HeadphoneAddict

Actually, I forgot about the KSC35 and mine are better than my KSC75 as stated above. I gave the KSC75 to my wife for her iPod Nano, but still use the 35 in the car.

Blutarsky says he is #40.

I recently traded my 325i and cash for some AD2000, and while both were nice out of the ones you are looking at for a spare set I'd stick with the Grado 325i or Alessandro MS2i - but even an MS-1 with a good burn-in can be a stand-in while your HP-1000 are worked on. Even better sounding would be if you could pick up a pair of HF-1 for $300-400. If you still have the Zana Deux an AKG K240M sounds great on one (Blutarsky's).

Having gone through a 3 year pediatric residency and knowing how bad a 6 year surgical residency can be (much worse than greys anatomy), you will be best off with a 16gb 4G Nano and some PX100 or KSC75. It's gotta fit in your surgical scrubs and not weigh it down, and you have to be able to hear your pager go off. If you leave the Pico in the on-call room at the hospital and it will be gone in an hour. I have some 600 ohm AKG K240M and the Pico can just drive them to mild or moderate volumes but it can't match the sound and power that a desktop tube amp will offer. The only portable that does them any justice is the warmer sounding TTVJ portable Millett Hybrid which is still too underpowered with 600 ohm headphones. The only other headphone the Pico has had a hard time driving is my heavily dampened SFI orthodynamic custom headphones, which demand a lot of power and could be driven by a speaker amp if needed.

I'd be willing to donate to the effort too.

Well, I mentioned previously to Spritzer after I got them that the APS modded ESP950 he sold me take 2-3 minutes to fully charge, and for the first 4-5 seconds the are silent. Both drivers charge equally slow, and after several minutes they are both loud and strong and normal volume. No imbalance, but none of my other stats take minutes to charge, and they've been like this for as long as I've had them. I'm afraid to send them to Koss because I worry they will undo the APS cable and dampening mods.

How long do/did your ESP950 drivers take to charge up to full volume with Stax and Koss amps?

I would recommend the Nuforce NE-7M in that price range ($49), and use the money you save to buy either some silicone tips for the Shure E2c for them, or some Complys T400 tips. The tips make a big difference in sound, and they fit better with the Shure or COmplys tip. I did a review on them on "the other forum" and a great number of people agree that in the price range they are hard to beat. Un-amped they beat my de-podded IM716, which when amped are very good. The NE-7M only need about 85-95 hours of burn-in, and compete well with IEM costing as much as $150 (the $159 Phonak do pass these up, but most of the others don't).

I would like to suggest the Phonak Audeo as a good universal IEM that is close to high-end, and probably closer to an Etymotic/Livewires monitor-like sound than the SE530/Triple.fi/W3 sound. They are clear and quick and detailed and have good extension, and don't suffer from troublesome bass or mid-bass peaks or other colorations. I would pick these over a stock SE530 (rolled off), Triple.fi (boxy sound), SA6 (dull or lifeless at times) or even Image X10 (which I also like more than SE530/Triple.fi but have colored upper bass lower mids). I still prefer my Livewires more than the Phonak as a neutral and accurate IEM, and my Westone 3 as a full and lush fun sounding IEM, but the Phonak are great universal IEM for people who don't want coloration to the sound but don't want it to be too analytical or dull at the other end of the spectrum. Nevertheless, I am getting impressions for Westone ES3X this week...

:palm: Actually I still don't think my Jade are as bad as he says. They are better than Lambdas and at least as good as re-cabled ESP950, maybe better. Still have lots of listening to do yet. We'll see how burn-in goes.

You realize that if you report positive changes from your mods that I'll be bugging you to do mine next?

If you change your writing style to something understandable you'll get moar respect here. Right now it is too schizophrenic to understand. Sorry.

So, if I return the Jade and cancel the HD800 I can pay for half of one? Sob...

My Jade come from the mid January batch, not the older batch with the different coating. Were Elephas's from the Nov or Dec batch? So far my only complaint is shallow soundstage depth.

Personally, I would just use it as a headphone amp. I'm not sure what the advantage is to use it as a large and expensive volume control when there are not multiple inputs and RCA or XLR out? While it was on loan to me for the past month I liked it best with Denon D2000 (woodied re-cabled) and Edition 9, but wanted a little more warmth with RS-1 and more power with HD600. It's a very nice amp.

Spritzer, I have done the O2 Mk2 ear-pad spring mod with improvements. How important is the blu-tak to the bass-port portion of the mods?

I might have gotten in on the "good batch", as brief listening while it burns in has not been disappointing yet, but I've had very little ear-time with them so far. I have not spent near enough time getting to know these - but when I first put them on my head I liked them. I have a lot of listening to do, and a lot of comparing to do, so I will withhold impressions for a while so I can get that done.

I believe Justin did some math in his Pico thread a while back, that with the voltage swing of 7.5v and 300 ohm the Pico could deliver the 200mw max that the HD600 is rated to handle. Few portables have enough power for the HD600. (from memory and maybe an error or 2) In my testing the Pico and 3MOVE have the most volume with HD600, followed closely by the vividaudiotech V1 and TTVJ portable Millett, and then the XM5 and then iBasso D3, and then Predator/Meier Headsix, followed by the iBasso D2 Boa, with the Nuforce Icon Mobile below that. A desktop amp will still do them more justice, but the Pico will get the job done for portable. The Woo is a very good choice, but it's gonna cost you more than a Millett or EF1 or SOHA II etc.

Okay, I get it. The whole point was to have fun at someone else's expense for kicks. Sorry. I messed up. I try to do better next time. KTHXBAI!

Wow, that is expensive. It sucks that impressions are only $30 for me here, but $100 where you are. At the Beltone Hearing Center here in town the UM-56 cost me $70 with free impressions, because I had already spent $30 x2 on impressions for my 2 pairs of Livewires. I'm gonna see if the UM56 will fit my Phonak Audeo PFE, since I was able to force them onto the XM10 with good fit and sound. That means you could use them with Westone, Shure, Ety, Image X10 and maybe Phonak too. If you did decide to do UM56 and don't get along with Silicone, you could get them in Vinyl which will last at least 3 years before getting hard or shrinking. Or, stick to the original plan.

I got my first SR-Lambda with SRD-X from plaidplatypus for $230, and the second set for my son was about $340 ($240 Lambda from Fitz and $100 SRD-X from Spritzer). Neither one of us plans to sell these off anytime soon. Absolutely fantastic headphone - enough that I had normal bias jack installed on my Woo GES when I ordered it. [sorry so spammy - damn iphone - no copy/paste is proof Steve Jobs is ill]

The Jade are ready for your ears to taste them. You will no longer want ESP950... You must set your sights higher.

Yeah, you either got a steal of a deal, or it's in worse shape than you think. I'd expect to pay $600-700 for that rig.

Jason sez, "At $69, no other headphones will sound better at this price." Why are you teasing them about competing with HD800 when they are shooting for the budget under $100 phones?

You could still consider some Westone UM56 custom tips for the Westone 3.