I just ordered a pair or Sennheiser HD555 headphones, and was wondering if there are any special setups I should know about? As in a specific port to plug them into or just plug it into the headphone jack on the front of my case? A good sound card I should invest in maybe?
![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
New to sound here
- Thread starter Ovreel
- Start date
if they are new HD555's the front or the rear shouldnt matter to much, since the newer models are very efficient and "don't need an amp"
on thing about the HD555's it takes some time to burn in
so when you first listen to them they might sound very harsh but will eventually smooth out
mine took about 100hours of play back to really shine
as for sound card, take a look at the Asus Xonar cards
on thing about the HD555's it takes some time to burn in
so when you first listen to them they might sound very harsh but will eventually smooth out
mine took about 100hours of play back to really shine
as for sound card, take a look at the Asus Xonar cards
"Burn in" is usually more a factor of you adapting to the characteristics of the new device...whether you want to buy into it or not, the lesson is the same - don't judge it entirely by your initial impressions, it might sound or feel a little odd at first.
I tend to favor some sort of external DAC, and don't really care about differences between sound cards for driving a stereo output. Also, what's your motherboard? Some of the onboard sound these days is fairly respectable. At a minimum, DO NOT buy a new sound card until you have had the new headphones for a while! Give yourself time to get used to the change in SQ due to the new 'phones, so if you do buy a new card you can have some chance of accurately evaluating its impact.
If you want to look for something else...well, I use an A/V receiver most of the time - but it does multiple duty as an external DAC & amplifier (speakers or headphones depending), as well as switching between a fair number of input devices, and supporting 7.1 output for the speakers. You can probably find a good headphone amp with a built in DAC for as much as some of those sound cards go for, which is why I tend to think them a little silly if you just want to drive stereo. OTOH I'm not intimately familiar with prices and brands there, so you'd need to do some research if it comes to that. Others here might be more familiar if you're interested.
Just saying...absolutely wait until you've gotten used to your new headphones before looking to change ANYTHING else in your sound system, and if you decide that you're going to spend another $100+ on the DAC/amp portion of the circuit...try to see if there are more effective options first if you don't need the other features (e.g. EAX) that a sound card is more appropriate for.
Edit since I got distracted in the middle of typing this: Spaceman wrote many of the stickies and such around here, and if you read a few of them it's fairly obvious he's pretty far gone down the "spending massive amounts of cash on audio" slope...start with the fact that the man has a pair of Stax phones and go from there. (High-voltage membrane "head speakers"...it's a very interesting technology but not used much because it requires the high voltages to work...) Listen to him.
The XP/Vista thing is relevant because MS saw fit in their infinite wisdom to completely fubar a number of things in Vista related to the sound to make it "better"...which mostly just broke a lot of drivers and made life really "interesting" instead.
I tend to favor some sort of external DAC, and don't really care about differences between sound cards for driving a stereo output. Also, what's your motherboard? Some of the onboard sound these days is fairly respectable. At a minimum, DO NOT buy a new sound card until you have had the new headphones for a while! Give yourself time to get used to the change in SQ due to the new 'phones, so if you do buy a new card you can have some chance of accurately evaluating its impact.
If you want to look for something else...well, I use an A/V receiver most of the time - but it does multiple duty as an external DAC & amplifier (speakers or headphones depending), as well as switching between a fair number of input devices, and supporting 7.1 output for the speakers. You can probably find a good headphone amp with a built in DAC for as much as some of those sound cards go for, which is why I tend to think them a little silly if you just want to drive stereo. OTOH I'm not intimately familiar with prices and brands there, so you'd need to do some research if it comes to that. Others here might be more familiar if you're interested.
Just saying...absolutely wait until you've gotten used to your new headphones before looking to change ANYTHING else in your sound system, and if you decide that you're going to spend another $100+ on the DAC/amp portion of the circuit...try to see if there are more effective options first if you don't need the other features (e.g. EAX) that a sound card is more appropriate for.
Edit since I got distracted in the middle of typing this: Spaceman wrote many of the stickies and such around here, and if you read a few of them it's fairly obvious he's pretty far gone down the "spending massive amounts of cash on audio" slope...start with the fact that the man has a pair of Stax phones and go from there. (High-voltage membrane "head speakers"...it's a very interesting technology but not used much because it requires the high voltages to work...) Listen to him.
The XP/Vista thing is relevant because MS saw fit in their infinite wisdom to completely fubar a number of things in Vista related to the sound to make it "better"...which mostly just broke a lot of drivers and made life really "interesting" instead.
wildfire99
Gawd
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2007
- Messages
- 720
I know tweeters usually take about 30 minutes to settle in a lot of the time if they're brand new and unused. The Senn 280's I got last month were one of the few pieces of gear I've ever had that actually needed to 'break in', seriously. They sounded like ass out of the box, but they loosened up after a couple days and sounded much better. Part of it might be getting used to the sound but since they're only one set of cans in rotation I don't think it's entirely that either. Other than that, I don't believe either in the whole burn in thing.
HD555s are a good choice. I had a listen to them last week without an amp and they still sounded very good. If you want to use them on your soundcard, I think you might need to use a 1/4" to 1/8" adaptor has the HD555 I tried came with a 1/4" plug and onboard soundcard uses 1/8" input.
My Stax Omega 2 sounded like trash when they were straight out of the box. The bass was bloated, mid and high were recessed. The overall sound very dark and laidback. Also, the right side was noticably louder than the left side. The sound got better after a few hours of use, but the left/right unbalance problem didn't go away until a week later.
For my previous dynamic headphones, I didn't notice much change for them over time though.
If you have Vista, save up for this instead of a sound card.
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/review-zero-24-bit-192khz-dac-headphone-amp-pre-amp-269458/
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/review-zero-24-bit-192khz-dac-headphone-amp-pre-amp-269458/
That looks pretty darn sweet.
What is this "rolling" of op-amps they speak of? (Noting that I already know what an op-amp is, does, how it relates to the DAC and amplification circuits, and probably have a transistor-level diagram of its guts around here somewhere.)
What is this "rolling" of op-amps they speak of? (Noting that I already know what an op-amp is, does, how it relates to the DAC and amplification circuits, and probably have a transistor-level diagram of its guts around here somewhere.)