Hello, I just joined, primarily for the audiophile products. Looking at purchasing the NHT C3 speakers for our new living room. Space is about 15 feet wide by 33 long and they will fire long ways. Space is just for general listening, music room with all equipment is downstairs, so hoping they will fill it with sound nicely. Cheers.
Mar 18, 2024
So. I'm not crazy about the sound of these headphones. I've run them on a Yamaha solid state amp, a small device with a 12ax7 line stage and op-amp drive, and the headphone outputs of two different DC-powered CD players. The source material was a couple of CD's I'm very familiar with. With the exception of the Yamaha amp (which sounded more horrible on the HE4XX's) all of the devices yielded the same results: a reference pair of Sony MDR-V6 phones sounded far more dynamic and detailed than the HE4XX headphones. Tympani on the Sony's sounded like tympani, and on the HE4's they sounded like someone dropped a cardboard box on a wooden floor, with none of characteristic ring of the kettle. Vocal sibilants were muffled, with little air around the sound. Massed violins sounded like someone had taken a pallet knife to the texture - I couldn't pick out an individual instrument or color the way I could on the Sony's. Bass was slow to arrive and light in the ass when it got there.
Really disappointing so far, given the expectations I had for the technology. I'll test it against the AD700's, but I won't waste my testing it against the Stax.
If anyone else out there is still using their MDR-V6 cans, would you weigh in with a comparison? I'd love to hear a second opinion on this. Thanks.