Topping DX7 Pro - Go Get it!

I replaced my DX7s with the new pro

FUCK! ITS GREAT!

My stack PC Jriver - DX7 Pro - THX789 - HD800s

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I get the same experience whether I listen with my Grado$ or with my old gameboy earbuds. So this isn’t for me :no_mouth:

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Daim! How do you like those?

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They were the best purchase I ever made related to music but it took a while to find a rig that resolved well enough to make them worthwhile. The THX circuit sort of revolutionized HP amps and companies like Topping doing superb implementations of ESS and soon AKM chips really bringing crazy high performance out of the stratosphere. The ASR forum guy doing the testing is a local chap that actually headed up Audio engineering at Microsoft. I know of him because my old boss (when I was in my early 20s selling custom electronics) now runs part of one of his companies (Madrona Digital) That guy was Chris Arrau - Claudio’s son(!) very small world…

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The 800s are supposed to have an impressive soundstage for a headphone, which I do miss with my 600s, but from what I’ve heard they come with other drawbacks instead so I’ve opted for the more even 600s both times I’ve bought high-end headphones now. I’m really tempted to try them with a transformerless tube amp, which from an engineering perspective should be an electrical matching made in heaven, and which people say subjectively exactly do open up the soundstage in the 600s (I suppose from the even order harmonics). I haven’t pulled the trigger yet but there is a company also in your neck of the woods I think called Shiit Audio who makes one (Valhalla 2) which is relatively cheap, has good reviews, and furthermore has an uncoloured tone with the stock tubes. I’m really not in to that goey guitar amp sound others want from valves, but I really am interested in their harmonic distortion pattern and in getting rid of the voltage drive of transistor amps.

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I had bought some Schiit gear Multibit Gungnir and Mjolnir 2 both of which are collecting dust. With “colored” headphones Schiit sounded pretty good BUT when I shifted over to the stacks that measure transparently end to end and put on a resolving sounding headphone like the 800s night and day especially for piano. 800s on schiit : ( everything sounded artificially rounded over and not in a tubey pleasant way. Not sure exactly what is different in the DX7 Pro vs DX7s but that last hint of glare and smearing is completely gone and piped through the THX789 its the best sound I’ve heard ever on anything hands down and I used to work in a shop that sold Wilson’s and Meridian etc for a few years.

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The Mjolnir is transformer coupled though, isn’t it? That kinda cancels the point for my purpose, since I’m not after that warm, goey valve character. The big win with tube amps in a headphone setup is that you don’t need a high level output signal, which means you can get away with just putting a capacitor on the output - hence getting rid of the non-linearities of the transformer and build a type of amp which would be in the $8000 range if designed for loudspeakers. The Valhalla 2 isn’t a high-end OTL amp, but it is an OTL amp and it only costs $300 or so. If it does what I hope it does but isn’t tonally satisfying or is too noisy I at least know I’m on the right track, and can invest in a high-end alternative later on.

Either way, I’d be less keen on a tube amp with the 800s. First since they have one of the best soundstages on the market in of themselves, and secondly because from what I recall another feature of them is that they’re hugely resolving, which I’ve heard several other users say put great demands both on the rest of your gear and on the recording you listen to. Transistor amps are inherently cleaner so it could very well be that the 800s highlight the drawbacks of valves while benefiting little from their advantages.