Jose Hidalgo
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Hi everyone,
I was thinking of this project for 2021, but it looks like I can achieve it sooner, which is great news !
So here's the challenge : to buy not one but two great sounding, versatile, and hopefully complementary pairs of headphones, for about 1K€ total.
The goal is to replace and improve my old pair of Sony MDR CD1000 (if some of you still remember them) and a pair of Oneodio Studio Pro-50, lol.
The audio chain, as some of you already know, is as follows :
PC (foobar2000) --> USB --> Topping E30 --> RCA splitter --> 2 x Topping L30 --> 2 pairs of headphones
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Possible headphone candidates include :
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This challenge is tricky because I have to pick 2 headphones among 3 technologies : electrodynamic closed, electrodynamic open, and planar.
As for my music taste, I really am into everything, so I don't want "specialized" headphones. For example I'm not a bass-head and I won't listen to loud Hip-Hop until I'm half-deaf, lol. I like a little bit of everything. But having two complementary pairs of headphones would allow me to pick the best one for every piece of music.
What do you think ?
PS : I have some Hi-Fi resellers in my area that I can visit for some listening appointments. However I'm not sure I would trust my ears for such short auditions (I guess a pair of headphones requires hours if not days of relaxed listening to make up your mind). Not to mention that the reseller's audio chain would not be the same as mine.
I was thinking of this project for 2021, but it looks like I can achieve it sooner, which is great news !
So here's the challenge : to buy not one but two great sounding, versatile, and hopefully complementary pairs of headphones, for about 1K€ total.
The goal is to replace and improve my old pair of Sony MDR CD1000 (if some of you still remember them) and a pair of Oneodio Studio Pro-50, lol.
The audio chain, as some of you already know, is as follows :
PC (foobar2000) --> USB --> Topping E30 --> RCA splitter --> 2 x Topping L30 --> 2 pairs of headphones
----------
Possible headphone candidates include :
- Neumann NDH20 (499 €) : best closed monitoring headphones for the budget ? At least subjectively that's what Z says...
- Hifiman Sundara (349 €) : planar headphones with a great price/quality ratio ? (plus apparently the bass roll-off below 50 Hz has been improved by the new pads : https://www.headphones.com/blogs/news/sennheiser-hd660s-vs-hifiman-sundara )
- Sennheiser HD660s (447 €) : they have some great reviews on their own, but they seem to be surpassed by the Sundara. Are they ?
- Beyerdynamic DT1990 Pro (442 €) : maybe not as good as the other candidates, but it may be a matter of taste ?
- ... other worthy candidates ?
----------
This challenge is tricky because I have to pick 2 headphones among 3 technologies : electrodynamic closed, electrodynamic open, and planar.
As for my music taste, I really am into everything, so I don't want "specialized" headphones. For example I'm not a bass-head and I won't listen to loud Hip-Hop until I'm half-deaf, lol. I like a little bit of everything. But having two complementary pairs of headphones would allow me to pick the best one for every piece of music.
What do you think ?
PS : I have some Hi-Fi resellers in my area that I can visit for some listening appointments. However I'm not sure I would trust my ears for such short auditions (I guess a pair of headphones requires hours if not days of relaxed listening to make up your mind). Not to mention that the reseller's audio chain would not be the same as mine.
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