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
Believe it or not, yesterday night with the balance not available, I kept saying, "really, that is? I thought it should sound better. Even the PS Audio Sprout sounded better" Now, after finding my sweet spot with the balance control, the m9XX comes to live! The clarity and details are amazing.
Here are some bits & pieces: Turning on the Crossfeed brings out a THICKER bass. To those who love bass, this is what you wanted. However, I feel that when I turn off the Crossfeed, the sound field opens up. Another way to describe it is that you feel like you are on an open field. For long listening session, turning off the Crossfeed will be my preferred choice.
I compared the m9XX with source from Windows 7 iTunes to the portable QLS-QA360 and the difference became apparent. When listening to "Only A Woman's Heart", the QA360 formed a tight group of bass drowning out the vocal while the m9XX removed the tightness of the bass and bring the vocal back to balance equally against the bass. In the QA360, the bass dominated whereas in m9XX, the bass is more friendly with the other counterparts. However, the moment you turn on the Crossfeed in m9XX, you are listening to a different animal, one that has more "kick" in the bass department.
That is just my personal listening experience with the m9XX using the NobleAudio K10 CIEM.
Yes, I LOVE this little heavy-metal box with a big round steel button. And I've never seen a big giant mute button ever on any electronic equipment. Bang! (palm striking the big steel button) and the music disappears instantly. Oop! Bang! and the music comes back to live!
As far balance control goes, I would try to find a setting or plugin for a good audio player for this so that you still have the ability to use bit-perfect playback with a balance control. Running your signal through Windows definitely sucks some life out of it. I know that there are plugins for Foobar2000 that can do balance, but I can't place the names of any off the top of my head (sorry; I don't really mess with balance much other than for certain brief tests).
Crossfeed will definitely make your soundstage feel a bit smaller as it will reduce stereo separation. It's the same on my m920. I only use it when listening to tracks with a lot of hard-panning, as hard-panning through headphones gets fatiguing very quickly. This doesn't often come up though (which is good since my m920 is not my primary headphone amp, my Woo Audio WA7 is). The m920 has a very good crossfeed circuit, but if you ever get the chance, you should give the SPL Phonitor 2 a listen. That has got to be the best crossfeed circuit I've ever heard.
Thanks for the add'l info regarding the crossfeed.
Cheers!
JRiver Media Center does have bit-perfect balance controls, but it's hidden away under DSP Studio → Room Correction.
You can control the balance with the Room Correction plugin built-into the DSP Studio. This lets you control each speaker's level individually, so while it's not a single balance control, it works. For example, if you wanted to set the balance to hard-left, you would set the left speaker at +0 dB, and the right speaker at -20 dB.
I also have imbalanced hearing and typically just live with it, but after dtw898's question I played with Room Correction and got pretty good results. I then realized that my hearing loss isn't linear, but most extreme at the high end. Moving up the DSP Studio options I starting tweaking Parametric Equalizer. Sure enough, balance (via Room Correction) was a bigger stick than I needed. By adding a +4.0dB high-shelf at 1000 Hz, female voices and percussion locks right into the middle of my head.
ps. And if you enable ASIO Driver and WDM Driver under Settings -> General -> Features, you'll be able to take advantage of your EQ settings for all other Windows apps (e.g. Tidal, Google Music, Spotify, YouTube, etc.)
The more I'm listening to the m9XX with my NobleAudio K10 CIEM (I chose the K10 due to its having 10 armatures/drivers in each earpiece), the happier I'm 'cause the music sound so much better than before the m9XX.
Thanks MassDrop for this special deal!