Sennheiser PXC 550-II Wireless Headphones Discussions | Drop

Sennheiser PXC 550-II Wireless Headphones

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Nov 16, 2020

How are these compared to the PC38x?

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Nov 20, 2020

ItzMeZelioVery different. These are closed-back, so they block noise, and the Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) cuts droning sounds down even further. When you have closed headphones, the size of the “soundstage” is much smaller, and the cup will echo back some of the sound (won’t sound like a repeating echo, but it will sound a bit congested and thicker). They are also tuned with more bass. They’re nice for listening to music on a plane or on a work commute/in an open office environment, and they automatically adjust the ANC depending on how much background noise there is. I have the PXC480, which are the wired version of these. The PC38X are open-backed gaming headphones with a boom mic. They don’t block sound at all, but also sound clearer and are more likely to sound “real.” They also trap less heat and are more comfortable to wear all day. They are excellent home gaming headphones, and they also are just nice for enjoying music. However, you probably wouldn’t want to take the PC38X traveling. They each have their strong points in certain situations. I hope this helps!

Nov 24, 2020

EvshrugThanks dude. I forgot to reply to this. The 38x is my first open back pair of cans. I wouldn't consider it my first set. I shouldn't after all. It's a gaming headset. I think I my try out Sundara's for my next set of cans or should I say my first set. I have a closed back gaming headset at home. Maybe I should try and compare it to the PC38x and see how that goes!

Nov 24, 2020

ItzMeZelioThe "wide world" of audio is huge! Did you get the PC38X? I think it stands up pretty darn well as a headphone for listening to music too, even among audiophile headphones at the same price (The driver is from an audiophile company, so that shouldn't be a surprise). There are far less SQ compromises when you eliminate ANC and closed back acoustics.

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Nov 26, 2020

EvshrugI do indeed have it. Enjoying it so far. Music does sound great as well as game imaging. I think I want to try out the Argons next. A few youtubers say they are a fun set of closed back with a decent amount of bass. I’m not sure if I’m a bass head or not but they do sound interesting.

Nov 26, 2020

ItzMeZelioBass is like a drug, eventually you escalate to more 😂

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Nov 28, 2020

EvshrugThe reviews make them sound really nice. But man. That's like 400$ for the headphones then I need the AMP/DAC + balanced cable. xD It's gonna be like a 800$ investment.

Nov 28, 2020

ItzMeZelio Well, first of all, the PXC 550 has a built in DAC/amp. All Bluetooth headphones do. Second, if you’re buying any Planar Magnetic headphone, yeah it’s going to benefit from a higher quality DAC and amp than what is found in a laptop or smartphone dongle, and most will need a more powerful amp so that they don’t sound thin and loose at normal listening volumes. You don’t necessarily HAVE to get a balanced cable: a properly designed amp with a balanced output will favor the balanced output for sound quality and twice the power, but you could also just buy a single-ended amp designed with more power output. You can think of the signal chain gear as doubling the investment that you make into a new headphone... or on the flipside, you can think of a Bluetooth headphone as half the cost of the purchase went towards the DAC, amp, and wireless parts inside. You do get the benefit of those parts literally being selected by the acoustic engineers as a good match for the headphone (within design constraints), and of course the compact portable design, but those pieces will only benefit that one headphone if your collection continues to grow. I’ve been there, looking down the barrel of increasing system price. I didn’t do it all at once though. I bought a fairly easy to power headphone, then one day I upgraded my amp because I was curious of the benefits, then I bought a higher end headphone, and just added pieces over the years. The jumps have been bigger lately, but now I invest more into audio than videogames (because thankfully my PS4 has lasted me a long time vs building PCs). My current system is a shielded USB cable “borrowed” from my Blue Snowball, a Sennheiser HDV 820 dac/amp combo unit, an HD 660S with Sennheiser’s 4.4mm Pentaconn balanced cable, or I’ll go reference with my silver Pentaconn cable into my HD 800. That’s a pretty expensive setup, but I got it piece by piece over 5 years time and it makes me very happy, and I’m only now considering a new TV (dem Black Friday sales! My current plasma is 10 or 11 years old) and a new game system (PS5 or XBX). It’s all about how you spend your fun budget, and as a gamer I find that sound is more immersive to me than screen resolution or a handful of frames, plus when I started getting into headphones in 2009 I rediscovered my love for music (and distain for sticky, seat kicked public theaters). Audio has been a wonderful luxury! You have to decide for yourself what is worth it to you.

(Edited)

Dec 5, 2020

EvshrugKind of hard to reply to every point you made there but I do want to go with a balanaced amp/dac. I think I will be trying out the Topping DX7 Pro. I have a pair of powered monitors (Kanto Tuks) and hopefully I can plug them into it as well. I do want the Argons and the Topping pushes out 1.6w at 50ohm. Not sure if that's beast mode for the Argons but Zeos said the DX7 drives the T50/T60/Argons very well. I will definitely space out the buys so it's not one huge hit all at once. With the DX7 i'll be able to buy headphones from here on end and not really have to worry about having to get a new piece of gear due to compatibility issues. It has all the jack inputs after all.

(Edited)

Dec 5, 2020

ItzMeZelioOh, the T50RP (and the Argons are modded T50RPs) are THIRSTY BOI! Significantly quieter than my HD 650 (equiv to an HD 6XX) at the same volume setting, it needs the highest volume setting of any of my headphones, and many T50RP mods actually lower the sensitivity further (make it quieter). I haven’t heard the Argons specifically, but I do have a pair of Drop TH-X0 mk II and Dekoni Blue in the house, and did a review of the ZMF Vibro a long time ago. I prefer them over the HiFiman HE-400 series planars, and the HE-560 too... more natural mids. As a rule of thumb though, over a Watt @32 Ω will generally do the trick for power output. Doesn’t have to be balanced - balanced only tends to make a liiittle improvement when using the most absolutely resolving headphones, like over $1k. But if the cheap but cheerful Topping brand has a more powerful Balanced output section, they probably optimized the Balanced first for sound quality (they have to choose one, second output will be compromised a bit). The Topping can act just as a DAC, but FYI there are no analog inputs so you can’t use it just as an amp. 🤷‍♂️ You have nothing to worry about with the topping’s 10 Ω output impedance with a Planar Magnetic headphone, they operate differently, and any headphone with an impedance above about 80 Ω or a linear impedance curve should sound fine. I have plugged my PC38X into an amp with 40 Ω output impedance, and honestly it still sounds great. Kantos is indeed a Zeos (Stephen) recommendation. I haven’t tried those (well, I SAW them in Zeos’ room at RMAF last year), how do you like them? Ideally, you would try to connect speakers to the two 3-pin XLR outputs on the back, but the single-ended RCA jacks at the back should be fine.

Dec 5, 2020

EvshrugAlso, how’s the headphone Jack on those Kantos TUK? I’m not familiar with the AMT technology used for the drivers, are they like a Planar Magnetic/Planar leaf driver? My Chane bookshelf speakers use planar leaf tweeters, and I love them. I think it’s interesting the Amazon product images show them hooking it up to a Focal Elear ($1k headphone).

(Edited)

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Dec 8, 2020

EvshrugI will say that the headphone jack on them is pretty good. I have a built in HifI solution built into my X570 Aorus master that boosts the volume on the PC38x by about 20%. When plugged directly into the Kanto's it seems it boosts the PC38x by another 20%. The PC38x sounds much much louder connected to the Tuks. I would never use the PC38x on the Tuks though. It's just too much volume. I feel it would damage them over time. Neat that you meantioned the Chane speakers. I was going to buy 3 A2.4s for my setup but decided to go with the Tuks to cut out the 3rd center channel and a stand alone AMP/Receiver. This is all on my desk after all.

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