Home Headphone Heights

Welcome to Headphone Heights, the place for all your ear bud discussion

Two Tera tweaks

I am always fiddling and I cam across two tweaks to use with the Tera. The first is an external battery pack like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Mophie-Juice-Pack-Powerstation-iPhone/dp/B006L9I43O/ref=pd_sim_cps_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1PYYWSAKKJSFW2AZJ9VX

It is normally used to recharge a cell phone or the like, but someone on Headfi mentioned that their DX90 DAP sounded better with this external battery pack plugged in. So I tried it with the Tera, and the effect is incredibly slight, but I do hear a tightening of the entire frequency. It makes the Tera sound just a hair more powerful. I will say that the difference is so slight that I am not sure I will bother with it. Maybe just when I am settled in in my easy chair for a longer listening session. (Note added: I decided to resell the battery pack on Amazon....the effect was too slight to bother with.)

The other tweak is a strange one and relates back to some old experiments of mine with an Echofone (http://www.head-fi.org/t/278315/echofone-a-super-tweeter-for-headphone-users-or-the-hearing-impaired) and with using two headphones at once for a natural crossfeed effect (http://www.head-fi.org/t/648182/two-headphones-at-once-an-utterly-natural-crossfeed-effect)

As I posted in the thread about two headphones at once, I recently got a used pair of Aftershokz headphones on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Aftershokz-AS301-Wraparound-Headphones-Conduction/dp/B007003J2E/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1399220311&sr=1-4&keywords=aftershokz

They work more like the Echofone in that they transmit sound through the facial bones to your inner ear. They sound pretty crappy by themselves, but I hooked them up to the extra headphone out on the Tera with the left and right channels reversed by using a pair of 1/8" to RCA adapters (one with male plugs and one with all female plugs) with the red plugs hooked to the white plugs to switch the channels.

So, again I am using them off of the extra headphone output on my Tera while the other headphone out feeds my iCAN Nano amp and my JVC HA-FX850 iems, and I listen to both at the same time. The effect is very nice with a bit of very natural crossfeed. I mostly notice a more realistic sounding depth to the image and maybe a bit more instrument separation and also more width to the sound. There is also more of a 3D quality to the sound: without the Aftershokz, the sound is more 2 dimensional and a bit flat. With the Aftershokz, there is more of a sense of say a real 3 dimensional human body singing in front of me. There is also a bit more fullness to the sound.

The other quality is harder to describe, but the Aftershokz do vibrate the skin and bones instead of the ear drum. So when I combine them with my headphones, there is more the sense of involving my body in the experience. It is not the same as when your whole body is vibrated by the bass frequencies at a concert or with a powerful subwoofer, but it still shifts the experience from being totally in my head to feeling a bit more involving of my whole body.

The effect is subtle, but more noticeable than when I was using two regular headphones as described in the rest of the thread on headfi. And it is more noticeable on some songs than others, which may be due in large part because the volume of the Aftershokz is staying the same when I turn up the volume on the Nano amp feeding my regular headphones. So when I turn up the volume on a quieter piece of music the volume of my headphones increases, but the volume of the Aftershokz does not. I can work with this by adjusting volume on the Tera once I find the right balance of the volume on the Tera feeding the Aftershokz and also feeding the Nano amp which then feeds the JVC's. It might be trickier when just using the Tera and might require an external volume control on the line to the Aftershokz to then be able to find the right balance between the volume of the Aftershokz and the regular headphones.

Both of these tweaks are subtle and require more cables and trouble overall, but I love fiddling like this, and it is great fun when the sound just falls in place and sounds more live and real. These two tweaks are probably not worth it for most people, but I just enjoy trying new things out.

I will also mention that I sometimes enjoy using the TDS202 with the Tera when feeding an external amp as described here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/654405/ican-amp-review-a-new-amp-that-gives-you-more-more-bass-more-soundstage-and-more-detail/30#post_9262014

The TDS202 seem to be out of them on Amazon but you might be able to catch a used one showing up on Amazon or ebay. It is not very expensive and is worth trying out, IMHO.



Edits: 05/05/14 05/05/14

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Signature Sound   [ Signature Sound Lounge ]


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
  • Two Tera tweaks - Nirmala 11:22:09 05/04/14 (0)

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.