Hello, I just joined, primarily for the audiophile products. Looking at purchasing the NHT C3 speakers for our new living room. Space is about 15 feet wide by 33 long and they will fire long ways. Space is just for general listening, music room with all equipment is downstairs, so hoping they will fill it with sound nicely. Cheers.
Mar 18, 2024
1. Grado SR325e. I received these well before the SMSL stack and was so disappointed in them through the Olive ONE and to a lesser degree through the Geek Out that I immediately considered returning them. But with the SMSL stack -- wow! -- they simply shine.
2. AKG K7xx Massdrop Edition. These sounded good with the Olive ONE and Geek Out, but are much more dynamic through the SMSL.
3. HifiMan HE-560 Planars. There is just not enough power with either the Olive ONE or the Geek Out 450. These headphones were also very disappointing when I initially received them, but that is because I simply didn't have a suitable DAC/Amp. Using the High power jack on the VA-2 amp, the HE-560s finally sprang to life. For kicks, I replaced the SMSL M8 DAC with my old Theta DSPro Basic IIIa fully balanced DAC (R2R DAC, I believe, not Delta-Sigma) while keeping everything else the same, and wow, everything got bumped up another notch.
4. Audio Technica ATH-M50x. These are the only closed-back headphones in my collection, so this is the only pair that goes to the office. Bass slam, decay, transient response, etc. were all noticeably improved after adding the P1 linear power supply.
The P1 was momentarily on sale for $128 at Amazon when I grabbed it. The difference it makes justifies the price. The LPS from LH Labs, for example, is around $500 or $600 MSRP, so this was a no brainer for me.