Newcomer with HD650 + Modi2 + Magni3

tsuehpsyde

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 22, 2004
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I'm pretty new to this; I finally decided to dabble with a decent set of cans and I managed to grab a set of HD650s in the recent Massdrop order for December, and I grabbed the Magni 3 / Modi 2 Schiit Stack to go with it.

Mostly I'm looking for anything obvious to do/look out for. So far, it certainly sounds great; bass is clearly down compared to my old non-amp'd PC-360s, but I'm not terribly surprised by that.

Things I've noticed:
-Headband is tight; assuming this will break in over time. I vaguely recall the PC-360s being this way when it was new.
-Less bass, but bass sounds great (and scales with volume)
-It's pretty wild being able to crank the volume knob and to not hear any distortion.
-I'm already hearing new things to old songs randomly, which is strange.

What I did for setup:
-USB cable to Modi
-RCAs over to Magni (just some basic ones; hoping to find a good short set at some point)
-Plugged in, installed drivers from schiit's site, rebooted.
-Set Modi as default audio device, set audio to 32-bit 192000Hz under advanced
-Set Windows to 100% volume and adjust volume via the Magni's knob

And that's about it. From what I can tell, people argue if burn-in is needed and I'm probably in the camp of "it doesn't matter". I assume I don't need to worry about trying to set anything in a software EQ? Volume set to 100 and just let it ride?

Any stuff to watch out for would be helpful. I'm also not trying to buy a shitload of cans now, but who knows :LOL:

Thanks dudes!
 
I sold my HD650s mainly because I couldn't wear them for more than 15 minutes without all the blood getting squeezed out of my head. I have a big head, haha, and the clamp was insane. At the HD650 price class there's also the Hifiman Sundara which is a lot more comfortable, and is a planar which means it excess at bass.

The HD650 are a relatively dark headphone with a mild peak at 8-10KHz. You can certainly manually EQ that if you like, or if you want to automate the process Sonarworks has an HD650 filter built in.
 
HD6XX is well under US$499... more like US$199 :D

I did personally pick up the HE-4XX when they last went on sale, which the Sundara are based on it seems (or thereabouts), and I have balanced cables coming for a Topping X7 ($US369, which is DAC and Amp), which will power both HD600's and the HE-4XX as desired.
 
I sold my HD650s mainly because I couldn't wear them for more than 15 minutes without all the blood getting squeezed out of my head. I have a big head, haha, and the clamp was insane. At the HD650 price class there's also the Hifiman Sundara which is a lot more comfortable, and is a planar which means it excess at bass.

The HD650 are a relatively dark headphone with a mild peak at 8-10KHz. You can certainly manually EQ that if you like, or if you want to automate the process Sonarworks has an HD650 filter built in.

Thanks for the recommendation; I grabbed the True-Fi product trial from Sonarworks and I have to say, it's done wonders! :) At least to my ears. I can see the cans drop off at <100Hz, which I assume is because they're open back. I need to compare the two products and see which makes sense, as I do want to do some recording as well, so depending on the cost delta, it may be worth it.
 
I sold my HD650s mainly because I couldn't wear them for more than 15 minutes without all the blood getting squeezed out of my head. I have a big head, haha, and the clamp was insane. At the HD650 price class there's also the Hifiman Sundara which is a lot more comfortable, and is a planar which means it excess at bass.

The HD650 are a relatively dark headphone with a mild peak at 8-10KHz. You can certainly manually EQ that if you like, or if you want to automate the process Sonarworks has an HD650 filter built in.
It's possible to bend the metal on the band to make it clamp less. It apparently eases with time too.
 
It's possible to bend the metal on the band to make it clamp less. It apparently eases with time too.

I'd meant to comment on this- the older HD58x and HD6xx lines all have the very strong metal band. They need to be 'broken in', which can be done by (repeatedly) extending the ear cups completely and then bending the metal band directly. They become very comfortable over time, perhaps one of the most comfortable headphones available, given how light they are.
 
I've received my hd6xx recently too and they are great!
I use them with a Schiit bifrost 4490 and a Haffler DH-110 (preamp w/ headphone stage) I also have a tube buffer in there (yaquin sd-cd2).
I tough I might need some more power and I wanted to try a magni 3 with it but I didn't like it when paired with the hd6xx.
Sound was cleaner but didn't have much impact. The Hd6xx seemed starved for power compared to the headphone stage on the Haffler, the sound is also warmer and I can add some bass with the tone control.

My only complaint is that the hd6xx seems to play so much better at high volume (vs low/moderate volume)
They replaced my hd598se and are doing a better job at everything but the hd6xx have a smaller sound stage.

Anyway I've read that the hd650/6xx was great with the magni3 and it was a bit of a let down, waited too long to return it so I may just sell it.
Eventually I'd like to try something higher end from schiit like the Jot of Valhalla2 but the headphone staged off my vintage haffler dh-110 has surprised me and I may just keep using what I have.
 
Anyway I've read that the hd650/6xx was great with the magni3 and it was a bit of a let down, waited too long to return it so I may just sell it.
Eventually I'd like to try something higher end from schiit like the Jot of Valhalla2 but the headphone staged off my vintage haffler dh-110 has surprised me and I may just keep using what I have.

You are much, much, much better off getting better cans rather than upgrading DAC and Amp combos.

[I've moved from my O2/ODAC, which is now on my Linux box, to a Topping DX7, because that DAC/Amp supports optical input and balanced output... at worst, I might add a tube stage at some point- my current set of cans is the Massdrop x Hifiman HE4XX, and I have the Massdrop x Focal Elex on the way, heart-stopping pricetag included!]
 
I've received my hd6xx recently too and they are great!
I use them with a Schiit bifrost 4490 and a Haffler DH-110 (preamp w/ headphone stage) I also have a tube buffer in there (yaquin sd-cd2).
I tough I might need some more power and I wanted to try a magni 3 with it but I didn't like it when paired with the hd6xx.
Sound was cleaner but didn't have much impact. The Hd6xx seemed starved for power compared to the headphone stage on the Haffler, the sound is also warmer and I can add some bass with the tone control.

My only complaint is that the hd6xx seems to play so much better at high volume (vs low/moderate volume)
They replaced my hd598se and are doing a better job at everything but the hd6xx have a smaller sound stage.

Anyway I've read that the hd650/6xx was great with the magni3 and it was a bit of a let down, waited too long to return it so I may just sell it.
Eventually I'd like to try something higher end from schiit like the Jot of Valhalla2 but the headphone staged off my vintage haffler dh-110 has surprised me and I may just keep using what I have.
I too wish my headphones sound as great soft as they do loud. I have HD800s and they spike a bit in the highs so having to crank it up definitely isn't doing great things for my hearing.

I haven't had many headphones, but I do wonder if their are open style headphones that sound great and detailed when soft. Perhaps it is just a matter of acoustics and white noise.
 
I too wish my headphones sound as great soft as they do loud. I have HD800s and they spike a bit in the highs so having to crank it up definitely isn't doing great things for my hearing.

I haven't had many headphones, but I do wonder if their are open style headphones that sound great and detailed when soft. Perhaps it is just a matter of acoustics and white noise.
You might give a set of AKG 701s a listen. They're not the most "neutral" sounding cans I've heard, but they might be just what you're looking for.
 
You are much, much, much better off getting better cans rather than upgrading DAC and Amp combos.

[I've moved from my O2/ODAC, which is now on my Linux box, to a Topping DX7, because that DAC/Amp supports optical input and balanced output... at worst, I might add a tube stage at some point- my current set of cans is the Massdrop x Hifiman HE4XX, and I have the Massdrop x Focal Elex on the way, heart-stopping pricetag included!]
I (un)fortunately bought Sound BlasterX AE-5 while waiting for Massdrop O2 to arrive (well, the power adapter at least - I only recently got to test it out since I couldn't use the bundled AC adapter). Oh boy the disappointment. AE-5's headphone out slaughters the O2. I even did the measurements to confirm what I actually hear. Now I'm not sure what to do with my O2. AE-5 has >10 dBA difference in dynamic range for example and it actually hit the Sound Core3D's ADC wall. In reality the advantage is even bigger. There's even large advantage in stereo crosstalk (>11 dB). Needless to say that stuff like that is pretty darn noticeable.
 
You're saying AE-5 > O2, correct?

If that's the case then the Creative part is a pretty good bargain! I would like to ask what DAC setup you're using for the O2 amp, as the AE-5 is it's own DAC and amp- are you using it as DAC for the O2?


[I think that the O2/ODAC sounds great, personally, and only upgraded to the Topping DX7 for significantly expanded connectivity options, I had zero problem with sound quality]
 
You're saying AE-5 > O2, correct?

If that's the case then the Creative part is a pretty good bargain! I would like to ask what DAC setup you're using for the O2 amp, as the AE-5 is it's own DAC and amp- are you using it as DAC for the O2?


[I think that the O2/ODAC sounds great, personally, and only upgraded to the Topping DX7 for significantly expanded connectivity options, I had zero problem with sound quality]
Yep. The difference is not even small. AE-5 is one of the best DAC+AMP combos one can buy.
 
For another perspective- the O2 is not supposed to be an 'outstanding' headphone amp, just capable and neutral, and the ODAC is what's really special, for the price- and with the ODAC, the O2 has a clean source and thus performs very well.

So, first, I'm wondering if the signal your O2 is getting is as clean as the signal that the AE-5 is using for its internal headphone amp, and second, I'm wondering if the difference in sound quality is more down to software processing than actual differences in sound quality, and if there are real sound quality differences assuming processing were to be taken out of the equation, I'm pretty skeptical that they'd be detectable- but I'd like to hear what you think!
 
For another perspective- the O2 is not supposed to be an 'outstanding' headphone amp, just capable and neutral, and the ODAC is what's really special, for the price- and with the ODAC, the O2 has a clean source and thus performs very well.

So, first, I'm wondering if the signal your O2 is getting is as clean as the signal that the AE-5 is using for its internal headphone amp, and second, I'm wondering if the difference in sound quality is more down to software processing than actual differences in sound quality, and if there are real sound quality differences assuming processing were to be taken out of the equation, I'm pretty skeptical that they'd be detectable- but I'd like to hear what you think!
I used direct and direct hp mode and ASIO for recording and playback. There was no processing and audio went directly to DAC bypassing the Sound Core3D DSP. The line out should be even cleaner than the headphone out.

Obviously you never know - my O2 might have a defect of some sort.
 
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