With the main rig experiencing some reliability issues, my attention has returned to enjoying some tunes through headphones of music stored on my Apple systems. With the renewed focus has come some new products, configuration and tuning.

My rack is still the three shelf Spider Rack, using just two shelves which have granite blocks resting on the rubber 'feet'. The top shelf has three VibraPods supporting the laptop, with the Yamamoto and DacMagic side by side on the second granite shelf below, again resting on rubber 'feet'.

A late 2009 Apple MacBook Pro (Intel Core2Duo) is my source for ALAC files (stored in iTunes) and for higher resolution music stored in a separate library, accessible by other programs. As reported a week ago, my preferred music player for the Mac is Fidelia. It handles both iTunes and other hi-res file types and is very simple to use.

Kimber Silver USB (left) and Red Rose Music Silver RCA (right)

I connect the MBP to a Cambridge DacMagic via USB. This has been another change in as much as I used to use a 'vanilla' (meaning cheap) computer USB cable. Thought I would experiment with a 'better' one so bought a Belkin 'Gold' USB cable for less than $A20 and it probably sounded better but not much. Fortunately I was speaking to a Kimber Cable distributor buddy who gave me Kimber 'Silver' USB cable to try. For a reasonable cost ($A150-ish from memory) it sounds much better, especially in the bass. It is a keeper.

I had reasonable after-market RCA connectors between the DacMagic and the Yamamoto power amp, but I was able to free up my 'old' Red Rose Music Silver Litz cables and they added a degree of speed and clarity over the previous copper RCAs. Another worthwhile change.

All the listening up to this point was with the new AKG K 702 headphones as I am trying to understand their strengths and weaknesses in my system, to my ears. Also I have only been using the stock cable, which according to the seller, had only about 10 hours on it before it arrived here, but must be getting closer to 25 hours now I am guessing. Observations over at Head-Fi suggest the K701/702s need 300 hours to sound their best...

So I think there is more to come with the Kimber USB cable to burn in a little and the stock cable also to get a little better with more hours on it. Then I can plug in the AudioMinor silver AKG cable to see where that leaves me with the overall sound.

So far the sound is pretty good. The K 702s strength is one overall competence. Good balance from top to bottom, they are an easy 62 ohm load to drive (although they supposedly sound even better when fed by more powerful amps) and are very comfortable to wear for extended sessions. My major gripes with the AKGs are that they can be a bit 'bland' (the flip side of broad competence, no highlights) and they don't seem to project a large image so far. Once I believe there is nothing more to come from the AKGs, I look forward to comparing them with my Sennheiser 600s and Grado GS-1000, both of whose sound I am much more familiar with.

Future changes? I have some work to do to get the hi-res files playing via USB out of the MBP. So I have ordered an Audiophilleo 2 USB/S/PDIF converter which will give me up to 192/24 from my DAC. Should sound pretty good. Another obvious upgrade would be to try some improved power supply / conditioning / isolation for the Yamamoto & DacMagic. A very 'easy' tweak to test would be to remove the power cord from the laptop to assess if running on battery power alone does anything to the computer's output signal. Finally to be honest, the DacMagic is probably the weakest link in my headphone system chain, but what to replace it with is the $A1500 to $6500 question. Sensible upgrades could start with a Benchmark, DAC1 then you could step up to a battery powered Red Wine Audio Isabella or go the whole hog and get a Weiss DAC 202 with firewire connection and an inbuilt solid state headphone amplifier. How deep are my pockets...

I see lots of enjoyable headphone listening in my future!