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RE: Hafler HA-15 Solid State

Posted by Dawnrazor (A) on May 9, 2020 at 20:44:18

In Reply to: RE: Hafler HA-15 Solid State posted by old guy 42 on May 9, 2020 at 16:23:51:

HA! Now I have it in writing. Dawnrazor is NOT crazy or losing it!!!

I am sooo glad you dig it. Man I was skeptical that a cheap piece in between the dac and amp would do more than mess things up. But damn man I can't live without it!!

I have the Lo Contour set to 1pm and the Process knob at 12pm. I rarely touch them but its nice to have that kind of control for some recordings.

The question I had was "would this work for headphones?" since its actually designed for speakers. So no worries there...but it works great on speakers.

It has really changed my audio goals. Was solidly in the purist don't process the signal camp and now total 180.

One thing that it allows me to do is that I modded the headphones (much like my maggies) to be over damped. The bass is reduced but the clarity is increased. With the BBE and the VOX switch on the Hafler I can bring up the bass to compensate and get extension AND resolution. Its a revelation.

Always wanting to improve I looked into things. BBE makes a higher end model where you can adjust channels independently but that is most likely for the studio. I can't see in a stereo system where one would ever get the left and right channels balanced the same. Also someone on the Planar asylum mention that Aphex had a similar product and that they were much better, etc. It appears that product is disconnected.

I describe the difference as imagine you are at a club and the band is playing on stage but the lights arent on. Engaging the BBE is like turning on the lights.... you can now see (hear) sooo much more.

You nailed it man, no eq or volume control will do what this thing does and at $130 its value ratio is obscene. The dough it will save me chasing perfection when its often just a knob turn away....

And fwiw I have been thinking about getting some Sen HD600 or 650 or probably the 660s. But always stopped because the bass is not what I get with planars. Well if I lowered the bass extension by over damping things and the BBE brought it back maybe a pair of Senns would respond the same?

May be worth an experiment...but man I need soundstage.

So glad it is working out for you dude.

Cut to razor sounding violins

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