This was my initial thought. Even with a potentially more ideal pairing (can’t speak to the quicksilver) I don’t think it’s going to give you punch in-line with ZMF or Focal though. Elevation more so than impact as you put it more along the lines of what I hear as well. I enjoy that personally but could see preference dictating the want for more there too.
When your balanced cable comes in will you be using your Allnic amp? Curious how that’ll impact the perception of punch/slam. I have an otl Decware amp arriving soon and I’m wondering how that’ll impact the headphones myself.
Can’t speak to pad rolling unfortunately. Good luck there with the ZMF pads.
A quick update on this: I’m currently experimenting with using EQ to pull down the bass on the T1.2 and I think I prefer it? I’ll have to do more listening for sure, but yeah, I think what’s happening in my brain is that if a headphone has a bass boost, I want the bass to really /bring it/, but if the bass isn’t so elevated, I can focus on and enjoy the other aspects of the headphone more. Just a guess, but I’m giving it a try!
Yep, that’s the plan! My Eikon saw a nice boost in impact moving to the Allnic (I’m assuming partially just due to the higher output impedance?), so yeah, I’m excited to see what that changes for me as well.
So I’ve been listening to the T1.2 on the Allnic over XLR for the past couple days, and while I went in not expecting there to be that big of a difference, it’s honestly been pretty transformative.
So to my ear, the way the T1.2 generally presents sound is that it pushes it farther out, so the first couple times I’d listened to it, it almost had this sound like someone was playing music down the hallway or something. (This description is exaggerating, but you get the idea.) But the extra stage depth from both the Exogal and the Allnic really help this headphone flesh out the space and makes it’s presentation a lot more palatable for me.
On the other hand, plenty of the things I remember about this headphone from before are still true: it’s level of detail for the price (I paid $500 for it) was great before and it’s still great on this chain. The bass still sounds like I’m listening to balanced armatures or something and that’s still one of my bigger complaints.
It’s weird: this really does sound /significantly/ better, but even with that, I’m still not sure that the T1.2 really has a place in my collection. I’m definitely going to give it a bit longer though.
(As an aside, I originally bought the Exogal to synergize with the Quicksilver, but now that I have the Allnic, the Quicksilver’s been hanging out with the Bifrost instead, and I wonder if I would’ve liked the T1.2 more the first time around if the Quicksilver had still been paired with the Exogal.)
Okay, I’ve had this for a few days, lets write some early impressions. First, the good news: this is my favorite of the three Beyers I’ve tried so far (DT880 600ohm, T1.2, T5p.2). Though it’s been a long time since I’ve heard the DT880, so I’m mostly comparing to the T1.2.
When I had the T1 in, I had picked it up for around $500 and I found it to be surprisingly technical for that price, but there were also a lot of things I didn’t like: namely that the sound was too far back (“diffuse”?) and the bass was quite elevated, but there wasn’t any bass weight. So part of the motivation for picking up the T5p in the first place is that going to a closed back would theoretically improve both of these issues.
And lo, the T5p does benefit in those exact ways: the sound is still spacious, but the space is much more well-distributed in a way that I strongly prefer, and the bass is still elevated, but the bass that it’s shoving in your face has that typical closed back distortion that lends it some decent weight.
So in terms of overall signature and presentation, I like the T5p, however, you do pay for it with technicalities. Despite my issues with it, I felt like the T1 was really wonderfully detailed for the price, and if you were listening to big halls or stadiums (orchestral, etc.) in particular, it could be really worthwhile. I’m comparing off of memory here, but the T5p seems noticeably more “smeary” than the T1 was. In addition, it doesn’t seem to scale as well—if anything, I actually prefer the T5p on the Quicksilver and RNHP over the Allnic. (It’s easy to chalk up this difference to the T5p’s lower impedance, but who knows?) Also, I’m not someone who’s super-concerned with having a perfect frequency response, but if you are that person, know that these will probably also sound a bit wonky to you.
I haven’t tried these in no amp scenarios like being plugged into a video game controller, but I would imagine they’d actually do okay, and they might make decent gaming/movie-watching headphones. They do leak sound, but it’s not too bad.
I bought these T5p’s for under $500, so similar to what I spent on the T1, and at sub-$500, I think this probably competes depending on what you’re looking for. But I’ve also seen listings for the T5p that are closer to $1000, and in my opinion, definitely /do not/ buy these for that much money. I’ve seen used Gjallarhorns go for $1000, which is just an obviously better headphone in basically every way. I’ve seen Eikons for sub-$1000, which is more a question of taste, but I would pretty much always take an Eikon over the T5p as well.
I’ve only been listening to these off-and-on over the course of maybe a week, so still early impressions, but hey.
Every single beyer released recently has been too bassy for me, honestly I preferred the old formula, my T1.2 + OTL with zmf pads and the right tube combination feels so unique im keeping them as long as they live
Also the massive reduction in driving difficulty, looks like a strong appeal to content creators, I wish they hadnt taken this route
