(originally posted to Head-Fi on 2004.01.27)
Well, wow. I mean, just wow.
I just got back from a business trip where I got the chance to really put all the pieces of the my “air travel” rig seriously through their paces, because my flight home was ultra-delayed (4 hours). And what I have to say is, while I may not have reached pure headphone Nirvana, but I’m pretty amazed in terms of size/performance:
15Gb 3rd-generation iPod
Sennheiser PXC250 and MX400
Xin SuperMicro Amp
Many will argue that Shure or Ety would be the better choice than the PXC250s, but I really find all forms of canalphone uncomfortable–or maybe just unsettling. Regardless, I don’t like ’em.
The PXC250s have at least OK passive isolation (closed can, can get a decent seal with practice) and very solid noise cancellation circuitry, which handles the pesky airplane noise. The real drawback with these cans is that, at 320 Ohms, they’re tough to drive from a portable, even a relatively high-output one like an iPod (don’t even think about these from a 5mW MD player without an amp).
The solution? The Xin SuperMicro. I only got this recently and haven’t had much of chance to listen, but did let it run down a couple AAAs to burn it in before this trip. It’s so little it slips easily into the case for the PXC250s. And for such a little thing, AMAZING performance! Very neutral, clear highs, tight lows, maybe a very smidge on the bright side (probably the 8620 opamp).
The MX400s are for waiting in the stupid concourse for them to find a plane, since ya gotta be able to hear them announce the two gate changes (grr), you can’t run the PXC 250s. Xin is right, the MX400s really sound a heck of a lot better amped–not so dark. And they, too, fit in the PXC250 case, even with the SuperMicro in there.
And, or course, an iPod (or some other HD-based player) was necessary since between the wait and the actual flight, I think I cleared over seven hours plugged in. I suspect the crossfeed in the Xin helped reduce listening fatigue as well because normally I find it hard to listen that long to phones in one stretch. So my first experience with a crossfeed was a positive one.
So, I wanted to thank all the folks here at Head-Fi, because I never would have heard of, much less bought, the SuperMicro or the PXC250s without this site (though the iPod is what actually got me here).
Oh, and thanks to Sennheiser, Xin, and Apple for making what could have been a miserable wait seem, well, not so bad.
(Just for the record, the playlist: Crystal Method’s Legion of Boom, Deepsky’s In Silico, Thievery Corporation’s Richest Man in Babylon, Soundtrack from The Fifth Element, Tool’s AEnima, my audio test mix, and some other random tracks.)