Sennheiser PC37X randomly goes bad after disconnecting the cable ?
Greetings, Yesterday I was using my headset like normal with my macbook, just listening to music and on a call with people like usual, and the headset was perfectly fine. The stock wire that came with the headset is extremely long and yesterday it annoyed me very much that it kept getting tangled with itself, so I decided to see if the cable is replaceable. I pulled out the cable from the headset and saw the adapter, and looked online for a replacement. Upon plugging it back in, the audio sounded extremely muffled and washed out. Im not sure what I did wrong to make it mess up like that as I've always taken good care of it, ive had it for about 2 years and its always just been chilling on my desk, but anywho I thought the cable just went bad and ordered a replacement. The replacement came, and the issue is still persistant, so I am not sure what the issue is I've tried multiple different headsets and the issue is not with the port, and I also tried it with my windows laptop and...
Apr 23, 2024
The difference from the HD700 is pretty significant - the Elex seems tighter across the board, with a more airy top end, cleaner bottom end and just a more cohesive sound across the board. The Elex has a more open, effortless sound to it than the HD700. Hard to make too many judgements without listening on better gear, which will come soon, but HD700 is left behind for the moment.
I have an Oppo Sonica DAC, and a DV336SE is on order from MD, shipping early September. I plan already to mod the Darkvoice, parts on order, tubes coming too. I have an RSA SR-71A portable amp here somewhere but I cannot find it at the moment (kicking myself!) Looking forward to some good listening in the near future on the Elex.
I've progressed from K702's to K712's to the HD700's, and now the Elex. HD800's have been a goal for a while now, as I know by reputation that they fit my musical tastes (Orchestra, chorale, jazz, acoustic stuff). Pretty sure the HD700's may be up for sale soon to help get the HD800's, but Elex will be staying for a while :-). It would be interesting to hear from people that have had a chance to compare the Focals to the HD800's.
I will post a follow up when I have more time on these brilliant headphones.
Update: DV336SE came in early, got it running last night with the Sonica and the Elex. After swapping tubes for some old RCAs that I picked up in anticipation of running the DV, I was off and running. Going through a number of my normal test tracks, the thing I realized was that I was listening to a number of them right through the end of the track, the enjoyment level was so high. Also, did not touch the HD700s at all. More to come, working on mods for the DV next...
Mods to the Darkvoice so far are the Fitz mod (bypass caps on cathode resistors to deal with hum issues on certain tubes), and I changed the coupling caps from the 3 10uf red ones on each channel to a 100uf Mundorf non-polar electrolytic together with a 1uf Mundorf Evo Oil . Also swapped a couple of resistors for higher grade ones (PRP's). Cannot comment too much on the effects of these upgrades as I did not get a lot of listening time prior to doing the changes. I'll be using the Darkvoice with the Elex (80 ohm imp.), HD700 (150 ohm imp.), and HD800 in the future so the ~100 uf on the couplping caps should be enough to keep the bottom end extended with these headphones.
Regarding the Elex vs HD700, I have stopped listening to the HD700 at this point, the Elex is just more of a pleasure to listen to. HD700 sounds closed or compressed in comparison to the Elex on most acoustic stuff that I am listening to. The HD700 is not a bad headphone at all - if I was just listening to it without comparing to another headphone, I would be enjoying my listening time. The Elex is definitely a step up though. As an observation, the change from AKG K702 to K712, or from K712 to HD700 was really more of a sound signature, or presentation change than any serious change in quality of sound. The change from HD700 to Elex has been a definite, noticeable increase in quality of the sound I am hearing, in addition to presentation and sound signature changes. The Elex is just so open and at ease wth acoustic music.
The pairing of the DV amp with the Elex has also been very good. This is as good as my home headphone setup has sounded so far. The Darkvoice has a forgiving nature for a lot of recordings that I would normally be reaching for the volume knob due to treble harshness. Now I am not finding the need to do so with this amp. Even though it takes the edge off of these types of recordings, it is not dark or closed sounding - detail is very good, and complex fast passages come across very cleanly. This is my first tube amp, so I am new to this type of amp, but I am really liking it so far. Running it with an RCA 6AS7G power tube and Shu Guang CV181 Treasure tube. Oppo Sonica Dac for a source.
HD700's will definitely go up for sale to help fund HD800's, and I may look at a new DAC at some point as well. For now I am really enjoying the music...
Other than being a tight fit inside the amp case, the work on the Darkvoice was not too difficult to do.
I have a couple of CD's from Chesky ("Dr Chesky's Sensational... Binaural Sound Show" and "Ultimate Demonstration Disc: Chesky Records Guide to Critical Listening") that have some good bass test material on them, including a binaural recording of a Bach organ piece that goes really low, string bass solos, drum solos, etc. Highly recmmended discs. I am happy with how all these tracks are sounding - very clean and articulate, while still being extended and having good impact. As for straight up quantity of bass, some of the tracks on Daft Punk's Tron soundtrack are pretty over the top, and there is plenty of solid punchy bass present in that recording with this headphone/amp combo.
For well recorded material, I am attributing the small amount of treble harshness issues I have to my DAC at this point, but it should be noted that these do not stand out very much at all, listening is very enjoyable for me on this material. Other music is just hard to listen to though due to poor recording quality. A lot of my 80's pop music from my younger days falls into this category unfortunately. The forgiveness of the Darkvoice coupled wth the quality of the Elex however has made it fun to pull some of this older material out again for enjoyable listening.