What headphones do you use?
- Thread starter ToneDeaf
- Start date
The perfect storm: Longtime intrigue with the Focal Clears, available funds, good price and hearty recommendations from Mainline forum denizens. Just received these headphones and I can say with relative certainty they are the match I've been looking for. Thanks guys! ;-)
Joe.
Joe.
amirhosein
New member
Campfire Audio Atlas here for now 
Sounds amazing and the hum is imperceptible almost when nothing is playing. My HD6XX are in storage and I'll have a listen with them soon and hopefully I'll be addin Meze Empyreans to the mix 
Sounds amazing and the hum is imperceptible almost when nothing is playing. My HD6XX are in storage and I'll have a listen with them soon and hopefully I'll be addin Meze Empyreans to the mix 
This modification I posted for the Crack is also applicable to a Mainline if users are getting some noises that are digital in nature:
https://forum.bottlehead.com/index.php?topic=11676.0
https://forum.bottlehead.com/index.php?topic=11676.0
So, I've been thinking about selling my Atticus headphones and as a sort of good-bye I plugged them in one more time into my mainline.... I'd forgotten what a great pair this is! The Atticus's combination of BIG SOUND and liquidity makes it a such a great pair with the mainline, especially if you're looking for a bit of a raucous experience!... I don't know if I can sell this...
Audioraider
New member
I have tried a lot of headphones, both mine and friends with my Mainline. My favorite headphone and the one that gets 90% of head time is my ZMF Vérité closed. My second favorite is the focal clear. I made the mistake of buying the Utopia because I liked the clear so much. It is an awful headphone IMO. The single most inaccurate headphone I have ever listened to. The Nighthawks are a great headphone, a little dark but eminently enjoyable with a Mainline.
Adrian
New member
I thought I would jump in here to mention a couple of headphones not covered yet.
My main HP on the Mainline is the Focal Elear. These are very comfortable and have a well balanced sound - excellent mid-range (where we all live), good, accurate bass and treble. I'm not a bass head and I prefer phones and speakers that are not overly bright, so the Elear is a good fit for me. For a closed-back HP I prefer my VISO HP50s. I find closed-back phones and IEMs somewhat fatiguing due to the "hard panning" nature of headphones in general and the closed-back design in particular. The HP50s were designed to emulate an open speaker like sound.
I use a Senn HD600 exclusively on the Crack in my home office. These are the only high impedance HPs I have so I cannot compare other high impedance phones for either the Mainline or the Crack.
I have played around with the idea of a cross-feed circuit to minimize hard panning and make the phones more like open speakers. I use a Leckerton DAC with a cross-feed function with my IEMs and I can listen to them for hours without fatigue. Tracks that are mixed with speaker usage in mind can survive excessive or hard panning to some extent but head phones cannot. Luckily most audio engineers are aware of this and watch the level of panning knowing that our brains attempt to resolve a stereo signal to the center. If someone has experience with implementing a cross feed circuit in BH gear, please share with the BH community.
My main HP on the Mainline is the Focal Elear. These are very comfortable and have a well balanced sound - excellent mid-range (where we all live), good, accurate bass and treble. I'm not a bass head and I prefer phones and speakers that are not overly bright, so the Elear is a good fit for me. For a closed-back HP I prefer my VISO HP50s. I find closed-back phones and IEMs somewhat fatiguing due to the "hard panning" nature of headphones in general and the closed-back design in particular. The HP50s were designed to emulate an open speaker like sound.
I use a Senn HD600 exclusively on the Crack in my home office. These are the only high impedance HPs I have so I cannot compare other high impedance phones for either the Mainline or the Crack.
I have played around with the idea of a cross-feed circuit to minimize hard panning and make the phones more like open speakers. I use a Leckerton DAC with a cross-feed function with my IEMs and I can listen to them for hours without fatigue. Tracks that are mixed with speaker usage in mind can survive excessive or hard panning to some extent but head phones cannot. Luckily most audio engineers are aware of this and watch the level of panning knowing that our brains attempt to resolve a stereo signal to the center. If someone has experience with implementing a cross feed circuit in BH gear, please share with the BH community.
Similar threads
