blorg t1_je9vtcv wrote on March 30, 2023 at 1:58 PM

Reply to comment by paddyirish1989 in I'm after a DAC that can replicate Xbass? by paddyirish1989

Have you considered this might be the headphone rather than the amp?

HD800S does have quite a lot of distortion in the bass and XBass is a bit over +12dB in the sub-bass, it's a lot.

If you're pushing that into it and then turning it up high, it's possibly just distorting because you're trying to make the HD800S into a basshead headphone that it's just not.

Having said that, with that +12.3dB bass shelf suggested by Oratory to replicate xBass, with the HD800S I can get up to physically feeling it wobbling my head with something like Trentemoller's Chameleon without obvious distortion. It's a bit excessive though. Fiio K7 is a good choice for amp, it will do over 500mW clean into 300Ω out of its balanced output. This is a lot.

If you're looking for large amounts of bass though, there are better options than the HD800S, I'd get a new headphone rather than a new amp. Edition XS or LCD-X are good choices. I own and enjoy the HD800S for what it does well but this is not its forte.