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Headphones for sound control

I'll be moving to an up-scale life-care facility.  The apartments have concrete exterior walls, and I usually listen to small baroque and jazz trios at moderate sound level,   But I think headphones may be the way to go when I want to crank it up for large orchestrations like Aida or Mahler's 2nd.

 I've been impressed with the sound of my cousin's Sennheiser 800S with his McIntosh headphone amp.  I have an Ayer QX-5 Twenty with a headphone driver that Ayer tells me is very good.  I suppose the answer is to try the Ayer before buying the McIntosh.  I've downsized my rack of Ayer gear to a KEF LS60, but I really like the sound of Ayre electronics.  Advice sought.

dbphd
tony1954's avatar
tony1954
1,218 posts
 

I would think that we are in agreement that a stand alone headphone amp would be superior to the built in Ayre.

The real question is whether the McIntosh headphone amp is worth the money?

Of course, maybe you have a thing for black glass and blue lights.

dbphd OP
1,632 posts
 

I have very little experience with headphones for music.  My experience with McIntosh was with the MC 60s, the standard in psychoacoustic labs.  As a grad student I did calibrate and match TDH 39s, another lab standard at the time, and served in lots of binaural signal detection experiments using the phones I had matched.

oster-sc-arkansas
8 posts
 

Just wanted to jump in — I’ve had the chance to hear the HD800S with both the McIntosh MHA200 and MHA150, and it’s honestly one of the better pairings I’ve come across. Big soundstage stays intact, but the McIntosh adds this rich, smooth character that really fills things in — especially nice for more dynamic recordings like Mahler or large-scale jazz.

I’d definitely say try the Ayre first since you already have it, but the McIntosh headphone gear is no slouch. If you get the chance to hear it, it might surprise you in a good way.

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