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Author Topic: Pyrate Leaderboard  (Read 99019 times)

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Thad E Ginathom

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Re: Pyrate Leaderboard
« Reply #150 on: October 08, 2014, 10:18:20 AM »
Quote from: altrunox on October 07, 2014, 10:00:10 PM
WOW, really? You don`t know their best product?!

http://www.lightharmonic.com/lightspeed.html                           

Oh god. I'd heard of it, but never looked before. 

 :vomit:  :vomit:  :vomit:

Please, my stomach muscles can't take much more, and I need to keep some food down just to live.

It is this sort of thing that really puts me off a company.

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Cats are nice

Clemmaster

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Re: Pyrate Leaderboard
« Reply #151 on: October 08, 2014, 04:26:26 PM »
But this thing actually works  :-DD

I bought the Lightspeed "just to try" (had a good deal on it that - for once - would mean I'm not loosing money, "just to try") and I don't feel like I just threw $x00 out the window. It does make a difference, for sure.
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Marvey

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Re: Pyrate Leaderboard
« Reply #152 on: October 08, 2014, 05:30:04 PM »
Quote from: zerodeefex on October 08, 2014, 02:57:30 AM
Quote from: Clemmaster on October 07, 2014, 10:40:13 PM
Which version? Original or NFB-7.32 / 2014?
From the time I had with the X-Sabre, I would never put it ahead of the NFB-7.32 or NFB-27. No way.

The original (this would have been 2012 when I had a lengthy audition I believe). The X-Sabre suffers from trying to not be a SABRE DAC. Some things are smoothed over a little too much.

The NFB had garbage for a USB implementation. The coax was better from the CDP that was plugged in (XA-5400ES), but it still was not as good as the X-Sabre when I bought it it. Both were driving a fully balanced Dynahi and HD800s. The NFB is grainy as hell in the treble and the bass was dull. It's super hard to differentiate pitch in the bass region. Super obvious when listening to the fairfield four on the DAC.

Makes sense now. The NFB-7.32 I heard had the OR converter. Sometimes, the OR5 can result in a smoother more liquid nuanced sound.

In any event, it would take a lot of convincing to include a SABRE based DAC here.
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Quart Bernstein

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Re: Pyrate Leaderboard
« Reply #153 on: October 08, 2014, 05:51:50 PM »
On the AKG note, I was not a big fan. I always remember (off-topic) this mastering engineer from Israel... ::looks up:: Acix, who would always rave about his K701 headphones on HeadFi years ago (When Headfi wasn't as much of rolling toilet paper appreciation threads). I thought his posts were always funny, because this was around when there was a lot less use of frequency response and objective thought (from what I remember). Being an engineer, looking for his own neutrality, he was convinced the K701 was as musical as you would want.
From what I remember, most people treated him like the village idiot.

When I tried the K701, they were terrible - to me. To me, they were in desperate need of a synergistic nurse to give immediate ER - cold.
The moral of my story, I like the K712.

I don't mind sending it in for measurements or review, after I get it back from Tyll.
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Tor4

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Re: Pyrate Leaderboard
« Reply #154 on: October 08, 2014, 05:58:34 PM »
Quote from: Quart Bernstein on October 08, 2014, 05:51:50 PM
On the AKG note, I was not a big fan. I always remember (off-topic) this mastering engineer from Israel... ::looks up:: Acix, who would always rave about his K701 headphones on HeadFi years ago (When Headfi wasn't as much of rolling toilet paper appreciation threads). I thought his posts were always funny, because this was around when there was a lot less use of frequency response and objective thought (from what I remember). Being an engineer, looking for his own neutrality, he was convinced the K701 was as musical as you would want.
From what I remember, most people treated him like the village idiot.

When I tried the K701, they were terrible - to me. To me, they were in desperate need of a synergistic nurse to give immediate ER - cold.
The moral of my story, I like the K712.

I don't mind sending it in for measurements or review, after I get it back from Tyll.

Gave you a +1 because I agree with you... K712 Pro are nice (not great but fine and versatile IMHO). But fully expecting a negative review/impressions here. It seems that everything AKG/Sabre is hated on Changstar.

(and no, I don't think Sabre or AKG is the best in the world... Just not as tragically bad as Changstar makes it to be.)

Btw, yeah, Acix is pretty funny... Bashing HD800 all the time for some pseudo past-10khz peaks while talking about perfect bass of K701 ;)
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Marvey

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Re: Pyrate Leaderboard
« Reply #155 on: October 08, 2014, 06:22:01 PM »
Overgeneralizing aren't ya?

Q701 was found to be pretty good / decent here (no measurements). There's some suspicion AKG may have tuned K702 or its variants for a warmer sound.

The three-four AKG K550s were found to have severe inconsistencies. Some being awful. Some being pretty darn good. Tested with certain test tracks with measurements to prove.

Anaxilus amd Ravi are OK with good SABRE implementations (LH Geek Out). Maxvla likes the X-SABRE. I've recommended the SABRE over Gungnir to people who I felt would prefer the X-SABRE. I think the Vega is pretty good. Luis hates it.

Of everyonehere, I tend to hate SABRE the most. The reason I do this is because I think it would be nice if there were more companies like Schiit. Metrum, AGD, etc. that would make DACs that had some of the nice attributes of the DACs of the Golden Age of DACs in the 90s. Variety in sound, whether you like the vintage R2R DAC sound or not would be a good thing.

Think about it. What choice do most people have among the craptastic cheap and expensive DACs being shilled on HF?
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Hands

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Re: Pyrate Leaderboard
« Reply #156 on: October 08, 2014, 06:26:42 PM »
Measurements of the K712 that I've seen make me think it still has that 2KHz or so bump I heard on the K702 65th AE. Dunno, K702 just sounded a bit painful to my ears, and as I believe Marv said, a bit "low-fi" at higher volumes. I just didn't really see it as all that competitive against the HD600/650. (Yeah, I know, can't always go off measurements, so maybe my K712 assumptions are wrong.)
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Tor4

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Re: Pyrate Leaderboard
« Reply #157 on: October 08, 2014, 06:32:58 PM »
Quote from: marvey on October 08, 2014, 06:22:01 PM
Overgeneralizing aren't ya?

Q701 was found to be pretty good / decent here (no measurements). There's some suspicion AKG may have tuned K702 or its variants for a warmer sound.

The three-four AKG K550s were found to have severe inconsistencies. Some being awful. Some being pretty darn good. Tested with certain test tracks with measurements to prove.

Anaxilus amd Ravi are OK with good implementations (LH Geek Out). Maxvla likes the X-SABRE. I've recommended the SABRE over Gungnir to people who I felt would prefer the X-SABRE.

Of everything here, I tend to hate SABRE the most. The reason I do this is because I think it would be nice if there were more companies like Schiit. Metrum, AGD, etc. that would make DACs that had some of the nice attributes of the DACs of the Golden Age of DACs in the 90s. Variety in sound, whether you like the vintage R2R DAC would be a good thing.


Possibly overgeneralizing... It's like you see several posts with the same content and it gets into your head. Like 'Schiit is great', 'Audio-GD is mostly average or even worse'... Everytime I see 'Sabre type of sound' mentioned here it also does not seem to be meant in a good way. etc. Maybe it's my perception of discussions here that should be blamed, dunno.

That said, it's funny how different opinions can be across various boards... I know some places were opinions about Schiit, Audio-GD, AKG or Sabre are wildly different from what I read here, mostly to be found in Europe.


To hans: You seem to be pretty fond of HD600/HD650 so I doubt you could find K712 Pro superior... But I personally do. I do not like Q701, DT880, Shure 1840, HD600/HD650 (etc etc) much (all of them just fail to do it for me) but I do like K712 Pro. Not more than HE-500/LCD-2/HE-4 but still I do. The 2khz peak is still there but quite masked by the increased bass volume (or should I say decreased upper mid to low treble response?). Vocals are still somewhat shouty but there is no spiky nature to the sound, at least in my experience. But then, you find HD650 superior to HE-500 which I do not at all.


Btw, very important note - I don't listen to music loud. I listen rather quiet... I have heard electrostats that sounded well with very high volumes but I don't want to listen that loud. I would say that people generally tend to listen 10-15db higher than I do (at least from experience from several auditions at my home).
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ultrabike

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Re: Pyrate Leaderboard
« Reply #158 on: October 08, 2014, 06:37:11 PM »
Interesting. Could be wrong, but I thought the Q701 and the K712 where virtually the same headphone.
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Tor4

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Re: Pyrate Leaderboard
« Reply #159 on: October 08, 2014, 06:41:21 PM »
Quote from: ultrabike on October 08, 2014, 06:37:11 PM
Interesting. Could be wrong, but I thought the Q701 and the K712 where virtually the same headphone.

No, they are not... But it's also not that you'll get a completely different headphone. Check Tyll's graphs.
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