Which headphones of Drop's currently available?
I have some rewards points to burn but there's no obviously good options on Drop right now for headphones Contenders Ultrasone - maybe? I don't own any Ultrasones, so curious. Looks like garbage travel headphone which could be useful also. Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro. - Maybe? I have the DT 880 Good price point, really uncomfortable headphones but could be interesting to try the upgraded version. E-MU - strong contender but $400 is a bad price point for what it is. Which of the above would you choose and why? Nothing else on Drop is relevant to my interests, because Already own 6xx 820 800 s Ether cx Garbage / Consumer grade Meze 99 - garbage bass canons, hard pass No gaming headphones obviously Sennheiser wireless - no to wireless/bluetooth Hifiman - I have 2 of drop hifimans and they make really bad cheap shit on Drop, hard pass on HE-R7DX Aeon - I own the closed, Drop refuses to address #padgate so no reason to buy open Beyerdynamic 177x - wireless, nope Too similar 8x / 560s...
Mar 28, 2024
I see that many of you have or are about get your CTHs. Since I happen to have Serial #00001 I thought I might make a few comments on break in. First, the amp sounds pretty good out of the box, at least to me. But, as we all know tubes take about 50 hours to clear out the impurities still clinging to the various internal parts and SS portions do need some time. I don't think it's necessary to do a marathon break in session for 10,000 hours before listening. My experience has been that after about 25 hours playing music the amp begins to take on its full character. And then after that it evolves into is inherent sound signature. For me, I was able to listen fairly happily even with no hours, noticing the changes at about 25 hours and then better over time. I still have less than 100 hours on the amp. YMMV some. I hope you all like it. It has a long history from a popular and very compact DIY project to a much more sophisticated amp.
1. The 6922 requires 330mA heater current. 6SN7 requires 600mA. The heater supply will start to max out at 400mA. 600mA will probably over-tax it and could cause failure. 2. Plate voltage on the triodes is a little over 100V. 6922 is very happy here, but this plate voltage is low for 6SN7 and probably puts it into a much less linear regime.
Alex