Refusal to take responsibility.
Hi, Just thought I would make a note here of your handling of my issues. I ordered a pair of HD6xx headphones and then earlier today recieved the package. I drive to go and get it, as I like in the UK I had to pay import tax and handling fees. These total £47.92. The breakdown being £35.92 in tax and £12 in fees. These taxes were calculated of the shipping label of the box, which marked the shipment as the 6xx headphones of $199 value. Before leaving the parcel depot, I open the box to find a $35 lord of the rings mousepad. So now the problem is not only do I not have the headphones, but you have marked the shipment wrong so I have paid £47.92 fees for the handling of the mousepad. Which would have acrued £0 of fees if marked correctly as it is under £135. I go back to the desk but as I have already paid the fees I am unable to reject the shipment, but as the box said 6xx, there was no way for me to know before opening it. I contact support and they offer me a replacement, which...
Jan 17, 2025
The build of this amp is as solid as it is sturdy(oh my God I fear for that tiny gain switch) and well vented as this little thing could adequately heat a drink sitting on the top plate. The volume is not indicated well in low light, but using the volume knob itself feels like a quality volume pot, so smooth and linear. My DAC is also a recently purchased SMSL SU-8 which includes balanced outs and a dynamic range of 120 db with a respectable SNR of 116 db. I have only driven my headphones through the single ended output as I am saving again to buy balanced cables for each set I have: HD 600, HD800 and M1060. With the DAC and amp paired together via xlr cables, the overall noise floor is virtually undetectable. Dead silent. Not even the highly sensitive HD 800 can be heard over this pairing.
Here comes the honesty. Normally, I have driven my headphones out of my vintage receiver. The benefit of doing that was I had all the power to drive the M1060's with a built in graphic equalizer to help tame the treble on the HD 800's. My receiver also has a loudness control feature which basically amplifies the lowest and highest frequencies, to my ears, about 8-10 db. When this is off and the equalizer is leveled out the sound is dead neutral. Upon listening to my first set of tracks on the HPA-3B I noticed the amount of bass was on par with the receiver with the aforementioned features turned off. The bass is lean overall but present. The midrange, to me, sounds forward and at times a bit shouty but is smooth and resolving with the right music. Treble decay is airy and natural but more so when compared to my receiver. Class A topology allows for that extra bit of fidelity that class A/B(the receiver) just can't reach.
I use foobar2000 with an equalizer(when you own HD 800's or you're a nit picker in general it's a must) and so far I'd say the dac and amp sound great together. Until I get some balanced cables I can only enjoy single ended for now. I hope to add some updates in the future.