SPL Phonitor One D Review - $700 DAC/Amp combo

SPL Phonitor One D, $700: www.headphones.com/products/s...
SPL Phonitor One, $500: www.headphones.com/products/s...
SPL Phonitor One D Review (Written): www.headphones.com/community/...
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Twitter: / headphonedotcom
00:00 - Resolve has a thing stolen from HIS desk this time
00:40 - wait, wat?
00:59 - Build, Design & Overview
04:27 - Amp Section
10:16 - DAC
13:00 - Crossfeed
14:05 - Conclusion

[@Bird.droppings]

What an impressive first impression from Grover Neville with this debut review! The lighting, the background, the wardrobe that just pops against the background, having the presenter stand out prominently hot damn. Then you have such a professional and thorough review of the product on hand; I'm blown away. I look forward to more videos from Neville and, of course, the excellent line-up of reviewers that this channel has on staff. Thank you for the video.

[@marcusbryant2007]

a welcome addition to this channel. I like how you laid the details by using simple words. looking forward to more reviews

[@kvnngkronos]

Love the new reviewer. I remember the Q&A in the channel he was at and I liked Grover's take on many issues. Glad that we have the chance to here more from Grover in the channel.

[@MrAyrit]

Nice job with your description of the sound quality, felt well explained and easy to understand.

[@aceofspades6667]

Uh oh Andrew aka Resolve has some competition now in Grover. I’d say just as much details and elegance that resolve can put into describing a headphone or iems technical capabilities well Grover did that in the entry spl unit. Very cool review! Somebody get this man a Burson soloist 3XP to review ASAP…

[@McJurrie]

great and detailed review, looking forward to more of your videos Grover !

[@teachonlywhatiseasy]

nice review. good thing i waited until the end. well written conclusion. simple yet relatable. colleagues should follow his advice.

[@mrgadget4863]

Very good detailed and conceivable presentation. In particular I like the comparisons with other devices and viability with different Headphones.

[@eskamobob8662]

Realy realy liked this review. Tyvm

[@rem792]

Nice introduction!

[@mrfrosty3]

Great quality review!

[@joshsmith7812]

Another thing to keep in mind is this device is more meant for music producers and audio engineers who want to use headphones, than it is for listening enjoyement (but you may very well enjoy the sound) it’s meant to be linear and transparent as possible, boring essentially - which in the pro audio world is usually a plus, so that things mixed or mastered with the unit translate better

[@MrStingraybernard]

Great reviewer , i liked his knowledge and detailed review

[@Soundoverload]

Awesome review

[@djhmax09]

Nice to see a new face on the channel!

[@peter1987]

Nice review

[@bitterbuffalo8997]

Killer review

[@astorbeijer9424]

Excellent intro! And a very informative review! There's no way I would call Grover a newbie at reviews. Quite a professional! This is an odd thing to say about a new reviewer, but I swear I know Grover from somewhere. Has Resolve interviewed him before?

[@astorbeijer9424]

Oh hell yeah! I searched Grover on youtube abd found the interview Resolve and Tyler did with him a few months ago. F*cking brilliant guy. No wonder he came across so professional. He's breathes audio! Awesome new reviewer!

[@metal571]

He's worked for a number of different big names in the industry and wrote for InnerFidelity as well during its final days

[@HercahyoAdiSaputro]

Is this the same grover who was previously with Audeze? Anyway, welcome!

[@francoisberkinjr5088]

Very eloquent young man! Nice review!

[@darthdurkelthewise320]

Wow, Grover does get around doesn’t he? Anyway, this was a really good review of this SPL amp. Nice job!

[@theprinceofeverything1975]

Incredible video! Would you mind telling me how well these would work with the lcd xc? I love smooth listening and bass

[@theprinceofeverything1975]

@Grover Neville thank you for your help

[@eskamobob8662]

Is this the guy that was working at audeze?

[@minerva6]

Hey Grover - how would these stand up with the LCD-2 Fazers? I’m about to buy the Phonitor one D on the basis of your review!

[@autoexec5367]

I wonder how the THX 789 compares to this. Nice review! Edit: nvm u discussed this at 15:05 😄

[@hal9xxx321]

Everyone: OMG new reviewer! Me: is that a Hermann Miller Eames?

[@aemicek544]

More reviewers on the team? You love to see it! ❤️

[@JoernConrad]

Hallo from germany. Thanks for your review! You told that the crossfeed at the Phonitor One "eats" bass. And in fact it does...! But how treats the Phonitor 2 bass when crossfeed/Matrix ist activated? Does it sound more neutral?

[@bernamej]

Damn good reviewer.

[@Grooverski]

Strong debut.

[@alwynroberts8465]

Nice review I was waiting to hear a review of this product , you might be the first one to do it. So I always listen to digital at the moment. What other Dac Amps for headphones should I be looking into at around the 1100 dollar mark.

[@alwynroberts8465]

@Grover Neville Thanks for taking the time to reply I look out for your up coming review of RME ADI-2. Thanks again.

[@TK-yu2pv]

@Grover Neville Thanks Grover. Welcome aboard! I too am looking forward to your review since I'm considering the ADI-2 to drive Aeon Noire planars. I'm also considering either a standalone amp such as Phonitor SE or Phonitor SE with DAC combo, or the Mytek Liberty 2 DAC/Amp. I'm wondering which one you think would pair best sonically with the Aeon Noire's for Music Mastering work. I have only heard the ADI-2 with Aeon 2 Closed and was impressed with the detail and transparency. I already have a RME Babyface Pro FS, but the headphone output is inadequate to drive the low sensitivity Noire's from what I have read.

[@TK-yu2pv]

@Grover Neville Thanks for your helpful advice. I will probably go with the ADI-2. As for frequency response, I use Sonarworks for headphone correction plus a crossfeed plugin in my DAW, so it's not a big concern. I'm more concerned with detail and transient accuracy primarily, in addition to dynamic response. I considered the Ether CX, but didn't want to pay a small fortune in duty to import them to Canada. Their price also seems to have suddenly increased by $500 on Amazon recently, unless the ad I saw was significantly discounted.

[@taidee]

Welcome home Grover.

[@mariodrv]

How well does it pair with an HD650?

[@taraszhupnyk2998]

I have spl se DAC/Amp combo with hifiman arya. I thing for changing DAC to more better... Amp it's really good but DAC so so and costs about 400 evros

[@prabinpaudel5572]

Best wishes.. I like the new reviewer. 😁

[@aceofspades6667]

Very cool! I have the phonitor E and am happy with it as a dedicated hp amp. Not powerful enough to drive TOTL cans but it's a great pairing with LCDX, Clears, and HP3s. Looking forward to watching this *goes to get popcorn*

[@eskamobob8662]

Why would you need popcorn for that? 1266 and sus need dumb power for propepr bass and control

[@aceofspades6667]

@@eskamobob8662 did you happen to read I have a Phonitor E and an also a bunch of easier to drive headphones as well. I was right was a very entertaining review.

[@TheTastefulThickness]

Vs A90? Same price range

[@gtaylor1564]

What happened to her hair ?

[@metal571]

One D

[@GrumpiestKitten]

The 20 Ohm output impedance is a deal breaker.

[@TheHEADPHONEShow]

It says source impedance, not sure that's exactly output impedance. I do wish spec publication were more consistent.

[@GrumpiestKitten]

@@TheHEADPHONEShow Source impedance, internal impedance and output impedance all refer to the same thing.

[@ResolveReviews]

@@GrumpiestKitten I'm honestly not sure SPL refers to that the same way though. Again, they have weird ways of publishing specs. I'll try to find out.

[@GrumpiestKitten]

@Grover Neville I'm not an electrical engineer, so I would like to apologize for incorrect conclusions. The author of your link is mostly writing about radio frequency amplifiers and even recommends a low resistance source for a "moving coil loudspeaker where there is a need for heavy damping to prevent the speaker cone resonating when a transient is delivered". Typically I associate high output impedance on solid state amps with receivers that hand the speaker-out to the headphone jack via a 100 Ohm resistor or USB-interfaces/PCs' onboard sound that use a resistor in series with the ouput as a cheap way to protect against short-circuit and to ensure the stability of the output device when a low ohm load is attached. SPL used to do this on their original 2008 Phonitor with 9 Ohm source impedance. On their phonitor 2 they actually advertised the sub 1 Ohm output as an improvement over the older model but added a warning in the manual that not muting the output before attaching a headphone can kill the output stage, specifically mentioning short circuit. They apparently hate relays. I understand that there are headphones like the MySphere that are intended to be underdamped to get the boost at 50 Hz. However, in that edge-case I would prefer to use an amp that can switch the source res (for example Teac HA501/Beyer A2) or just a resistor in the cable. For me specifically an output with 20 Ohm on a 600€$ device is a dealbreaker because I like to use highly reactive

[@reallyoldcob]

🙀

[@Reeeepicheep]

what is going on with this guy's hair?

[@j0hnc00]

in other words, you wouldn't recommend this with $2000 headphones

[@thelastrhino2581]

Oh no. Resolve, don't do this to us.

[@TheHEADPHONEShow]

Resolve here... Do what? I'm still here haha.

[@thelastrhino2581]

@@TheHEADPHONEShow Yes, but with all these extra reviewers we will be getting less and less of you I suppose.

[@TheHEADPHONEShow]

Not at all, just more videos. It takes a long time to evaluate stuff and make videos, so I can only go so fast and produce so much content. I don't want to water things down for the sake of churning the vids out faster. I'm not going anywhere and I'm not slowing down. This is just additional perspectives from other reviewers on the team.

[@aceofspades6667]

@@thelastrhino2581 resolve doesn’t like amplifier and Dac reviews. He only likes to review headphones that require speaker amps 😉

[@fclp67]

Hi Grover ur very cute :)

[@dixter1652]

kinda looks like that chick who plays soccer with the purple hair doo....

[@kevintj604]

Wow. Huge pick-up for the Headphones.com crew. Grover needs no introduction and in my opinion is one of the most knowledgeable people in the industry. Very nice to see.

[@rafael6769]

Can u explain who he is ?