Jaawa’s
HEADPHONExperience ´08
“D2000, HD 650 and CORDA OPERA-analog”
Headphone and amp review + testing
August 2008
Copyrights Jaawa © All Rights Reserved
Table of contents:
HEADPHONEXPERIENCE ‘08................................................................................................................. 3
THE HOBBY, THE IDEA, THE XPERIENCE .................................................................................................... 3
LIST OF MUSIC USED FOR THE TESTS ........................................................................................................... 4
DENON AH-D2000 ...................................................................................................................................... 6
OUT OF THE BOX ......................................................................................................................................... 6
Build and quality ................................................................................................................................... 6
Comfort ................................................................................................................................................. 7
Sound as vanilla .................................................................................................................................... 7
THE BURN-IN ............................................................................................................................................. 8
SENNHEISER HD 650 ...............................................................................................................................10
THOUGHTS ON THE VETERAN.....................................................................................................................10
The Voice in the Dark ..........................................................................................................................11
MEIER-AUDIO CORDA OPERA-ANALOG ..........................................................................................12
ALL THINGS CORDA ................................................................................................................................12
WITH THE DENONS ....................................................................................................................................14
REBIRTH OF 650 ........................................................................................................................................15
HEADPHONExperience ‘08
The Hobby, The Idea, The xperience
Hello everyone,
I am Jaawa, a dear lover of music and headphones.
Okay, that was enough about me, now let’s see what’s this all about.
A few years back, I bought a pair of Sennheiser HD 650, a Meier-Audio PORTA
CORDA Mk.III and an iRiver H320. This was my first true headphone setup, before the
HD 650, I hadn’t ever listened to a pair of good headphones, I didn’t even know they
existed. And I was in for a blast, when I heard the Senns for the first time, they changed
my world.
The PORTA CORDA didn’t live very long though, by accident I broke it, and for a
couple of years I’ve been listening to my Sennheisers without any amp.
The reason why it took me such a long time to get a new amp, was the fact that even as
writing this prelude, I haven’t heard the HD 650 with any other amp than the PORTA
CORDA. And without it, well, of course they don’t sound as good, but not bad either.
Then in 2008, I joined Head-Fi..
..and it took me under a week to spend virtually all my money into headphone audio.
I bought the Denon AH-D2000 headphones, and shortly after, I decided to renew my
source and get a proper amp, because I had two high-end headphones that are told to
require a really nice amp. So I bought the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 soundcard for my
PC, and a proper headphone amp, the Meier-Audio CORDA OPERA-analog.
Shortly I got the idea to write down my experiences with the two headphones, and the
new amp. So here we are, this is what I call my HEADPHONExperience.
This document will consist of full headphone reviews of both the Senns and the Denons,
along with the OPERA and without it too. I’m not a veteran audiophile, I don’t even
consider myself a true HiFi hobbyist yet, but I will try to make good reviews and give the
best insight to my experiences with these marvelous audio producs.
Cheers,
Jaawa
List of music used for the tests
Artist
Album
Track
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CMX
Talvikuningas
Kaikkivaltiaan peili
Plaid
Rest Proof Clockwork
Ralome
Ihsahn
angL
Unhealer
Louis Armstrong
All Time Greatest Hits
A Kiss To Build A Dream On
Ryuichi Sakamoto 1996
The Sheltering Sky
Ayreon
Into The Electric Castle
Time Beyond Time
I chose a small number from my favourite music for the listening comparisons and
musings. They are all in lossless format, of Louis Armstrong and CMX I have the
original CDs to listen to, the rest are digitized. The CD-player used will be the Oppo
OPDV971H.
I think this bunch of tracks provides a really good benchmark, with very variable
instruments and digital soundscapes, as it ranges from space-rock to classical.
Short descriptions of the songs used:
CMX - Kaikkivaltiaan peili
This piece is the ending credits of the epic space-rock-opera that is the Talvikuningas.
The realm of sound this song creates is full of visceral detail, with the driving march of
some of the best guitar riffs I’ve ever heard. The song is long, at 8min 31sec it takes the
time to captivate the listener, ‘til concluding the onslaught of sharp drumming and
commanding guitars with a one minute long guitar-solo and an ending spectacle that
literally chops your audio head clean off your audio shoulders.
It shows the best singing to date of the self-learned A.W. Yrjänä, spanning over clear
voice to the authority and chilling yell of the final verses. My favourite song of all time.
Plaid - Ralome
Coming to the world of what I’d call true lounge music, Plaid paints an audible canvas of
mellow, soothing notes, perfected in every way digitally possible, this is what Ralome is.
I adore the way this piece always bathes me in a fresh and warm digital bath, with
smoothed clean guitar and a flabby soft cello. The full sound of the track is like a sea of
audio liquid, flowing around you.
Ihsahn - Unhealer
Next up is the crown jewel of Ihsahn’s new solo-album. The dark, cold maelstrom of
sinister guitars wraps around you, preventing your feeble attempts at escaping, after
which the clean guitars tempt you like the biblical forbidden fruit. While you’re
munching down on the apple, the snake begins to sing. Although the singer of Opeth
provides the lead vocals for this song, it is the combination he makes with Ihsahn that
sends shivers down your spine. As one might expect, the vocals were the reason I chose
this piece, while it is of course my favourite song from Ihsahn, this is just a coincidence.
Louis Armstrong - A Kiss To Build A Dream On
Ah, a classic so nostalgic that listening to it with these new Denons while sipping
Laphroaig brings with it a smile so big it almost doesn’t fit on my face!
It’s obvious that as a PC-gamer who had a PC ever since I was five years old, will view
this song very differently, because it is the intro to the legendary game Fallout 2 by Black
Isle studios.
It is an uplifting song, with lyrics full of joy, perfected by the captivatingly unique voice
of Louis Armstrong. His trumpet is the key to happiness, it has got to be.
Ryuichi Sakamoto - The Sheltering Sky
Sakamoto is something very different, the moment I heard his 1996 album, I was
spellbound by its beauty.
Your mind’s eye will see such beautiful shapes; the piano riddles the imaginary
cobblestone way with exquisite petals of sparkling notes. The violin and cello play
desperate notes, crying out in a very emotional aria to the sky. This scene made by the
talented players shows the genius of Sakamoto, and brings you an awestrucking example
of music as the ultimate art.
Ayreon - Time Beyond Time
This song combines three levels, the future, the present and the past, each depicted by its
own style of guitaring and a different singer. This is what makes it a very good
benchmark track and it also sports a mighty guitar solo in the middle of the song.
Denon AH-D2000
Out of the box
“As soon as I got them out of their packaging, I felt that these headphones are very special.”
I will review the build quality here and then the comfort factor, after that, the sound.
Build and quality
The sturdiness of the metal frame was a concern to me at first, somehow they seemed so
flimsy in my hands, but as first impressions sometimes go, I was wrong. These cans are
rigid, with no cheap plastic for the outer parts, they won’t make creaking sounds or feel
like they’re someday going to come apart. None of the screws were loose, and the hinges
seem very robust, I think that with care, these will withstand daily use and twisting
around for many many years to come.
I like the closed covers of these cans, the material is some kind of plastic composite, with
a satin finish it feels very nice to the hand and gives the headphone a very high-end look.
The cable is covered by thick weaved nylon, making it very rigid and easy to handle, it is
3 meters long though, so with a smaller desk I can see this could pose a problem. I too
had to curve the cable to go around my desk and still half of it is hanging in the air, heh.
The quality of the headband and ear pad leather is very nice, I will comment on them
more in the Comfort section. Oh and the ear pads are rotateable, a nice feature!
Overall the Denon are a very well built pair of headphones, and the quality to me seems
high class. A high-end product, as it should be.
Comfort
“Those must be like putting a leather-couch on your head.” –sipa
And right he was, the comfort of a plush soft leather sofa that you sink your butt in, is the
perfect way to describe the comfort of these headphones.
The headband doesn’t press at all on your head, the ear pads are so soft and plush that I
was simply astounded when I wore them for the first time. There is no “clamping”
whatsoever, these headphones just ease on your head and ears like you sit down snug on
a sofa. Just amazingly comfortable.
When listening for music for long periods of time, say several hours, almost all closed
headphones start feeling very uncomfortable because you sweat and there’s no free
movement of air like with open cans.
With these Denons however, I don’t get that lack of comfort at all, I’ve had them on my
head for over 7 hours straight while burning them in, and still I don’t sweat, I don’t even
know they’re on my head, and my ears don’t feel like they have been smudged.
It is amazing how perfected these headphones feel when you stop and think about it,
they’re closed, but they still breathe, simply amazing.
Sound as vanilla
Straight to the point, without burn-in the Denons sound like a fighter-jet.
The arrow-like aerodynamic form of the modern warfare plane is the sharpness on the
high frequencies, shredding guns and missiles its powerful mids. But then we come to the
low frequencies, they are a bit too much, like the jet engine on afterburner, flamboyantly
overpowering. The duraluminium is cold however, meaning that these headphones
especially without burn-in and no eq settings sound chilly, but we’re not talking about
anything like a great veil, this is because the Denons are low impedance headphones and
they work pretty well even without an amp.
So, about the lows; I’m a big fan of equalizers, and I whipped up a couple of different
settings to try and tame the overflowing lows and clear out the rest of the frequencies. I
did this in Foobar2k, with the basic EQ it provides, lowering the 50-100Hz area by a few
decibels. I was pretty happy with how I got the Denons to sound like in their out-of-thebox state.
All this vanilla listening was done without any amp, and the Creative X-Fi Xmod served
as the source, no crystallizers or any other gimmicks were used. It was too bad that once I
finally got my OPERA, the Denons were fully burnt-in with hours upon hours of pink
noise. It would have been fun to do all the testing with the OPERA twice, hehe.
The Burn-In
“Is that baby Moses in the basket? No, it’s the D2000.”
Here I have written down my notes about the burn-in progress of the Denons, I monitored
the sound after every 50 hours, up to 300 hours (This version of the documentation only
goes to 100 hours).
I was going to use random songs for the burn-in, but then I read so much positive stuff
about using pink noise for the burn-in that I changed my plan.
So I got a sample of pink noise and modified it to loop and remain at constant volume.
Only the first 24 hours of burn-in was done by other than pink noise, which is under 10%
of the time.
1. Vanilla, 0h of burn-in (some complaints in all ranges)
Lows: Vivid and full, but even with the eq settings made for the vanilla Denons at this
stage, the lows are a tiny bit overpowering and inaccurate. They are ‘too’ full, they
overflow. A Kiss To Build A Dream On shows the splashy bass isn’t good.
Mids: Shredding, but sometimes a bit cold, like they’re getting dampened by the
overflowing lows intruding to their frequencies. I feel the drumming and vocals in
Unhealer and Kaikkivaltiaan peili aren’t hitting the spot, they’re muffled.
Highs: Shimmering, the best range of the three at the moment, but not perfect, with songs
that place great emphasis on highs, I’m hearing slight cutting at the highest frequencies,
resulting in tiny clipping, the song Unhealer shows this with its hi-hats.
2. Initiation, 50h of burn-in (produced amazing results)
Lows: Better, I feel the accuracy has improved, even though they are a bit booming still,
they don’t overfill the cups. The more bassy songs, Ralome and A Kiss To Build A Dream
On, are more enjoyable now.
Mids: The mids are good, very good, I feel slight improvement in the vocals and drums of
Unhealer and Kaikkivaltiaan peili, also the cello of The Sheltering Sky sounds more full.
Highs: Amazing, the “clipping” is gone, I don’t hear any of the rasping from higher
guitar sounds or hi-hats anymore.
3.Closer, 100h of burn-in (Almost perfection)
Lows: Ralome works completely now, I feel the softness when needed, and the tightness
also in the critical parts, I think the lows are really not at all overboard anymore.
Perfect.
Mids: Ah, Time Beyond Time.. “Just look around you now, tell me what you see. World
full of treachery. Skies are silver and seas are gold, the past is young and the future
old..” The vocals along with the guitars are touching my soul, an uplifting feeling, the
mids too, have found their final punch it seems.
Highs: Crystal clarity, I feel every high note like a swift wipe of an angel’s wing! The
highs can’t get any better than this.
4. Much Closer, 150h of burn-in (Remains at the near perfect-sound)
Lows: Overally tightened a bit more, more presence, but not a lot of change. There is a
tiny bit, a very small frequency range that doesn’t seem to hit the spot, otherwise the lows
are like 99,5% perfect.
Mids: The mids being perfected, I feel they can’t get much better as of now, these cans
are pretty burnt-in, next they need that OPERA to boost them up!
Highs: Perfect, so clear, so heavenly! Armstrong hitting those few high notes sounds so
cool that I can’t imagine what could be more bebop.
5. The Truth, 200h of burn-in
The Truth be told and heard, these cans didn’t change enough for me to notice, I think
they have been completely burned-in ;)
Sennheiser HD 650
Thoughts on the veteran
“They are dark, poised, well experienced in audio combat, the veteran headphones.”
These are the headphones that I learned to love a long time ago. They took the virginity
of my hearing sense, not by force, but like a gentleman, the coolcat that they are. I will
only review the sound of these headphones, as they are old and my thoughts on their
build and such is of no interest to anybody.
I must say though that it’s funny how different they are compared to the Denon, in terms
of comfort style. Both are super comfortable, but they do it so differently, instead of
feeling like a soft sofa, the Senns clamp on your head like bear claws, but still feel very
comfortable, like a mighty hug given by your favorite uncle.
The Voice in the Dark
Ah, the sound of Sennheiser.
After thinking about writing this down for a bit, I realized that my opinions will be biased
beyond repair ..or maybe they just kick the un-burnt-in Denons’ arse so well?
(UPDATE: I actually think that now when the Denons have 200 hours of burn-in, they’re
getting on-par with the Senns! I can’t wait to test both of these babies with the OPERA!)
The soundstage is big, of course this is one of the main traits of top-class open cans.
I can feel the large room where the instruments play, and I can also pick them out with
delightful ease, so instrument separation is very good.
But the veil is there, the dark that prevents you from hearing the truth behind it.
This I believe, is 100% because right now, I’m running these without an amp, I wanted to
review the sound of the HD 650 with using only a good source, which now is the
M-Audio Audiophile USB.
I feel tremendous balance within the frequencies, the lows, mids, highs.. they all work
together so well, I feel this is because I’ve used these headphones for four years now, and
they surely have reached their destined quality in unamplified sound. The flow from a
frequency range to another is slick and smooth; these cans really treat your ears like a
gentleman, pouring audio whisky into your glass, presumably peaty Islay-goodness.
Meier-Audio CORDA OPERA-analog
All things CORDA
This moment I awaited with curled toes, teeth bared, sniffing the air for fresh electronics
components, stalking the postal services personnel and praying to the audio-gods to grant
safe passage for the OPERA.
It arrived, and I picked up the huge box, five times the size of the amp itself, now that’s
some seriously good packaging! Suffice to say, while opening the box, I drooled like a
teenage girl on a fatal overdose of tetrameth (fictional drug in Richard Morgan’s Takeshi
Kovacs novels).
I got some wannabe-HiFi interconnects (Belkin Pure AV) just after picking up the amp,
because I had none for connecting it to my M-Audio Audiophile USB.
But they sound pretty nice, at least their build quality and materials seem ok.
So onward with the review itself, flip to the next page.
The corda has a nice brushed aluminium finish, this I noticed right when taking it out of
the box. Also, it’s bigger than I expected, somehow the pictures on Meier-Audio’s site
don’t give the proper idea of this amp. The holed slab on the top of the amp also looks
very cool, before getting the amp I pondered if I was going to remove it or use some
other cover for the ventilation holes beneath it, but no, it’s very cool :)
The build quality is superb, this is a very sturdy, solid product of concrete audiophilia
spirit. Almost every part is aluminium, the front plate and the holed slab on the top too.
The seams of the plating are clean and straight, with just enough of bevel on the edges so
that they don’t cut you while handling the amp. The top slab is rounded a bit more for
improved looks. The amp stands on four robust feet, with a soft cushion under each foot,
no need for vibrapods or the like! :)
The connectors for the headphones are quality stuff, I don’t know much about electronic
components or connectors, but these are better than any normal jacks I’ve seen.
The rear RCA connectors for analog-in and preamp-out are also of high quality, they
gave a firm grip for my fresh interconnects.
The looks of the amp are stunning, it looks like a state-of-the-art SciFi prison fortress.
It actually is so much better looking from what I expected, that I’m having second
thoughts about painting it in the same “marble imitation” style as I did my M-Audio
Audiophile. But I do think it would look awesome in red marble, it’s power-indicator
LED is red too.
That’s it for the material impressions, let’s hear how it roars shall we, onto the audible
reviews with Mr. Denon and Mr. Sennheiser!
With the Denons
I toyed around with the features, connectors and switches, finally coming to the decision
that with the high-impedance headphone jack, gain set to low, natural crossfeed filter on,
both my headphones sounded the best. Now onward with the Denons:
Lush, smooth, warm, the Meier-Audio CORDA OPERA-analog tames the lows of the
Denon AH-D2000 marvelously, they have been completely burned-in too, but still, the
lows are perfect. With the whole range of the benchmark songs, I can feel the instruments
behind the lows, not overpowered, not overflowing the audio experience with fartpillows, like some claim. Maybe it’s this combination of source and amp, because even
with several equalizer settings on Foobar2000 that put emphasize on the lows, they don’t
feel like too much, instead, the lows have a lot of presence.
Mids and highs, oh how wonderful the Denons sound now, the metal songs of the
benchmark range sound spectacular with the guitars, vocals and drums all perfected by
the OPERA. And mind the pun, but now Talvikuningas as an album really feels like a
space-OPERA :)
The lows, mids and highs work together cleanly, the natural crossfeed seems to do its
trick without smudging anything, and no more mental-stress, a nice feature indeed.
The soundstage on the Denons pretty much stayed the same, or maybe I just don’t know
how to experience it clearly yet, but the directions of the instruments improved a lot with
the amp. It’s more of a difference between the D2000 and the HD 650, they are so
different headphones, and speaking of the HD 650, let’s hear them now, what they’ve got
to say with the OPERA!
Rebirth of 650
I named this HD 650 chapter ‘Rebirth of 650’ long before I got the OPERA, because it
was what I hoped for, and boy was I in for a treat, I have no need what-so-over to change
the title of this chapter!
Okay, after the dust of immediate impressions settled, I started to hear what the HD 650
are all about. This is the sound of the Sennheiser flagship, it is here to bring joy to all
audiophiles, and damn me, a fool who has been listening to the HD 650 without a proper
amp for years! ..Ah well, nothing is really lost, because I simply didn’t know before what
awaited me in this audio-heaven :)
So yes, through-out the whole frequency range, I feel perfection. With the Denons I
thought that what can be better than this, and yes, the Sennheiser HD 650 really deliver
now, their sound crystal clear like an icy river and powerful like an upheaval of granite
boulders.
The flow from an instrument, sound or frequency to another is so silken that I can’t
describe it in any other way than: “The proverbial Islay whisky that this gentleman 650 is
pouring into my audio-glass must be Laphroaig 10yo Cask Strength!”
And the so called “Sennheiser Veil” is nowhere to be heard, it simply isn’t there, the
curtains have been lifted, revealing the true nature of these phones to me.
Maybe with a different source combo or cabling I will get even more out of these
favourite cans of mine? Only time will tell, for now, these investments were quite enough
to bring me to my first piece of audiophile-heaven :) I’ll go enjoy my music collection on
a new level now!
Thank you for reading!
Cya on Head-Fi :)
-Jaawa