Hifiman HE 560 rattle

Q: I just got the Hifiman HE-560s and I noticed that one of the grills gives in a tiny bit. It barely moves if you apply pressure to it, but I can't push the other one in at all. I don't hear anything wrong but should I be concerned?

A:  A loose grille will only be an issue only if it vibrates. try running a bass shaker test, like the one here.

If the issue persists, you have two options. Option one is to engineer a DIY fix and batten down the grille with some glue or epoxy. Option two, and the one that I would probably pursue if you just got your headphones, is to contact Hifiman customer service, and also the retailer who sold you the headphones, to see if you can swap them for another pair.

Buying used headphones

Q: Should I  be worried about buying used headphones?

A: Veni's 3 rules of used headphone purchasing:

Rule 1: If the seller does not answer questions appropriately, send you decent pictures of said headphones, and overall sounds like he/she has no clue, then pass.

Rule 2: Don't buy modded headphones unless you are absolutely sure that the person who modded them knows what they are doing. It is easier to kill a pair of headphones than Mel Gibson's movie career.

And Rule 3: If you don't smoke, don't buy used headphones from a smoker. It will take more effort than it is worth to get rid of the smell.

Aune T1 tube rolling tips

Q: What tubes should I get for my Aune T1?

A: A common-sense rule of thumb is: don't spend more on your tubes than you did on the amp :-)
in general NOS (new old stock) tubes are better choices than reissues, but some NOS especially Amperex and old Genalex tubes can get plenty expensive very quickly.

Many resissue tubes are manufactured by New Sensor Corporation, and their price may be dramatically marked up by tube stores. When it comes to buying tubes, patience is always a virtue, especially when it comes to deals!

Would you ever buy a first batch of headphones?

Q: Would you ever buy a first batch of headphones? Is it worth it to wait?

A: Buying a first production run of any engineered item, whether it is a car or a pair of headphones, is always associated with a slightly higher likelihood that you'll get a product that has some issues.

Typically large companies manage QC well, so the issues are more likely to be because of design flaws than QC, although anyone assembling anything in a factory can have a bad day and screw up their job (and your product).

And yes, verification & validation testing does not catch every flaw, and since everyone who makes anything iteratively improves design over time as production ramps up, it always makes sense to wait for a product that has had the flaws "shaken out of it", so to speak.

I like to wait before I buy new audio gear, but more for the hype cycle to die down and some credible information to bubble up more than anything else, including reliability.

But I have this inner Klingon in my head who has zero patience and does not listen to reason, and he often jumps out when he sees me looking at desirable stuff and forces me to buy it the moment it is released

Sometimes I regret it later. So I curse the Klingon in my head, and he usually replies with "Hab SoSlI' Quch!"

The Gustard X12

This is a very interesting DAC because of the way it is implemented. At its heart it is a Sabre 9018 DAC with a pretty analog circuit and even prettier components, XMOS USB input just like the big boys, an Altera MAX2 for programmable logic and all the inputs you could possibly want (and some you may never use).

Plus it features all the jargon you can imagine: TXCO? Check. IIS? Check. DOP64? Check. DSD? Check. Sneezy? Check. Grumpy? Check. Dopey? Checkmate.

Massdrop has it at a great price ($440 + shipping) for this once-no-name brand that is making its bid to play in the major leagues. It's relatively futureproof, and may even be the last DAC you buy, until the next tier of teachnology emerges from the vasty deep.

But (as Tom Hnatiw used to say), do you need a DAC like this? Most people won't. As a litmus test, ask yourself these two questions: [1] how many DSD files do you have? and [2] How many devices capable of IIS or AES output do you own?

Do you want a DAC like this? Surprisingly, maybe not. Unless the rest of your chain can keep up (do you have a balanced amp, for a start?) getting an X12 might be like putting Y rated tires on your Yugo.

Equalizing those headphones!

Q: Is it a good idea to use an equalizer to change the way headphones sound?

A: While you can make some tweaks to a headphone's sound profile with EQ, some fundamental characteristics are impossible to alter.

For example, no amount of EQ can make a Grado SR60e sound like a bass monster, similarly no amount of EQ can make a Sony XB500 sound like a Grado.

Neutral headphones are somewhat like tofu -- they can take on a little of the flavor of the amp that drives them, or the DAC that feeds their signal, or EQ in the audio chain, either by using software or hardware. They still taste like tofu, mind you, but flavored.

While you can buy a relatively neutral pair of headphones like the Sennheiser HD600 and tweak the sound with an equalizer, I'm one of those folks who think that if you want a warm fun sound, it's better to get a Philips Fidelio X1 instead of using EQ to tweak a HD600 to make it sound warmer.

And if you want a bright-sounding pair of headphones, check out the Grado SR60e before throwing down money on a HD600 and trying to boost the treble with an equalizer (and you will save a ton of $!)

And while you can use EQ to dial in some of the frequency response you want, you cannot use EQ to dial in your desired level of smoothness, or soundstage, or detail. Plus the more you flog that equalizer, the more the sound gets away from what the artist and recording engineers originally envisaged. That's the main reason why I am so meh to the idea of equalizers.

But to be fair, it's easy to say "I am anti-EQ" if you own a bunch of headphones and can easily pick and choose a pair with the profile you want. But what if you can only afford (or desire) one pair of headphones?

Well in that case, if you are sure you know what kind of sound profile you dig, then the choice is easy (e.g. you want a smooth + forgiving? Then go with the Sennheiser HD650!). But what if you don't know what you want?

Then walk into a B&M store and audition some headphones. But what if you can't?

Then get a relatively neutral pair of headphones like the HD600 or the Beyerdynamic DT880 and experiment with EQ.

Because they are like, you know, tofu.

I don't always have fond memories of all my exes, but I do for this one....

This is a photo of the Senn PX100 (the original one), and it was my beater pair of headphones for a while. I used to throw them in my backpack and they went with me everywhere without a word of complaint. Now they are retired and have been put to pasture, except once in a while I saddle them up and we go for a ride.

They are terrible headphones for travel because they're open, but they are light, comfortable (for on-ears) because of their gentle clamp force, plus as a bonus they are collapsible and they came with their own hard case and have surprisingly good build quality for the price.

But the reason I love them most is because of their sound. The PX100s (and their successor model, the PX100-II) have a rich warm sound profile with surprisingly prominent bass given that they are lightweight, small and open. They are great all-around headphones for a multitude of musical genres from EDM to classical, with a knack of making vocals (especially female vocals) sound cozy and natural. Soundstage is surprisingly decent, too.

They aren't perfect, for sure. They do lack granular levels of detail, the bass bleeds up the frequency spectrum, and treble rolls off significantly, which has led to them being described as "veiled" or "dark" in some reviews.

The reason I stuck with them for so long (and still listen to them once in a while) is because they made listening sessions just so much fun. In fact, I don't think I owned a pair of headphones that were as much fun as the PX100s until I bought my Philips Fidelio X1, which is high praise indeed for the little Senn.

The original PX100s are getting hard to find, but you can still find them used for cheap. I'm confident mine will be a collector's item one day. I haven't modded them in any way apart from changing the pads, and don't plan to.

The PX100II and IIis are outrageously expensive when compared to the original PX100s -- which were priced at something like $30 since they were marketed as direct competition for the PortaPros -- and don't offer a huge amount of value from a price-performance perspective at MSRP, but the PX100 IIi was recently a deal on Woot for $30, a price that actually puts them back into play as direct competition for the PortaPros.

Ah, there's nothing like an ex you still get along with...