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
It looks great. Especially when paired with my AX-501.
The menu is simple and easy to navigate. Using the one menu button to cycle through choices, and the input selector dial to make selections and change options, it only takes a couple seconds to run through all the options and probably less than a minute to completely configure.
I spent a fair amount of time listening to just the DAC with my M70x and Fidelio X2 and I'm really impressed. It makes a great headphone amp. It sounds fairly similar to the AX-501 I paired it with, until you get up into almost uncomfortable listening levels. I haven't tried it with any hard to drive headphones yet.
I also took some time and made myself a pair of custom length XLR interconnects to connect the UD-501 with my AX-501. They're hilariously short and totally unnecessary because of their length. But I really like big chunky connectors with locking mechanisms. If they had SpeakOn jacks, I'd use those.
So far I've only tried the USB from my Surface Pro 4, but the driver was easy to install and the DAC sounds fantastic. I A/B tested it with the Surface as the source, switching between the USB input and headphone output of the Surface routed to the AX-501's Line 1 input (bypassing the UD-501 and using the Surface's internal DAC). At lower listening volumes, I couldn't tell much of a difference between them. The UD-501 might sound a little bit clearer, but not significantly in my limited listening experience. I will have to sit down and do some serious critical listening with some better headphones and speakers, than the aforementioned X2's or the old Technics SB-x10 speakers I happened to have handy.
Eliminating the AX-501, the UD-501 can crank out significantly more power than my Surface, obviously. At higher volumes the DAC really shines over using the tablet's internal DAC. Channel separation is far better on the UD-501. Music sounds crystal clear and voices sound natural right up into the double-aughts on the volume dial.
One thing to note; if you haven't already, you should check out TEAC's HR audio player available on their website. I like the clean interface and ease of use. I also like that you can set options for DSD over PCM or Native DSD right in the player's configuration menu.