- Joined
- Oct 15, 2020
- Messages
- 29
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- 14
Should I preface a title like that with a Trigger Warning? I don't know. I very badly want to enjoy high end audio experiences through headphones, I just want to point that out now. I've listened to a stereo $50,000 and $150000 speaker setup at an audio show room so I know I won't ever get close to replicating that (because physics) but that for me isn't really the point of headphones. Different technical implementation different sound.
The benefits I heard were overall cleaner tonality, separation of sound, and a perceived increase in soundstage. But again, for me it was pretty damn subtle.
Between headphones, dacs, and amps, I came to the conclusion that my subjective listening experiences seem to notice a subtle difference. I've also gone back to do some research and have concluded that I almost certainly overspent. I have since returned the equipment that I bought (except my 58Xs).
My first consistent setup consisted of:
Su-9 DAC
Monoprice Monolith THX 887 amp
**Note: I haven't tried tubes yet.
And I tried the following headphones:
-Hifiman HE-5XX (Flat but a ton of potential for EQ, sad that I didn't play around with that more)
-Hifiman Sundara (I don't know what the hype is)
-Hifiman Ananda (These sound like tinny ass)
-LCD X (probably my favorite but its pretty weighty and it sounds like shit in games, don't hate me for that everyone's got needs!)
-LCD 2C (sounded fine in games but didn't have the bass punch that the LCD-Xs did, really made me sad)
-Sennheiser 58X (I ended up keeping these, they do what I want them to do and they felt safe to keep given the price point)
-Meze Empyreans (oh man I wanted to love these so badly but 3k for anything but perfection is unacceptable)
And since Amazon had a ridiculously long return period for my Su-9 and Monolith amp I decided to return them after not really hearing a significant enough difference to justify $800. Hell it sounds like I might be just as happy if not happier for the $400 I could spend on a topping dac/amp combo (two devices).
If you see my join date, that's around the time I started this audioquest of mine its been 2 months maybe?
So now that I have some limited experience with products, I wanted to start a discussion with interested people about my tastes, what I'm generally listening for, what I'm willing to pay and all that sort of thing. The community seems really passionate and objective and as someone who's recently being exposed to high end headphone audio I really admire that.
So essentially what I'm looking for is:
The HE-1 experience made me really understand the limitations of earspeakers/headphones whatever you want to call it. There's so much you can do, and there's so much you can't do. HE-1s are a demo of what money can't buy in headphone audio. But just FYI they were nothing but extremely pleasing to listen to, like pouring some warm gooey substance into your eardrums in the form of air.
But I'm confident that you can get the same experience for around 1/5th of the price.
The benefits I heard were overall cleaner tonality, separation of sound, and a perceived increase in soundstage. But again, for me it was pretty damn subtle.
Between headphones, dacs, and amps, I came to the conclusion that my subjective listening experiences seem to notice a subtle difference. I've also gone back to do some research and have concluded that I almost certainly overspent. I have since returned the equipment that I bought (except my 58Xs).
My first consistent setup consisted of:
Su-9 DAC
Monoprice Monolith THX 887 amp
**Note: I haven't tried tubes yet.
And I tried the following headphones:
-Hifiman HE-5XX (Flat but a ton of potential for EQ, sad that I didn't play around with that more)
-Hifiman Sundara (I don't know what the hype is)
-Hifiman Ananda (These sound like tinny ass)
-LCD X (probably my favorite but its pretty weighty and it sounds like shit in games, don't hate me for that everyone's got needs!)
-LCD 2C (sounded fine in games but didn't have the bass punch that the LCD-Xs did, really made me sad)
-Sennheiser 58X (I ended up keeping these, they do what I want them to do and they felt safe to keep given the price point)
-Meze Empyreans (oh man I wanted to love these so badly but 3k for anything but perfection is unacceptable)
And since Amazon had a ridiculously long return period for my Su-9 and Monolith amp I decided to return them after not really hearing a significant enough difference to justify $800. Hell it sounds like I might be just as happy if not happier for the $400 I could spend on a topping dac/amp combo (two devices).
If you see my join date, that's around the time I started this audioquest of mine its been 2 months maybe?
So now that I have some limited experience with products, I wanted to start a discussion with interested people about my tastes, what I'm generally listening for, what I'm willing to pay and all that sort of thing. The community seems really passionate and objective and as someone who's recently being exposed to high end headphone audio I really admire that.
So essentially what I'm looking for is:
- That LCD-X punch (The LCD-2 fazors might be what I'm looking for)
- Something that will ease the peakiness of songs like "Dance Monkey"
- A way to EQ that doesn't involve Peace. For some reason the differences I hear with Peace are pretty subtle. I noticed some tub amps come with EQ knobs.
- And overall any general practices I could adopt to color my sound (because its fun) or to hear the benefit of objective performance.
The HE-1 experience made me really understand the limitations of earspeakers/headphones whatever you want to call it. There's so much you can do, and there's so much you can't do. HE-1s are a demo of what money can't buy in headphone audio. But just FYI they were nothing but extremely pleasing to listen to, like pouring some warm gooey substance into your eardrums in the form of air.
But I'm confident that you can get the same experience for around 1/5th of the price.
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