So around 2-3 weeks ago I ordered a pair of MH Tungsten. Call me an idiot as it was a complete blind buy but the hype around them is kinda real. A 1499-1999$ pair that rivals headphones double its price sound promising, only issue is you need a nuclear reactor to power them.
Did anyone here order a pair too and already received it?
Mind to give a short „review“?
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Have a read on head fi, there’s a few people on there who have done write ups.
They’re supposed to be pretty fussy about amps, partly down to the low sensitivity, but also because of the unusually high impedance for a planar, which makes them very voltage hungry instead of current hungry like you see with most planars. Interestingly, based on what little I’ve read this means they can actually play surprisingly well with OTL amps (which are notoriously bad with planars due to their poor current delivery) thanks to their ability to easily push a lot of volts.
Yeah I’ve red the head-if forum too but that’s basically the only source of information I could find…
It’s surprising that such a niche headphone isn’t talked about more on audiophile forums. Well maybe the 12 week waiting list is the reason lol
Understandable considering there’s probably not many more than 50 Tungstens floating around excluding pre-production versions. Mine arrived just last Friday with a card indicating it was one of the first 20 double sided.
Should soon see some reviews coming out on yt from Zeos and others. There’s also currently a fair amount of discussions going on in telegram audio channels, which is how I first found out about it 4-5 months ago.
I’ve listened to both the double-sided and single-sided Tungstens, though at different events a month apart so I can’t do a direct comparison. The Single-Sided version is hard to drive. It needs more power (particularly voltage) than a Susvara, which I was able to compare with at CAF.
Take this with a grain of salt, but I thought that non-feedback amplifiers didn’t play well with the Tungsten. When I tried it on the HeadAmp CFA3, the amp was initially in zero feedback mode and I thought the vocals were way too upfront and the soundstage had width but little frontal depth. When I flipped the feedback switch to enable feedback, the vocals moved back and the soundstage opened up. It was not a subtle difference. I also tried the double-sided Tungsten with the Schiit Mjolnir 3 which also has a zero feedback mode, and I thought the vocals were too upfront there too, but I didn’t check which feedback mode was used at the time. I wish I had been able to listen to it on my Ferrum Erco, as I’ve heard that Ferrum amps work well with it.
Sound-wise, I think it’s good, with no flaws that stood out to me. It’s darker than, say, a Hifiman Arya or HE1000, has more bass, and has a rich but mellow and not shouty vocal range. It’s a bit like an old-style Audeze. In fact, I’d say that it sounds the most like how I remember the Audeze LCD-2 Classic that I demoed at a store once. Smooth, a bit bassy (but not bloated or boomy), but without the midrange tonal weirdness that the LCD-X has. I don’t quite get the hype around them, but they’re good headphones.
Telegram chat friends who have A/Bed both ss and ds commercial versions are finding power requirements to be essentially the same even though ds is supposed to be 1 to 3 db/Mw more sensitive. So it seems if the dac/amp can’t drive ss well then it will likely also struggle with the ds.
Awesome headphones. Been enjoying the ds version quite a bit the last few days. They definitely punch above their price range.
Being insensitive, high impedance planars they are a bit picky as to which amps pair well. A minimum of 20 vrms is generally recommended.
Yeah I bought a A70 pro for this reason. Pairing them with my element III and using it as a dac.
If this won’t work I guess I’ll have to get a D70 or E50 to pair with it to get the whole power
You can even just get something like a d30 pro since dacs above a few dollars only give you more features not greater performance.
I have a d30 pro - great dac. Looking over the specs briefly though, it appears to put out just 4 Vrms, which might not be a great fit in this scenario. Finding a hotter dac may work better plus having a built-in pre-amp / better volume control may also give more options later on.
element III and using it as a dac.
Ah, nice to see you on here! It sucks having so little info about this headphone for sure.
It’s potentially tricky because of the voltage and gain requirements. For example, some report even the Bliss with 12 Watts at 32 Ohms and Spring 3 (5.8 vrms) sounds soft and lacks headroom partially due to insufficient gain (amp lacks a high gain mode), which my ears tend to agree with.
Luckily though, my dac has a pre-amp putting out a max 11.6 vrms, which the Bliss hungrily accepts, providing a much different experience - greater dynamics, better low end etc. A number of Tungsten owners report wildy varying impressions listening to the same amps (Oor, CA3, Mjolnir 3). I’m guessing this is likely due to differences in the input voltage received from their dacs.