A visit from Garbulky

[Boomzilla]

We had the rare pleasure of a visit by Mr. garbulky last night. He was kind enough to bring his Emotiva Stealth DC-1 DAC/Preamp, his Emotiva A-100 (used as a headphone power amp), and his new pair of Sennheiser HD-700 headphones. We played a variety of music, comparing my Sennheiser HD-6xx phones to his 700 models. We also listened to the DC-1's internal headphone amp vs. the A-100.

To my ears, the 700 phones sound significantly more open in the treble than the 6xx models. The 700s may exhibit a touch more dynamics in the bass and midrange too, but that difference is only audible to me when using the A100 amp. With the DC-1's headphone output, the phones sounded significantly more alike. So my takeaways for the comparison are:

At this level of competition, the headphone amp is just as significant as the headphones.
The 700s are audibly superior to the 6xx models, but cost a LOT more money for only a little improvement.
Either of these Sennheiser headphones are light years ahead of my old Grado 60 models (and a LOT more comfortable to wear).
For the money spent, I continue to be perfectly happy with my 6xx models.

I also had the opportunity to freak the gar with the sound of my stereo including the Audio GD HE-1 preamplifier in the signal chain. I think he liked it, but I'll let him post his own impressions rather than trying to put words in his mouth.

A good time was had by all, and thank you, garbulky, for taking the time to share your new headphones!

Boomzilla

PS: We got so busy I forgot to offer him a slice of almond-raspberry doberge cake!

[drtrey3]

I like you and all Boom, but you are a right bastard for not serving up the cake.

Sorry, but I gotta keep it real.

Trey

[Boomzilla]

Well... He COULD drop by again tonight...

[garbulky]

I can't BELIEVE I missed the cake!
I was going to post this in the visit to B'zilla thread, but I shall post it here. As usual, I had a great time being hosted by the B'zillas.
Other than the fun I had showing him the headphones, I did manage to wrangle out a confession from B'zilla that the HEADPHONE AMP IS IMPORTANT! Which I think is my biggest audio victory!
I told him that the HD6xx (HD650) and HD600s were the best headphones I had listened to (till the HD 700) and there is a reason these headphones are legends and have been sold for so long!

Other than that, I told B'zilla " I knew I would regret coming here." Because.....
He had my end game stuff-of-dreams preamplifier the Audio GD HE-1!
This bad boy was all kinds of neat!
If anybody doesn't know...it looks like this:

If you haven't been paying attention, that is three power supplies all class A (260watts) One regenerative power supply. Followed by two mono power supplies for dual mono operation in stereo. Fully balanced as well with a full fledged resistor ladder volume control and a nice remote. Also the whole system has no feedback. And 100,000mf capacitance, just because. It also has the ability to work with KRELL CAST balanced systems or audio gds own version of Cast for supposedly even better performance.
Show me another preamp with those features at anywhere close to the price.
I tried lifting the side of this preamp with one hand and I could not get it to budge. It is SOLID. I honestly don't know how Audio GD sells these flagship units at these relatively low prices.

Also solid is the outsanding sound quality I was hearing from a set of $400 Klipsch speakers. The whole setup was fully balanced from the Oppo to the HE-1 to the PA-1 amplifiers.
He played me some Allen Toussaint and instantly I knew I was hearing some pretty great sound. Having heard this setup without the preamp direct from Opo, it was clear there was a difference. A smooth detail and some impressive spatial control. I felt like the singers voice just hung solidly in the ear right there a few feet from me in a way I simply hadn't heard before. There was also better bass than I remember. And an overall larger soundstage. Listening to any recording produced a very relaxing, natural, soundstage with remarkable pinpoint imaging. I didn't hear any treble shenanigans on the speakers.
Switching to the HD700 headphones driven from the HE-1 with the DC-1 as the source and amp being the A-100 direct drive, I felt that the hiss on the amp went away. The tonal center of the music shifted down to the mid range and the treble was slightly laid back versus the treble being a bit brighter direct from the DC-1 to the A-100. Truth be told I preferred it direct by a tiny margin. Keep in mind that this was using single ended connections and not the fully balanced connections which is the strength of this unit.

But on the speakers, there was little question that whatever the HE-1 did, it was designed for lovely lifelike sound that was quite impressive. I was glad (and upset) that I finally got to hear this unit. Because of course now it's just another unit that I MUST BUY NOW!

[Boomzilla]

The "$400 Klipsch speakers" were the Reference Premiere 600 Monitors, reviewed in this month's Stereophile magazine. My review on the hometheaterhifi.com site is yet to be published, but should be coming soon.

And I agree with garbulky that both the Audio GD HE-1 preamplifier AND the RP-600M Klipsch speakers are out-of-this-world values for their price.

Boom

PS: The little Klipsch speakers are at their best with a subwoofer. But I got around that temporarily by applying a +2 dB peak with Roon's parametric equalizer at 45 Hz. (port tuning is 48). That little bass boost makes the speakers masquerade as "full range" in most circumstances. Any program with REAL low bass will show up the bass weakness of the little monitors, but they sound great even in a large room with the slight equalization.