Zubkabera said:
Hi Dale, Since you have such a awesome collection of headphones what is your opinion on sound magic compared to Shure and B&W P3 and which one you like the most with Dragonfly. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
It might be heresy to say this, but I think the Soundmagic HP100 is as good overall as the Shure 1840, although the 1840 costs two or three times as much. The 1840 has a more perfect treble, but not by much - very slight difference. The HP100 wins easily on bass, and it's not a warm or boosted bass at all - it's quite lean, but also very solid with good impact way deep, while the 1840 tapers off below 60 hz or so. Oddly enough, the 1840 has essentially no fundamental response at 20 hz, where other headphones are sometimes weak but still have audible output. My overall feeling about the P3 is it's rather dry sounding, while the 1840 and HP100 have a seamless and smooth midrange. Other than that dryness, the P3 really needs a treble boost just to get near the treble response of the 1840 and HP100 - not all that near actually, but without the treble boost it's just too treble-shy. The bass is decent for a small low-profile on-ear headphone - no complaints there. For me, a big part of the value of the P3 is (white or black version) it has that low profile so you don't look like a spaceman, and overall looks very dapper. To take advantage of the Dragonfly, you should use a headphone that has a good neutral treble (the 1840 or HP100 would do nicely), because compared to most low-cost analog amps, the whole upper tier of the sound "opens up" (for lack of a better term) in a really marvelous way. It gets bigger, more spacious, more detailed, but doesn't gain irritations like increased sibilants or treble harshness. That's not to say it would mate well with every hi-fi headphone, since the power is limited, and the 1840 really stretches the limit due to low efficiency.
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