Amplification dilemma

[Mr.Sneis]

I used to have a mk1 with the mk2 boards and even the mk2 before the price increase.

 

In hindsight, the mk2 WAS indeed great but the looks of the mk1 win me over.  The mk2 boards in the mk1 do not get you all the way there but close enough.  Definitely worth the price of admission if Justin still sells them.

 

I've gotten to a point now where I can safely say spending uber bucks on headphone related gear no longer tickles my fancy but that's just me getting older and lamer.  I tend to chase my tail though so I'll probably be back in the game before I know it.  A dynahi for a fair price is where you might want to aim based on what I am hearing from DW!

Edited March 5, 2015 by Mr.Sneis

[Leonardo Drummond]

I used to have a mk1 with the mk2 boards and even the mk2 before the price increase.

 

In hindsight, the mk2 WAS indeed great but the looks of the mk1 win me over.  The mk2 boards in the mk1 do not get you all the way there but close enough.  Definitely worth the price of admission if Justin still sells them.

 

I've gotten to a point now where I can safely say spending uber bucks on headphone related gear no longer tickles my fancy but that's just me getting older and lamer.  I tend to chase my tail though so I'll probably be back in the game before I know it.  A dynahi for a fair price is where you might want to aim based on what I am hearing from DW!

 

Thanks, Ricky!

[purk]

I used to have a mk1 with the mk2 boards and even the mk2 before the price increase.

 

In hindsight, the mk2 WAS indeed great but the looks of the mk1 win me over.  The mk2 boards in the mk1 do not get you all the way there but close enough.  Definitely worth the price of admission if Justin still sells them.

 

I've gotten to a point now where I can safely say spending uber bucks on headphone related gear no longer tickles my fancy but that's just me getting older and lamer.  I tend to chase my tail though so I'll probably be back in the game before I know it.  A dynahi for a fair price is where you might want to aim based on what I am hearing from DW!

Agreed.  I would get mk2 boards to bring your MK1 as close as Mk2 though.  This will also increase the value of your amp. 

[shellylh]

Getting the boards for the GS-1 was a definite improvement and well worth the price.

[purk]

Getting the boards for the GS-1 was a definite improvement and well worth the price.

 

What sort of improvement can your discern by going from the old to new boards.

[shellylh]

It seemed a bit punchier for one thing. It was quite a while ago that I made the change so it's difficult to remember the exact details. It also works better as a hand warmer.

Edited March 5, 2015 by shellylh

[purk]

It seemed a bit punchier for one thing. It was quite a while ago that I made the change so it's difficult to remember the exact details. It also works better as a hand warmer.

 

Glad I'm not the only one.  Gotta love Class A biasing.

[dreamwhisper]

A little more Dynalo/Dynahi comparison:

 

Normally I hate the sound of compression, but a lot of movies use it as an effect where they eq a synth line and hard limit/compress it, but keep the top reverb trailing off.

The Dynahi can make the HD800's playing movies sounds like a theatre venue due to it letting you hear this technique in a movie soundtrack; the use of a combination of high frequency reverb and hard limiting. It sounds particularly compelling.

Some drum and bass producers cite it as a technique for maintaining a lot of energy in the music, or in this case suspense.

 

Don't get me wrong, it sounds compressed, but the representation of the acoustic space is the same as what you'd get in a movie theatre.

You can't hear the compression in the same way on the GS-1, it sounds boomy as opposed to resonant, which means to me it is less transparent.

 

For all practical purposes, boomy and punchy is all you need for most music, and actually sounds much more organic than hearing how the bass resonates and carries in the recording space/studio.

 

For me it's a fine line because all dynamics sound somewhat boomy, and I rarely am interested in hearing the bass resonate in a space, except if it's with genres that use that bandwidth to relay some of the music's energy. 

Classical music relies on the venue to create the acoustics of a concert hall,

Metal uses the cymbal hits and reverb guitar/vocals to simulate some of the movie theatre acoustics I was referring to earlier.

It doesn't hurt or hinder electronic music, but the additional bass resonance is interesting compared to how an e-stat renders the detail.

With the GS-1, you can hear the mids and highs resonate fine, but it doesn't seem to dig out that last bit of resonating bass detail that, depending on the mastering chain, can carry through the frequency spectrum.

Once again, it depends on whether or not you even want to hear the bass resonating the recording space, because it does take a lot of your attention to listen to it. (it was the intense sounding attribute I was referring to earlier)

 

For any other music it's pretty much equal to me because punchier is really the name of the game in dynamics imo, and both the Dynalo+ and Dynahi are really punchy.

With the G-lite, minus Dynalo + boards, it's not a very powerful amp. I don't remember it adding enough punch to the Audio-Technicas I was using with it to justify the cost.

On the other hand, the Dynalo + boards have a huge amount of punch, with low and high impedance headphones.

WIth the mk2 boards you get a reliable solid state amp, but there's no denying that the build quality and features are really part of what you're spending your money on.

If you don't want preamp, loop outputs, stunning craftsmanship, I guess there's always the Beta 22.

Sadly I didn't think the Beta 22 had that much punch, but maybe my gain was too low. (4 in balanced config)

 

I find it a little bizarre that the HD800/Dynahi doesn't have the same genre bandwidth as the GS-1 for me, but with the things it does do the Dynahi is really the best in it's class (aka that I've heard), but a lot of that will come down to headphone preference / personal preference.

I find it easy to forgive the Dynalo + for what it brings to the table since overall it isn't any less involving to listen to and the pride of ownership is really off the charts.

Edited March 6, 2015 by dreamwhisper