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
Note that this amp DOES NOT have balanced inputs, despite the description text.
Balanced is essentially trying to eliminate cross-talk between channels which might create harmonic distortion into next or both channels. Typically the noticeability is rare until you get high-end headphones (HD 800 level/price competitors and up) and amps and DACs, so it's a lot of diminishing returns. If you're at an HD650 or even a Denon D2000 you probably won't notice as much between a balanced and unbalanced setup.
The biggest thing is noticing that the XLR 4-pin output is more efficient so you get more power (usually) than from the 1/4 or 1/8 plug on the amp. Of course, you need balanced headphone cables for the headphones as well, which from what I've heard for the HD650 run around $70? Not all headphones are set up for balanced cables, and typically higher end headphones and grados headphones are set to take balanced cables (ones that fork into a Y split, single ended headphones like beyerdynamics 880 250 ohms and the Sennheiser HD598 take some wiring expertise in comparison) so truly fully balanced costs a lot more than a unit that's balanced at least from processing to amp and out, which will cost more than just unbalanced DAC and amp, like the Topping D30 DAC I have is unbalanced out to my Magni 3 amp which is also unblanaced/single end out (1/4 inch jack). I don't have anything more than a Fidelio X2 and a PSB M4U 1 and beyerdynamics 880 250 ohm currently, but I'm going to try out some X00 ebony and I'm on the drop for the HD6XX so the Magni will be tested more then, and against the Xduoo x5 which will struggle with the 6XX more since it likely will only put out about half the power needed for the 6XX on average (bass supposedly runs peaks of 4-5 times what the x5 will likely output) so balanced isn't a huge issue to me currently, but maybe down the road if I pick up an HD800 or other top tier headphones then I might look into a balanced setup.
This will power just about any set of headphones, but be aware that planar magnetic headphones and IEMs might be too sensitive for this.