Goldring NS-1000

[admin_exported]

I received a pair of Goldring NS1000 noice-cancelling headphones earlier this week, after reading great reviews here and and on a few other sites.

Paired them up with the Fiio E5 amp and Fiio L3 line-out cable, and everything was working fine on my iPod Classic.

But yesterday I noticed that almost all music I played had a very obvious distortion - so much so that a lot of music was rendered unlistenable.

The problem was the same whether the phones were connected directly to the iPod's headphone socket or to the Fiio combo.

I've returned them to Play.com and ordered a replacement pair from SuperFi, as I've read a few reports online that a lot of people have had problems with those headphones when ordered from Play.com.

What I wanted to ask is:

1) Is it possible that the headphones are too good? That they're revealing distortion that was already on the tracks that just wasn't revealed by less capable headphones?

2) Is it possible that I've broken them through having the volume set too loud?

3) Or have I just been unlucky and hopefully the replacement pair from Superfi will be fine?

 

[bigboss]

It's difficult to comment if you had a faulty pair or the headphones revealed too much distortion. I bought mine from play.com & have not had any problems. It's still perfect, after 1 year of use.

 

[Lee H]

It's likely to be 3 - although knowing what bitrate you have your music at would help. With your E5, have you played with the bass switch. With the Goldrings you probably don't need that extra kick.

 

[Anonymous]

Almost all of the tracks on the iPod are ripped as standard MP3 128 kbit/s.

I had the bass switch turned on, but the distortion was apparent with it off as well.

Hopefully it was just a dodgy pair and the replacements will be fine.

 

[Lee H]

These are some good cans, if you can you'd really hear the benefit of re-ripping at a higher bitrate

 

[Lee H]

Is that one of the possible causes of the distortion?

I don't want to rip again if I can avoid it, there's 140GB of music on the iPod that's taken me the best part of three years to rip!

Plus if I re-rip all the tunes at higher bitrate, I won't be able to fit all my music on the iPod any more.

It won't cause distortion, but you'll notice the difference. Maybe just re-rip your favourite tunes

 

[Anonymous]

Is that one of the possible causes of the distortion?

I don't want to rip again if I can avoid it, there's 140GB of music on the iPod that's taken me the best part of three years to rip!

Plus if I re-rip all the tunes at higher bitrate, I won't be able to fit all my music on the iPod any more.

 

[Paul.]

Are you using the equilaiser on your iPod? I found that the iPod eq used to cause losts of distortion in cans.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I've done that with The Beatles' remastered albums and the recent remaster of The Stone Roses' debut.

But I really can't face rebuilding the whole library again!

 

[Anonymous]

Eq on the iPod is set to Dance, that's the setting I had it on before I got the E5/L3 and the Goldrings.

 

[Lee H]

Eq on the iPod is set to Dance, that's the setting I had it on before I got the E5/L3 and the Goldrings.

Definelty turn that off. iPhone/iPod EQ can lead to quite a bit of clipping too.

 

[Anonymous]

Eq on the iPod is set to Dance, that's the setting I had it on before I got the E5/L3 and the Goldrings.

Definelty turn that off. iPhone/iPod EQ can lead to quite a bit of clipping too.

I'll do that when I get the replacement phones from SuperFi and see if it makes a difference. Thanks for all your help and responses everyone.

 

[Anonymous]

Eq on the iPod is set to Dance, that's the setting I had it on before I got the E5/L3 and the Goldrings.

Definelty turn that off. iPhone/iPod EQ can lead to quite a bit of clipping too.

Is it possible that I damaged the headphones due to the E5 attempting to play clipped MP3s? Or from having the volume coming from the E5 set too high?

 

[drichardb]

If you played music loud enough to damage a pair of headphones I would expect your hearing to be damaged aswell!

As for the clipping, I dont understand enough about it to say what affect it can have on portable equipment.

What I can say is that digital clipping is something that is present in the majority of music recorded in the last twenty years. You may or may not have heard about the "Loudness Wars" that have seen a reduction in dynamic range and an increase in perceived volume. This has resulted in many albums sounding distorted no matter what volume they are played at.