Anyone here running MrSpeakers headphones?

ALL212

Auditioned a pair of MrSpeakers headphones at AXPONA and bought a pair. Anyone here have one of his?

voltz

I would think the Mad Dog should play nicely with the Valhalla or Asgard as they can handle both high & lowimpedance cans! or the BottleHead S.E.X kit and/or mainline.

sucks2beme

Mr. Speakers was at the Dallas head-fi meet a couple of years ago.
His alpha-dog headphones were a pretty good closed headphone.

voltz

how would you compare them to a pair of Senn 650's?

ALL212

Give me a day or two and I'll let you know. I've really enjoyed the Senn's but I think they are going to get beat. Problem is the Crack doesn't run the Alpha Prime's well (too low an impedance) and I haven't liked the Senn's on the S.e.x. amp. But I'll work it out!

ALL212

Won't need the day or two...
Keep in mind the Senn HD650's retail is about $500, the MrSpeaker Alpha Prime is $1000. Also the HD650's are open backed, Alpha's are sealed.
My Senn's have a Mogami cable, Furutech ends, silk sleeves - I've put some love into them. Alpha's I bought with the stock cable - no additional love added.
My last set of sealed back's were Koss Pro4 AAA's from 1980 or so - loved 'em to death until my roommate ran them with the Bose 901 active equalizer and blew them out. Koss rebuilt them but they were never the same.
Spec's on the Senn's beat the Alpha's. Senn's are 300 ohm, Alpha's 50 ohm so you have to have an amp capable of driving them.
My chain is PC based flac to Squeezebox duet, output Toslink to a Stello DA220 DAC and Mogami interconnects to a Bottlehead S.E.X amp.

and....

Alpha's win.

Senn's don't have the bottom end (in spite of the specs) that a sealed headphone can give you. Alpha's have a better sense of placement and depth. Instruments are placed very specifically and easy to pick out. HD650's don't do that for me. Things are there and in their place but not like the Alpha's. Frequency range on the Alpha's is perfect and not brittle or bloated. If you don't like what you hear they come with "doggy treats" - padcovers to bring freq's above 4k down 1db and bluemonkeydots to put directly on the transducer to adjust things even more. I've not changed these yet but so far have no reason to. Also included is a headphone stand and silk(ish) bag to store them in or cover them with.

Comfort is not an issue and you can wear these for hours. The earpads are very thick and the head pad is suede and slitted for even more comfort.

My one complaint is that this stock cord is too short- 6' doesn't let me wander like my custom 14' one does. I've ordered parts and will be changing that.

If I change my mind I'll let you know, however, it was love a first listen.

vcwatkins

Great info, thanks @ALL212 . Sounds like I need to up my Senn 600 cable at the very least. I have wanted to try the Alpha (and/or Mad) Dog for quite a while but never had a chance. Until now.

I received some used Mad Dogs with Alpha pads a few days ago. Tried them for about 30 seconds on a Little Dot (BH Crack is shelved while I do some work on the base). Very different sound compared with Senn, AKG, BD that I'm used to. Heard things I've never heard before on the test track due to the excellent placement/depth mentioned above. Not bright or dry. But LF seemed a tad muddy to me. Guessing I was hearing more into the less-than-stellar amp than I was used to.

Took them to the beach to try with the Valhalla, but haven't had time. In the meantime, I finished the Crack base, but don't have the HP here to try. Argghhh. Should be able to listen for a while on Wed.

Off to find a Senn cable...

voltz

This is the cable I'm using with my HD650's

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-125652-alpha-design-labs-ihp-35s-sennheiser-headphone-cable.aspx

vcwatkins

Thanks @voltz !

voltz

Now that my Bottle head Crack is more broke-in I can't image something sounding better then my HD650's right now....

I using a GE Jans 5998A I got from Snow with a RCA black plate Relabeled Raytheon and seem to be a sweet combo for the Crack!

ALL212

vcwatkins wrote: »

But LF seemed a tad muddy to me. Guessing I was hearing more into the less-than-stellar amp than I was used to.

Off to find a Senn cable...

MrSpeakers headphones are very low impedance and the Crack cannot handle them. Possibly the amp you had them on can't take the low impedance either. What I heard was "floppy" bass - it just didn't sound right on the bottom with the Crack. (But isn't the crack always on the bottom? )

Senn cable replacement - a must do! I've built a couple but the "shop" won't be open again until fall. Too much to do between now and then.




I think Scompracer has the pair with the big gold jack and black cable now.

voltz

DSkip wrote: »

voltz wrote: »

Now that my Bottle head Crack is more broke-in I can't image something sounding better then my HD650's right now....

Then stop while you are ahead. That's what I did with the Senn 598's. They're comfortable as hell and sound good enough that I'm content. I can't afford to go down that rabbit hole too.

You don't have to be old to speak wisely so True! Sometimes its time to stop & smell the roses.

vcwatkins

ALL212 wrote: »

vcwatkins wrote: »

But LF seemed a tad muddy to me. Guessing I was hearing more into the less-than-stellar amp than I was used to.

Off to find a Senn cable...

MrSpeakers headphones are very low impedance and the Crack cannot handle them. Possibly the amp you had them on can't take the low impedance either. What I heard was "floppy" bass - it just didn't sound right on the bottom with the Crack. (But isn't the crack always on the bottom? )

Senn cable replacement - a must do! I've built a couple but the "shop" won't be open again until fall. Too much to do between now and then.

Thanks @ALL212 . "Floppy" is exactly the right term for what I heard. The load handling ability of the Little Dot II+ is likely not great. Dunno. Hoping the Mad Dog matches up adequately with Valhalla or Asgard. Never made it back to beach to give them a try. Maybe tonight.

Still haven't found a Senn cable. May bite the bullet and buy the ADL one @voltz rec'd, or build one later. Think I have some appropriate raw cable around here somewhere.

Thanks again guys!
Craig