Re: Sonic Frontiers Headphone question. - monk - General Asylum

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Re: Sonic Frontiers Headphone question.

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In Reply to: Sonic Frontiers Headphone question. posted by John K on May 25, 2001 at 11:29:41:

Hello John,
The Sonic Frontiers Line series preamps are definitely OK for extended listening. Part of the reason for the cross-feed circuit is for just this purpose.
The cross-feed is extremely subtle and not something that obviously calls attention to itself. As I understand it, it's a mild blend of the information at certain frequencies. This is especially helpfull when listening to music recorded when some instruments are almost entirely on the right and others entirely on the left. Over time, this can cause fatigue (not natural that each ear should hear totally different things...). Supposedly the cross-feed circuits also make the sound more around your head and in front of it, rather than *in* your head (this will depend on the headphones too).
I found the headphone output to be very good and have never yearned to be able to switch the cross-feed off. It has more than enough drive (would drive Sennheiser HD-600's a lot louder than I could listen) , it's quite, detailed and neutral sounding. I've compared to the Melos Gold Reference, Headroom Cosmic w/Base Station and Musical Fidelity X-CANSv2 w/power supply ...and the Sonic Frontiers was my favorite. Sonically it was the best, and it had a great remote (can swap phase via remote) and lots of inputs/outputs.
Given a choice of having a Line 1 or 2 with or without the Headroom circuit, I'd take the one *with*. This isn't a choice SF offer,...so I'm baseing this on having heard other headphone amps that don't have the cross-feed.
There's a lot more information of cross-feed circuits and what they do on the Headwize website , www.headwize.com .
Note that the appeal of the Cross-feed circuit is not universal. For example, in an Absolute Sound survey of amps (a year ago ?) the reviewer didn't like the Headroom cross-feed (nor was he particularly taken with their best amp, the Max).
Also note, Headroom have a big clearance sale on since they are rolling out a whole new line of amps. If you just want a very good headphone amp, there are many excellent choices (search Headwize) ; but if you'd like the phase switching ...I don't know of any besides the Line preamps (off the top of my head).
Martin.

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - Plinius 8200 power amp....Others to consider? - Matt 20:43:40 05/24/01 (12)

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Re: Plinius 8200 power amp....Others to consider? - Jon T 00:30:47 05/25/01 (0)

Re: Plinius 8200 power amp....Others to consider? - monk 22:07:55 05/24/01 (3)

Sonic Frontiers Headphone question. - John K 11:29:41 05/25/01 (2)

Re: Sonic Frontiers Headphone question. - monk 15:08:26 05/25/01 (1)

Thanks for the reply. - John K 00:15:05 05/26/01 (0)

Follow Ups

Re: Sonic Frontiers Headphone question. - monk 15:08:26 05/25/01 (1)

Thanks for the reply. - John K 00:15:05 05/26/01 (0)

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