Sennheiser HD6XX, Technics SU-800 IA, Castle Knight 1, PS Audio Ultimate Outlet, Lautus & CuSat50 |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2020 at 8:15pm
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I have never had an ideal environment for high fidelity speaker listening, therefore have been listening with headphones for a long time. The quest was always for a flat frequency response in order to achieve high resolution of detail and correct tonality and dynamics. I was seeking speaker spatial rendering from headphones as well though but eventually concluded that it was simply not possible without digital signal processing. Once single driver speaker technology developed enough in recent years (I quickly rejected multi-way designs), my expectations of both headphones and speakers looked set to "meet in the middle" at some point and I shifted to open baffle speakers for a while. Then headphone technology eventually progressed and MySphere was born to refine the K1000 concept with modern materials and manufacture. Like the K1000, the listening enclosure with MySphere is gone and you are listening in free space. But the binaural perception is not the same as speakers at a distance. Spatial DSP for headphones like Smyth Realiser A16 is so expensive at the moment so I am avoiding a purchase for now. Therefore MySphere and my mono-suspension Alpair 11MS speakers have yet to meet in the middle. But they are much closer than ever before, if implemented carefully. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Pushpaw
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2020 at 9:16pm
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Is flat frequency response something you measure or something you are able to tell just from hearing. A lot of audio people talk about various pieces of equipment being “flat” but I get the sense from your clear passion for achieving this that you actually know what it sounds like. I can tell when certain headphones are “not flat” so to speak, as in they have an obvious peak in treble or something. But after reading the trials and tribulations you have gone through in this search, I‘m thinking I have probably never heard truly flat frequency response. Do your ears just dislike anything unnatural sounding? I would say mine do too, but I probably just don’t have as sensitive or well-tuned hearing. ------------- P******t Debut Carbon, Goldring 1042, GS Accession MM w/Enigma, GS Solo ULDE w/PSU1, Sennheiser HD6XX, Technics SU-800 IA, Castle Knight 1, PS Audio Ultimate Outlet, Lautus & CuSat50 |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2020 at 11:29pm
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I have no special hearing abilities and I do not measure frequency response objectively; I only judge by ear. However, I have slowly extrapolated what a flat response should sound like over the years based on comparing the sound characteristics of many headphones. I spoke to an experienced sound engineer named Graham Slee in 2012 where I transitioned from HD600 to HD250II based on advice and spent time listening to what was right and wrong with both of them. Sold HD600 as upper bass emphasis on my listening material. Wasn't completely satisfied with HD250II as midrange a little withdrawn and low bass could be resonant/overwhelming. Observed headphones from the manufacturer with similar design and found HD540. Tried HD540II and discovered improvement in that the midrange seemed correct despite low bass lacking weight. HD560II was a side-step so sold that as no improvement found. Eventually bought HD800 for comparisons with HD540II. Sound got better yet got worse as well. Bought K1000 on a gut feeling. It blew everything else out the water... Sold HD800. Recognised K1000 had slight mid-bass to low midrange emphasis compared to HD540II then sold HD540II. Kept K1000 and waited three years. Bought MySphere 3.1 blind based on gut feeling. Was disappointed and was going to return. Left it plugged into FM radio for a couple of days while I went to work and slept. Wow, what was I thinking?! No way I returning it! Compared to K1000, all the subtle improvements that were expected. Same sound but better. Music reproduction was finally brought back to normal. MS 3.1 kept and K1000 sold. And they lived happily ever after. The end. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Pushpaw
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2020 at 1:09am
I second this. And it's actually kind of comforting to know that Ash spent so much time seeking out the ideal sound in headphones and speakers and uses all GS products to do so. ------------- P******t Debut Carbon, Goldring 1042, GS Accession MM w/Enigma, GS Solo ULDE w/PSU1, Sennheiser HD6XX, Technics SU-800 IA, Castle Knight 1, PS Audio Ultimate Outlet, Lautus & CuSat50 |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2020 at 7:03am
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I use what gets the job done. GS products are trustworthy and reliable. I combined the expertise of different specialists to get the best result I could. I am still refining but I am most of the way there already. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Pushpaw
Date Posted: 24 Sep 2020 at 1:55am
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well that’s scary. What will you do when you arrive at your destination? ------------- P******t Debut Carbon, Goldring 1042, GS Accession MM w/Enigma, GS Solo ULDE w/PSU1, Sennheiser HD6XX, Technics SU-800 IA, Castle Knight 1, PS Audio Ultimate Outlet, Lautus & CuSat50 |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 24 Sep 2020 at 7:31am
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Well I'm keeping the Majestic and will buy Enigma PSU1 for it soon. That is definitely finalised. I am pretty sure I will stay with Proprius for driving MySphere rather than buying Solo ULDE with Enigma PSU1. I could try a loan of ULDE with Enigma and Lautus interconnects but I think it will be a waste of money, as I highly doubt any improvement would be heard over the Proprius. Proprius are true dual-mono and can process both a balanced signal and an inverted signal, which Solo can't do. I think this is more significant than having a linear micro-signal power supply at the amp level. Having the Enigma at micro-signal level (Majestic circuitry) will improve the resolution carried forward for amplification. I could try Libran interconnects between Majestic and Proprius instead of my current Lautus-R3 but over short cable distances, I doubt the balanced Libran will be better than the unbalanced 1.5m inverted phase Lautus with its ferrites. Would be close I think but not conclusive. Might upgrade earpads on my MySphere to further improve low bass dB SPL. Then it is just my source to sort; I need to have a simple, dedicated, wired streamer with no fans and a dedicated linear low noise PSU to compliment the Enigma. I just want minimal excellence. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 10 Nov 2020 at 10:03am
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1e2VhrDdBQ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1e2VhrDdBQ Just putting this here so I don't lose it. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 26 Nov 2020 at 10:00pm
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Now this, THIS, is why I spend so much money on high fidelity audio equipment! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmKVEe2F8Uw - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmKVEe2F8Uw ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 05 Jun 2021 at 9:46am
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Now that I have a big desk back (rejoice, a decent one now), I can get back to business as I have a safe space to lay all my equipment out and keep it set up for longer term listening tests. Pink Faun S/PDIF card works great but can't say if it sounds better than my motherboard USB yet as it is powered by the "noisy" PC switching supply until I obtain a dedicated linear supply. It doesn't sound worse than USB though and I can use this PCIe card with any computer that offers hardware access to PCIe lanes, unlike a Pi HAT that needs a 40-pin GPIO connector, restricting its versatility. Next things to be addressed are: 1. Soundcard power supply 2. Majestic PSU1 upgrade to Enigma 3. Bass pad upgrade for MySphere to further increase dB SPL of lowest bass frequencies 4. PC power supply upgrade, maybe... 5. If I implement my Alpair 11MS speaker drivers, Spatia cables will be added to the list. Shall be experimenting with various sizes of cardboard box. Anyway, for now...  ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 05 Jun 2021 at 11:04pm
I've been listening to music all day today. Finally put my Alpair 11MS in a couple of spare cardboard boxes and have been listening to them for a few hours.  Compared to the sound quality I am used to from my headphones, the speakers sound good but not great. Started with sealed cardboard boxes then tried opening them on the inner sides to reduce pressure loading on the drivers. The spatial qualities are great and the bass and treble are not lacking at all. The frequency response is not as even/flat as what I would like and would ideally need some DSP or EQ manipulation in the upper bass and lower mids to make it flatter. I have concluded that the impulse response of speakers in general absolutely suck compared to my headphones; they just don't have the immediacy. Guess I have been spoiled for so long that nothing but the very best impresses me anymore. Not really motivated to continue with speakers and will soon connect the cans back up. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 12 Jun 2021 at 10:06pm
So I decided to stop being so impatient and leave the speakers set up for the foreseeable future, to see how I get on with them. Well, they seem to have improved further with use and I have converted the cardboard boxes to open baffles, as shown. The spatial qualities of the Alpair 11MS are fantastic, much better than with my headphones. Due to true binaural perception, you get proper phantom imaging. I much prefer the nearfield open baffle sound, with drivers lifted closer to ear height and with spacing and toe-in as pictured. Pulling the drivers further away from the back wall helps to keep the direct sound as dominant as possible and I really like it. I just need to get a parametric EQ to these drivers, to flatten the response. I will use MySphere as a guide to help me judge what frequencies to alter. If I can match the sound balance of MySphere, these will be better. I tried the virtual barber shop recording with these speakers and it sounds amazing. The positioning of everything is more directional with a larger soundstage size and it really makes your hairs stand up on end. Now for how to EQ. I was originally looking at the miniDSP 2x4 but it is analogue input only and I don't wish to use any DAC in my system other than the Majestic. I also wish for there to be only one D-A conversion in the signal chain so I would prefer for any digital signal processing to be done right at the start, straight from the output of my Pink Faun soundcard. The Nano Digi looks like the product to go for and it is 5V, so I can power both the Pink Faun card and the sound processor with Graham's DAK linear power supply. The Nano Digi has four separate coaxial outputs, so I can connect it straight into the Majestic DAC and onto the Proprius. For a single driver per channel setup, my current system is fine. If I wanted to create a two-way speaker system, with a pair of helper woofers with their own digital EQ to support the 11MS in deep bass reproduction, I would need a second Majestic and two more Proprius to control them separately. This option is cheaper than trying to speaker-fy MySphere or K1000 with a sound processor like the Smyth Realiser A16 but is still expensive. I will see how I get on with EQ'ing the single pair of 11MS to start with but these are quite exciting times. When I can substitute my PC motherboard for a Hackboard 2 SBC hopefully in August and add a linear power supply, source fidelity may improve further. So many things to try but at least I have some trustworthy direction. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Aussie Mick
Date Posted: 13 Jun 2021 at 5:51am
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Hi Ash What distance from the drivers is your near-field position? Does greater distance away give you a better tonal balance? Also, you’ve got two extraordinary pairs of headphones, so I’m absolutely not surprised that speakers come up short. Cheers Mick. ------------- Rega RP8 - Apheta 2 - Accession MC Enigma PS -Solo ULDE (Focal Utopia) - PS Audio M700 - Fical Kanta No2 |
Posted By: discrete badger
Date Posted: 13 Jun 2021 at 6:45am
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You already have a device in the signal chain capable of doing the DSP for EQ, with no SQ loss. The PC. An additional DSP box between the PCI card and the majestic will lower the SQ, since there's at least one extra clock (and hence jitter) to worry about.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 13 Jun 2021 at 7:40am
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I try to stay on the centerline between the two speaker drivers and each ear will be less than half a metre (<50cm) from its respective driver. I set the Proprius to 9'clock so that low level hiss is inaudible. I hear some slight PC power supply noises through the speakers sometimes when no music is playing but I will address this at a later time. This type of listening is the transition point between headphone and speaker imaging; you get the best of both. Less room interaction, proximity effect bass extention and expansive 3D stereo imaging. The tonal balance alters if I am too far forward on the midline, between the two speakers, the image becomes disjointed with loss of treble level. Once I move backwards to the point where the centerlines of each speaker dust cap just "miss" the outer edges of my ear pinnae, I get a frontal panoramic image, now with very musical sound. It just needs some adjustments. These drivers have a very shallow cone profile with negative camber outer edge so the dispersion characteristic is ultra-wide and there is a big "sweet spot" to move in. Something like the Nano Digi can be changed in real time and is set-and-forget so can be "programmed" with presets for whatever other coaxial or Toslink digital devices I want to connect. No USB sound input, the USB port is just for "programming" although a USB to S/PDIF converter like the Bitzie could be used to add USB input if I really wanted to. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 13 Jun 2021 at 8:27am
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Just putting this here so I don't lose it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv_a6rlRjZk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv_a6rlRjZk ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 29 Jun 2021 at 9:07pm
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So back to comparisons. I have reached a turning point with listening to music now. I actually don't want to use headphones anymore. My Alpair 11MS up close sound enormous and three-dimensional compared to both MySphere and K1000. The speakers are a mess in some of the frequencies and dynamics but listening to their expansive sound is so enjoyable. The cone profile of the 11MS must be partly responsible for the large and natural imaging they produce. Kinda makes headphone imaging pretty underwhelming and I have began to consider selling both K1000 and MySphere eventually. MySphere have got speed, precision, musicality and supreme bandwidth but they don't sound HUGE like the 11MS can. EQ is definitely the way forward for my speakers and I see no point in trying to spatialize the headphones with expensive digital processing because I like not having to wear anything on my head or being tethered to my equipment. Now that speaker driver design has matured beyond multi-way with crossovers, I see myself embracing them full-time. Headphones were never my end game actually, not really. I have been using them as stepping stones to mature my hearing and expectations and I feel that I am close to being able to leave them completely. I am thinking about what awesome stuff I could do with speaker audio if I were to liberate the cash value invested in my headphones... One or two deep bass 12PW woofers for low bass combined with the 11MS, from a double Majestic double Proprius pair system. The results for a nearfield desktop system would be utterly stupendous if EQ'ed attentively. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 02 Jul 2021 at 9:39pm
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Yes, selling both my headphones. The Alpair 11MS will sound utterly incredible nearfield with some EQ. If this mono-suspension driver existed several years ago, I would have stopped using headphones ages ago. I'm so glad I kept the Proprius; they perform wonderfully for this application. Been listening to a lot of piano music to judge unevenness in dB SPL of various regions/octaves of the scale. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZE0qIGfY1U - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZE0qIGfY1U ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 04 Jul 2021 at 9:23pm
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYrYPb2JDYc - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYrYPb2JDYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZfkvpjwGEo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZfkvpjwGEo
------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 08 Jul 2021 at 11:47pm
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Going back several years to about 2015, I used the Mark Audio Alpair 12PW and 7P for a while but ended up selling them after deciding to use my AKG K1000 exclusively, as I did not have enough desk space for speakers at the time, due to living in a box room. The highlight of the 12PW/7P combo was a very wide bandwidth (very deep bass extension) and a neutral tonality with quite a flat on-axis frequency response. I remember comparing them on cardboard open baffle to my K1000 and the speakers sounded similar in frequency balance but better in spatial abilities. I was fixated on full-range single drivers then so I sold the speakers. I have bought the combo again today because I want to compare them to MySphere before I sell it. I had to buy a second-hand pair of 7P as they are no longer manufactured. The price of the 12PW has risen quite a bit too. £350 spent and just waiting for their arrival. I intend to eventually combine the 11MS and 12PW and sell the 7P on when I sort out EQ. Need to do some comparisons before parting with the best headphone reference money can buy and liberating the funds for more Slee goodies. ------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 19 Oct 2021 at 8:45pm
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I have spent many months pondering the most effective ways to optimize a PC for audio reproduction. My conclusions have been focussed on good PCB design, quality power delivery, solid state storage and plug-in boards to reduce numbers of cables. I have moved away from the use of laptops as even though they are a compact solution and are easy to plug into quality power or use batteries with, I like being able to customize parts. With a laptop platform, a lot of design decisions are already made for you and cannot be easily changed without dissecting the laptop if there is a particular component that you want to change. Desktop have more freedom to add hardware like PCIe cards and remove low quality or noise-generating components readily. But desktop PCs typically use the ATX-standard for power delivery, which has some additional complexity if trying to implement non-ATX power supplies. So what is the best solution? A streamer or low-power single board computer? Well dedicated streamers can be very expensive (read: overpriced) and can be too specific in purpose lacking the versatility, flexibility and processing power of a PC. SBCs can be economically priced yet often lack CPU data processing power for multi-use purposes and tend to lack high quality graphics processing as well. Media is often audio-video, not just audio. Dedicated PCIe graphics cards for PC can be very large, expensive to buy and to operate (high power consumption), noise-generating and since the cryptocurrency-pandemic combination, unobtainable/overpriced due to global chip shortages. So what next? If I've ruled out laptops, large desktops and dedicated devices and low-power SBCs, I need to look at something industrial. Something that combines enough processing power with quality graphics, hardware expandability, power simplicity and ideally a pretty small form factor. The most economical in terms of cost would be something like an industrial mini-ITX board from a brand like AAEON with a straightforward 12V DC power jack input and a sensible choice of processor, to give both capable CPU and iGPU, with a x16 PCIe slot on the board in case I ever wanted to try adding a discrete GPU. I would probably have gone down this route if I hadn't encountered the UP series of embedded industrial boards, which seems to be releasing something that might just fit all of my use criteria. I have opted for a top spec UP Xtreme i11 in the hope that I will get the most out of a PC for media playback yet still have enough versatility to try new things. I can connect quality 12V power via a simple jack and the power consumption is fairly modest compared to a desktop PC. The nano-ITX size is much smaller than mini-ITX, but has better hardware connectivity and thermal considerations than pico-ITX. Trying to forget how much it cost to buy but I look forward to having a play with it. Shall be buying a quality 12V PSU for it and implementing my PCIe soundcard with its own PSU. A Raspberry Pi compatible 40-pin GPIO sweetens the deal for further learning and the 5G support for cellular data means I’m not solely dependent on wi-fi (my room doesn’t have an Ethernet port).
Already have M.2 NVMe storage and SO-DIMM DDR4 RAM ready from my current mini-PC that I bought last year. Replacing it with this UP board as the power circuit is very electrically noisy, which is audibly transferred into my audio equipment and into noises at the speaker cones. I tried the mini-PC with a different 12V power supply and the noise was unchanged so it is clearly a poorly designed motherboard for audio purposes, especially compared to the quality Taiwanese gaming motherboards that I was using before. It will get me by until the UP board is delivered then I will start to move everything onto the new platform and sell this Chinese mini-PC. I had/have also been playing with the Mark Audio Alpair 12PW and 7P paper-coned speakers. I fixed them onto cardboard open baffles and I have used them over several weeks. I positioned the drivers as close together on the baffle as physically possible, as shown below.
These speakers have a nice neutral sound but I don't think they sound as promising as what the Alpair 11MS can do, even though the 11MS mono-suspension drivers clearly need some digital EQ to flatten their dB SPL response to something resembling MySphere 3.1's ultra-flat response. I like the single suspension concept for speakers and how it makes the speaker like an oversized headphone driver, with less physical obstruction to its mechanical movement. Sonic qualities like impulse (change in momentum) should be better as less moving mass to accelerate and no pair of suspensions (spider and front surround) working against each other elastically. I am thinking of eventually trying a double-Slee system with two pairs of 11MS on close proximity open baffle with digital parametric EQ for a simple crossover and frequency correction graph. I drew a simple diagram below; the dotted lines/boxes are optional extras for a second system if the one pair of 11MS don't move enough air on their own.  Just a rough first diagram but it allows me to use the corrected speaker response with both analogue and digital sources, minimizing the numbers of conversion steps for each path. If I can get the 11MS sounding as amazing as MySphere 3.1 (hopefully much much better), I will sell the ultra-expensive headphone to fund this dual-speaker system and call it a day. I have already sold all of my other headphones; for the first time in several years, I only own a single headphone. In time, 1 may become 0 if I can no longer justify the invested funds. P.S The miniDSP NanoDigi looks to be discontinued so I might have to source a used one or find a different solution. I'm not parting with MS 3.1 until I can match its precision with speaker response.
------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 23 Oct 2021 at 9:17pm
 So the new motherboard arrived. Soundcard is a great fit for the nano-ITX size. Have a wifi/BT card to get started with, before looking into a 5G module and SIM. Have 2x16GB of 2666MHz SO-DIMM RAM ready to plug in. Will likely upgrade to 3200MHz modules soon. Will re-install Windows 10 on my NVMe once it is in place, so that all the most up-to-date drivers get installed. Just power to sort out. The stock 12V 6A power supplies are on back order at UP shop. The SMPS for my current Chinese mini-PC is 12V and its barrel jack should be of the same size and polarity hopefully; I will investigate if I can use its supply for the time being. I am considering the SBooster BOTW Eco MKII 12V 3A supply, which I hope is sufficient to power the PC. If not, could I, in theory, connect two of them in parallel and feed it into the jack to get a 6A current allowance? Then I will need to wait for the DAK 5V 3A linear supply to be prepared to power the soundcard. I guess I could feed 5V from the GPIO pins over to the Molex of the card to power it until a separate supply is ready.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 10 Nov 2021 at 7:43pm
| So it turns out that the UP board wasn't dead on arrival. After trying two different 12V power supplies and eventually a different brand of RAM, it started to boot. It didn't like the 32GB of SO-DIMM RAM from my old mini-PC but works fine with the Samsung 4GB stick I bought. Gradually ironing out little problems and going to buy some more hardware for the board. Glad to finally have a usable product that I can play with. More photos to follow. Need to figure out how to reduce the CPU TDP down to 15W so that I can try the computer fanless with only passive cooling and implement a low-noise 12V supply to minimize electronic noise being transferred into the computer to start with. Not sure how much of a difference it will make as there are a lot of PWM aspects to a computer. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 11 Nov 2021 at 10:24pm
Quickly tested the PCIe slot with a network adapter and it works fine. Have an M.2 wifi 6 and BT module ready to plug in and I will put my soundcard back in place. Have 12V and 5V switching power supplies for computer and card until I eventually upgrade them. Still have to finish installing some of the hardware drivers and want to get a USB-C expansion module for more USB and micro-SD ports. There are a lot of possibilities with this board, not to mention the Raspberry Pi compatible 40-pin header, which I could try for digital audio or for additional expansion. Have some RPi and Python books on the way, as well as a RPi 3B+ coming just for a mess about with HATs without risking any damage to this expensive motherboard. I have been learning about different chip instruction set architecture like RISC/CISC and x86 vs ARM. This motherboard is x86-64 whilst the Raspberry Pi is ARM. I believe that my PCIe Pink Faun card is only compatible with x86 so I doubt I would be able to get it working with a Pi or another ARM-based single board computer. If I were an experienced programmer, I guess I could create a driver to use it with ARM processors. Who knows, just wading through the unknown at the moment.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2021 at 7:54pm
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I think the most cost effective way of determining whether a "quiet" power supply allows a computer to produce higher fidelity audio than with a "noisy" SMPS is to wait until I can obtain Graham's DAK 5V 3A supply then rather than buy a pricey 12V supply for my UP Xtreme i11, buy an UP Squared board and use the DAK supply to power both PC and PCIe card. Then compare the results against the i11 with 12V SMPS and DAK supply for the PCIe card. If no benefit found, I won't have wasted money on any fancy 12V supplies. Both boards are x86-64 so I be able to keep a lot of variables the same.
Or I could compare the 5V PC with SMPS vs sharing the LPSU with the PCIe card. That would be even easier.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2021 at 12:26am
| Even if implementing a LPSU to a 5V computer doesn't directly improve sound quality, it could allow me to compartmentalize the audio source with an optimized operating system and run it headless with minimum software installed. Just two cables, power and signal output. No ethernet, a wifi/BT module so it can be controlled by the main PC. |
Posted By: CageyH
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2021 at 5:25am
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what is going to be noisier? BT/WiFi or Ethernet? ------------- Kevin European loan coordinator, based near Toulouse, France. Funkified SL1200 Mk.II, BB3, Firebottle Kin , ADI-2 DAC FS, Modulus 686, PD-S703, Solo UL, Triangle Antal EZ |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2021 at 7:38am
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I think Wifi/Bluetooth is probably a better choice than Ethernet for noise rejection, as it is one less physical connection and the device is already sat in a sea of EMI whether it has a module to pick up signals or not. It's swings and roundabouts though. I could compare them, there might not be any difference audibly. I can see this all getting a little "obsessive" but it won't cost much to give it a go.
I think the overall way to go is locally stored data (at the 5V computer where possible) but with network control from the 12V PC.
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Posted By: CageyH
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2021 at 3:17pm
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It is a shame I don't live closer. If I did, we could compare my stripped down PC using a €40 "clean USB" port feeding a DAC. I will soon be adding a digital interface, which claims to clean up the noise. This is the same PC I have used before, except the GPU and Asus sound card have been removed. It sounds no better, but technically, it has to be better? I have also disabled turbo mode on my i7-6700k, which effectively brings the processor to the same level as a 6700T, so no fans required in summer. ------------- Kevin European loan coordinator, based near Toulouse, France. Funkified SL1200 Mk.II, BB3, Firebottle Kin , ADI-2 DAC FS, Modulus 686, PD-S703, Solo UL, Triangle Antal EZ |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2021 at 9:14pm
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I look forward to comparing my SPDIF soundcard from the Slee DAK supply vs with a switching supply or USB port. I will have to wait until next year but it will soon be here. My i11 board can use Pi HATs like the HifiBerry so I can compare to mobo USB and PCIe paths. This board has a 4 core 8 thread i7 1185GRE. The current base clock is 2.8GHz and can burst up to 4.4GHz but I can reduce it to reduce heat and power consumption. I wouldn't go for high TDP systems unless I needed to run resource-intensive tasks all the time. You can get very good GPU performance from a PCIe x4 slot if I wanted to try a little gaming on it. I am really quite intrigued as to whether any of the PC stuff makes any difference at all. I will be sticking to smaller PCs no larger than mini-ITX. Nano-ITX is my preferred form factor as you typically lose some connectivity options if you go down to pico-ITX.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 19 Nov 2021 at 12:43am
| Have just acquired a Raspberry Pi 3B+ with 5V PSU and HifiBerry Digi+ HAT as a birthday gift. Will have a play with flashing different operating systems, as I already have a 64GB micro-SD card. Was my choice of gift so I could try the GPIO before moving on to HATs with x86-64 boards from UP. I hadn't quite appreciated how small the RPi is; must be mobile-ITX dimensions as the board area is smaller than my LG V30 smartphone. Not expecting anything great with it as a computer but it will be a reference point for comparisons. For ONLY streaming audio data, controlled headlessly and networked wirelessly to my PC/mobile (once I learn how to do it) with the DAK 5V 3A supply, it could be great. The 5V UP Squared is a larger board and has better features/hardware but costs a lot more. But the UP Squared would allow comparison of digital HAT vs digital PCIe card on the same computing platform with a linear PSU. |
Posted By: BackinBlack
Date Posted: 19 Nov 2021 at 8:51am
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I look forward to your view on the sound from the Pi plus Digi Hat. As you no doubt have found, there are many (audio) operating systems available. I have stuck with MoOde for quite a time having tried most of the others, the MoOde forum is helpful and the developer Tim Curtis is very active there. One piece of advice, only 8 or 16 GB uSD cards are needed, bigger ones will take much longer to reformat when changing OS. It's also essential to use quality uSD cards, Sandisk Ultra class 10 have worked well for me. Happy Listening Ian ------------- Just listen, if it sounds good to you, enjoy it. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 19 Nov 2021 at 9:12pm
Finally able to upload a photo to show how much smaller the Pi 3B+ is compared to my nano-ITX PC. Keeping my expectations of sound quality low but I might find myself pleasantly surprised. I selected the 3B+ rather than the Pi 4 as it was cheaper and less powerful so should run cooler and not require heatsinking. I also wanted to avoid a mini-HDMI cable. Not sure if there would be any differences between the two in terms of electronic noise affecting the sound quality; I think I would probably be vastly overestimating my hearing ability in this regard. This is the kind of system where I can judge for myself whether powering the computer board with a low-noise linear power supply makes any difference to sound performance whatsoever. I need to keep my head away from marketing and focused on the real life result. HATs with the Pi are hopefully plug-and-play whereas with the Windows PC, there will probably be programming of the GPIO pins involved.
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Posted By: discrete badger
Date Posted: 20 Nov 2021 at 1:28pm
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+1 for MoOde. It (and maybe the others also) has the fringe benefit of providing a very convenient interface to Linux's software parametric EQ, for playing with room/speaker correction. The SQ of this feature is superb, fully competitive with a pro-audio digital parametric EQ I have lying around. Rumour has it that the HifiBerry HATs are a nose behind Allo on the jitter front. I've not heard HifiBerry, but Allo is nigh-on indistinguishable from the streamer board in my amp which has a quite sophisticated clock - and is in an entirely different price bracket. So I'd expect excellent SQ from PI->HifiBerry->Majestic. But, all else being equal, I'd expect superiority (how much will be an interesting question) from PC->Pink Faun->Majestic, the reason being that the Pink Faun card has been designed and implemented to a far more generous budget than the HAT, and can afford to pay far more detailed attention to a stable clock, clean power, and noise rejection. If the HAT were the DigiOne or even the DigiOne sig, with its dual power supplies and separate SP/DIF ground, I'd expect a more even shootout with Pink Faun.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 20 Nov 2021 at 8:38pm
| I am in agreement with your thoughts on how they may compare. Before I bought the £320 PCIe card, I was considering a USBridge Signature player containing a DigiOne Signature for about £350 but I wanted the versatility of a PC. I would only invest in a dedicated player if it were networked-controlled from a PC or phone. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 21 Nov 2021 at 8:20am
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So the question is: Does a low power audio player electrically separated from the "noisy" higher power main computer (and TV) provide improved sound quality when low noise clean power is introduced?
Is it only the S/PDIF stage power supply that matters? Or is it all nonsense? |
Posted By: CageyH
Date Posted: 21 Nov 2021 at 10:20am
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Something like a Pi2AES between your PC and DAC would probably be a good move, if you can find one. This will effectively remove any noise from the PC. ------------- Kevin European loan coordinator, based near Toulouse, France. Funkified SL1200 Mk.II, BB3, Firebottle Kin , ADI-2 DAC FS, Modulus 686, PD-S703, Solo UL, Triangle Antal EZ |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 22 Nov 2021 at 12:47am
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I have looked at the Pi2AES in the past as well. It was discontinued back when I was looking in to it and the non-5V (24V??) power supply put me off trying to obtain one. Been looking at the USBridge Signature again tonight; its board is larger than my nano-ITX PC. I'm trying to think rationally about electronic noise on a PCB? What causes it? Is it mainly carried forward from the power supply? Is it from individual component behaviour? Poor circuit configuration? A combination I guess. Accelerating charge emits electromagnetic waves and EMI has many origins. So what change would result in the largest reduction in electronic noise? My mind still thinks the power supply will be the main factor. I could try the DigiOne Signature. But what I really need is a 5V PC that has both PCIe and 40-pin GPIO access is order to compare the two routes with a linear PSU I know is designed properly. Unless I implement the DAK 5V 3A supply in this way, I'm just going to go round in circles succumbing to more marketing silliness.
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Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 22 Nov 2021 at 6:52am
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Power supplies will always have noise as a component of their DC, but it is in the order of 3mV from a linear voltage regulator, and typical noise. Voltage regulators often have a capacitor on their output to ground, which attenuates high frequency noise. SMPS noise is approximately the same at up to say, 100kHz, after which their outputs must feature RF chokes to attenuate their high frequency noise (similar to filtering the sampling rate in digital audio, but using inductors to preserve the DC current). Whereas you can hold the voltage constant, the load draws current, which in anything from an amplifier to a processor, when active, will be a continual and continuously changing series of pulses on top of other continuously changing series of pulses, which because of their pseudo randomness, will place the current demands of those "noises" on the voltage regulator output. A linear regulator will combat such noise up to 100kHz to 1MHz depending on the regulator, after which the output capacitor takes over, in making the power source low impedance. Sometimes a linear regulator will oscillate slightly, due to it not being a perfect Thevenin source. It is the equivalent of a resistor in series with an inductor, and there is the capacitive load. The resistor can be seen as the regulation element, which there is no getting away from. The combination can have a Q which makes it resonant under some capacitive loads, and often, if the output filter capacitor is large, a small resistance has to be put in series with it. Such oscillations are so small that most linear regulator designs don't bother - after all, it would be negated by the load's own capacitance. A series resistor in the load's path might help, but then again, reduces the regulation. Generally output resistance and impedance is "brute force" (i.e. none to speak of - very little), and so the load must also have its own power supply "ripple" (should read "noise") rejection (PSRR). However, PCBs have inductance in their power lines (20nH per inch), which demands local decoupling of high speed device power supply terminals (pins, grid balls, etc). The bipolar 555 timer is often used to educate how this inductance combines with the device when it switches, and puts its "glitch" on the supply voltage trace. Provided the board designer and system designer have mitigated such behaviour by best practice decoupling, all should be fine. ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 22 Nov 2021 at 8:58pm
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Thanks Graham. Got an Enigma upgrade on the way now then the DAK supply early next year. Still got MySphere 3.1 so I can scrutinize any changes in the digital transport.
EDIT- The Enigma has arrived today, very fast shipping, thanks John C. Another piece of the puzzle set in place.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 28 Nov 2021 at 6:49am
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As you will have read, I have been trying to get my head around the basics of computers and all the technical jargon, looking to build a foundation for further reading and investigation. A computer is a combination of hardware and software, and both aspects matter. Having a great piece of hardware is pointless without good software/driver/kernel/firmware/BIOS support. Similarly, having great software on poor performing hardware is a complete waste. Software compatibility for a particular type of hardware can be limited by the ISA (instruction set architecture) of the processor. The programming will be for one type of architecture only unless multiple releases are available. Consequently, to enjoy the freedom to experiment with all available software, I have to possess computers with the different ISAs. Hence my decision to finally try a Raspberry Pi 3B+; ARM64 architecture to complement the x86-64 architecture of my PC. Audio processing doesn't really require much processing power and networking allows one type of computer architecture to control another, whilst having separate hardware, separate power and whatever software is best for the job of the particular computer. So with an x86-64 5V board and an ARM64 5V board, I can optimize both and compare the software used. So I will likely add an UP Squared into the mix. The main PC power supply does not have to be compromised for the sake of audio; I will give the audio its own isolated board to solve that issue. I may find that ARM64 audio software has better offerings available than x86-64, as streamers are often not x86-based.
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Posted By: CageyH
Date Posted: 28 Nov 2021 at 7:04am
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But a lot of streamers are x86-64 based. https://Innuos.com/zen-mk3/ - https://Innuos.com/zen-mk3/ ------------- Kevin European loan coordinator, based near Toulouse, France. Funkified SL1200 Mk.II, BB3, Firebottle Kin , ADI-2 DAC FS, Modulus 686, PD-S703, Solo UL, Triangle Antal EZ |
Posted By: BackinBlack
Date Posted: 28 Nov 2021 at 10:27am
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Ash, have you played/streamed anything through your Pi yet? Is so, I'd be interested to learn your initial thoughts. Ian ------------- Just listen, if it sounds good to you, enjoy it. |
Posted By: discrete badger
Date Posted: 28 Nov 2021 at 10:36am
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There's another important moving part to consider - how the audio driver of the OS is set up. Bear in mind that default setup is usually convenience, and working with a wide range of hardware, not sound quality. For instance, most x86 Linux distros default to resampling everything to 44.1/16, because that's the lowest common denominator of audio hardware. The resampling method used is often a low-cpu-drain one, not a high quality one. This does not mean that x86 or Linux is good or bad, just that it needs to be set up correctly for the desired use. Whereas the Raspbian Linux on ARM, which ships as part of Moode, is set up correctly for high audio quality, because Moode is a near-turnkey solution which has been tailored carefully for a specific application.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 30 Nov 2021 at 9:01pm
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Just waiting for a USB-microSD adapter to come for flashing OS then I will commence with some experiments and comparisons. Getting some more Pi stuff for Christmas so I will do more around about that time too. Getting a Li-Po battery HAT for the 3B+ to see if computer power types makes any difference to sound quality. If there is no discernable advantage to a 5V computer over a 12V one, I won't bother getting a 5V x86 board like the UP Squared and will stick with the UP Xtreme i11 directly. Some of this power stuff will be total nonsense but I have to rule it out by actually trying it.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 10 Dec 2021 at 11:14pm
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 13 Dec 2021 at 8:53am
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Interesting instrument |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 19 Dec 2021 at 7:15pm
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I have always been fond of this piece. Not sure whether I prefer the full orchestra version or the solo piano version. Synthesizer music! |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 20 Dec 2021 at 8:20am
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For anyone who would scoff at my suggestion that video game soundtracks can be works of art, I show you this performance. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 20 Dec 2021 at 7:23pm
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 30 Jan 2022 at 6:38pm
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It is highly likely that I am going to proceed with selling MySphere 3.1 (my last headphone) in the next few weeks. Going to use my speakers full time (I don't care about hi-fi, I just want to get on with enjoying music) so after a little more careful listening and some more photos, gonna cash 'em in. Graham, before they go, do you want any photos of it with your headphone amplifier products to endorse their capabilities or is there no point of this? Once I make the final jump, I won't be going back.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2022 at 5:00pm
| Am I correct in assuming that an audio interface is simply an ADC and DAC all in one product? Before I found Graham Slee's Bitzie and Majestic, I used to use a Focusrite Saffire 6 with a HD600, not really knowing what I was doing. I transitioned to a DAC-only device but always wondered why Graham doesn't have any ADC products for recording and hi-fi microphone purposes. Any ADC products on the market that you designed Graham? |
Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 09 Jun 2022 at 4:01pm
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No. ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 09 Jun 2022 at 7:39pm
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1980's: The only way UK companies could compete was in the price race to the bottom, so all subbed-out work went to the cheapest subby, which bankrupted those with the necessary ambitions to provide the future infrastructure the industry would require. I should know - I was there!! 20 years later came the fabless manufacturer. Whether they wanted chips fabricated in the UK or not, they only had the one choice - communist (slave driven) China. Much as I'd have liked to have designed lots of digital gear - ADCs as well as more DACs - it's a good job I didn't. (For those who do not get it, there is an old saying about putting all your eggs in one basket. If a world pandemic were to strike that basket...) ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 09 Jun 2022 at 10:42pm
| Thanks Graham. I intend to make another order with you soon. I'm just settling in to my new workplace first (I resigned from my old job) then I will return to my audio hobby. I have a pair of 11MS and a pair of CHR-120 Mark Audio drivers that I would like to use together eventually. CHR-120 as a deep bass woofer and the 11MS for everything above. I want to apply a simple crossover in the digital domain (for purity of signal) so need two DACs. Don't know how I'm going to implement a permanent XO yet. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 19 Jun 2022 at 4:03pm
| Bought an 8-plug extension cord yesterday for two Majestic, four Proprius, PC and soundcard. What order of current draw should I expect from such a system? Nowhere close to 13A I hope? I don't want to overload a single socket. I will not be using a high power PC but will be implementing the DAK 5V 3A supply and I will not be playing loud music. The speaker drivers are 7.2 Ohms each and might have two drivers in parallel which will drop the load below the minimum of 4 but will keep the Proprius dials down to maintain load stability and keep hiss inaudible. |
Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 19 Jun 2022 at 5:55pm
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It will be well below 13 amps. ------------- Jon Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC. |
Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 01 Jul 2022 at 7:22pm
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As I'm a cheapskate when it comes to speaker enclosures, I have been waiting weeks until a member of my family orders an item online that comes in a big sturdy double-walled cardboard box. Well, christmas came early this week; said box arrived and I seized it before it was broken down for disposal. I have cut it in half to form two strong open baffles ready to mount 11MS and CHR-120 on. I am thinking of having a full-range + woofer pair on it although I could mount two woofers top and bottom, with the full-range inbetween. Any advantages of having two woofers rather than one? It will be for effortless low bass in the nearfield. Will the increased volume of air moved give a bigger sound or should I keep it simpler with one so I have less bass freq reflections? I want to keep the full-range near ear level so I can listen fairly on-axis although the negative camber cone gives a very wide dispersion and natural imaging. Want to keep woofers elevated from the desk as having one emitting at the desk will make getting a flat response more challenging.
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Posted By: Ash
Date Posted: 12 Jul 2022 at 10:12pm
 My latest cardboard creation. Open baffles with mono-suspension 11MS in the middle and CHR-120 full-range, top and bottom. Trying different combinations at the moment and different toe-in angles, different distances from face, different distances from back wall, different driver separation distance etc. I prefer listening to the top CHR-120 alone rather than the top and bottom connected in parallel. Great bass and dynamics; all the detail is there. A really fantastic driver and I look forward to how amazing it will eventually sound with further use and upgrades. I may select it over the 11MS if I decide to go with a single driver system rather than implementing multi-way with digital filters. The superior dynamics and bass extension of the larger CHR-120 compared to the slightly smaller but spiderless and negative camber cone 11MS may cause me to go with the former, even though the 11MS should in theory have better impulse response and wider, more natural dispersion. I need to aim for a MySphere 3.1 -esque flat response with whichever driver I go with, so that I'm not constantly diving for the volume control.
------------- We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. |
Posted By: Fatmangolf
Date Posted: 12 Jul 2022 at 10:28pm
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Good photo. Thanks Ash. ------------- Jon Open mind and ears whilst owning GSP Genera, Accession M, Accession MC, Elevator EXP, Solo ULDE, Proprius amps, Cusat50 cables, Lautus digital cable, Spatia cables and links, and a Majestic DAC. |
Posted By: TheScorpionsTale
Date Posted: 13 Jul 2022 at 3:27pm
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Very impressive, Ash ! ------------- Graham SL1200 II with SME M2-9R and various carts / Revelation M with PSU-1 / Cyrus amp, CD and streamer / Kralk Audio BC30-3 Floorstanders / Bitzie and Lautus USB |