The headphones thread! [Sorry about your wallet]

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NZtechfreak

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Topic # 110896 18-Oct-2012 15:26

Hello everyone!

I thought I would start a thread about headphones, since I've become a bit of a nut for audio this year, and headphones in particular.

Any other headphone crazies in this place? I've been wondering about organising a headphones/audio meetup for here in Auckland at some stage, would be a nice chance to meet others interested in the area and also to audition headphones and things that otherwise tend to be buy-before-you-try in NZ.

Anyways, musings on setting up meet-ups aside, this is my present collection of gear:

Headphones:
Grado GS1000i and RS1
Audeze LCD-2
Audio Technica ATH-W3000ANV
Beyerdynamic T5p
Ultrasone Edition 8 (ruthenium)
Sennheiser HD251-II

...hoping to get some Ultrasone Signature Pros soon too...

Sources (all playing flac encoded files):
Desktop: PC connected to ASUS Xonar Essence One USB DAC/headphone amplifier
Portable: Rig has been Galaxy S3 (US edition) --> USB OTG --> HeadAmp Pico USB DAC/amp, however the Pico doesn't work with the International S3, or the Galaxy Note 2 which I presently have, so will be getting the Leckerton UHA-6S.MKII and Ray Samuels Audio "The Intruder" USB DAC/amp to try out in my portable rig going forward...

Twitter: @nztechfreak
Blogs: HeadphoNZ.org

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Reply # 703082 18-Oct-2012 16:48

I have 2 set ups

1) Laptop/FLAC -> Fiio E17 DAC/AMP -> Senn HD600
   * heavily tweaked EQ (software and hardware) and I can make my Senn sound like a Grado or an Ultrasone so i don't need another. yes i can get skull crunching bass with this set up if needed

2) Samsung galaxy S2 (Poweramp) -> Senn HD600 or MEElectronics A151
   * heavily tweaked EQ to resemble ultrasone
   * the soundstage and clarity is way inferior compared to the Fiio but is less complicated to carry around

I want to get an iPhone but i have tried all softwares (free) on my wife's and cannot reach this level of EQing that poweramp gives *sigh

[oh and wishlist: Denon D5000 or Senn HD700 ... not sure if needed but definitely coveted]

NZtechfreak

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Reply # 703095 18-Oct-2012 17:27

joker97: I have 2 set ups

1) Laptop/FLAC -> Fiio E17 DAC/AMP -> Senn HD600
   * heavily tweaked EQ (software and hardware) and I can make my Senn sound like a Grado or an Ultrasone so i don't need another. yes i can get skull crunching bass with this set up if needed

2) Samsung galaxy S2 (Poweramp) -> Senn HD600 or MEElectronics A151
   * heavily tweaked EQ to resemble ultrasone
   * the soundstage and clarity is way inferior compared to the Fiio but is less complicated to carry around

I want to get an iPhone but i have tried all softwares (free) on my wife's and cannot reach this level of EQing that poweramp gives *sigh

[oh and wishlist: Denon D5000 or Senn HD700 ... not sure if needed but definitely coveted]

Nice set-up, haven't heard either the HD600 or 650, would be interested to try some of the higher-end Senns. Would love to hear your EQ set-up, very much doubt you can truly emulate the sound of the Grados etc with just an EQ, there is a lot more to the sound than simply a frequency response, but would be very much interested to see how close it can be!

Twitter: @nztechfreak
Blogs: HeadphoNZ.org

freitasm

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Reply # 703100 18-Oct-2012 17:43

Just received a Philips Citiscape Downtown here. Very good sound, better still than the Philips O'Neill. But still can't beat the RHA SA-850.

The only problem with the SA-850 is the too small ear covers. I feel like they press my ears down. But the sound is amazing.

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

NZtechfreak

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Reply # 703120 18-Oct-2012 18:33

freitasm: Just received a Philips Citiscape Downtown here. Very good sound, better still than the Philips O'Neill. But still can't beat the RHA SA-850.

The only problem with the SA-850 is the too small ear covers. I feel like they press my ears down. But the sound is amazing.

Just checked out the Inner Fidelity review for the Citiscape - for its purpose and price looks like great buy!

The small ear covers is par for the course for supra-aurals, and the clamping force that is making your ears uncomfortable is probably racheted up a bit to reduce sound leakage (my Senn HD251-II is the same, supra-aural and with a high clamping force, wearing glasses doesn't help either and I can't comfortably wear them any great length of time).

Twitter: @nztechfreak
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alasta

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Reply # 703213 18-Oct-2012 21:15

At home I have my Apple TV connected to my television and run an optical cable from the TV to my Fiio Alpen E17, which drives my Sennheiser RS160 wireless setup. It sounds good to me, but my source is 256kbps AAC files so it's not good enough to really put things to the test.

On the road I use my iPhone with a pair of Sennheiser PXC250s, but that's mainly just for listening to talk radio. Having said that when connected to a decent source the PXC250s are astoundingly good for what they are - they don't have the awful coloured sound that you get from most portable headphones.

eXDee

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Reply # 703294 19-Oct-2012 00:23

PC is:
Creative X-Fi Xtremegamer - Almost upgraded to a Xonar D2X but decided against it for the lack of front panel audio, and thought the upgrade wouldn't be worth the extra cash.
Sennheiser HD555 - Extremely good value for money, with the small piece of foam removed so it makes it closer to a HD595 sound signature aside from a slightly different housing, since the driver is the same.

Portable is:
HTC Desire - Current smartphone, i dont have a separate media player. This isn't the best source device, though going to get a phone upgrade soon enough.
Brainwavz M2 IEMs - Excellent value for money, these cost me $60NZD at a special price, and can be had for $60USD from MP4Nation. Good bass accuracy but not overpowering, they are good enough to give that headphone like experience which is what you want from good IEMs. It beats the senneheiser IEMs you buy off the shelf in retail stores for $80-120.

Next week i have some ViSang GR02 Bass edition ones that i'm giving to a mate as a present. Extremely good value for money, about $36 USD and rated extremely high sound quality for the price, apparently better than the M2s. And they come with a massive _14_ tips! Available from http;//www.lendmeurears.com who ship free from singapore. I'm looking forward my friend finally having some decent earphones and it means i can see first hand how they perform too!

I love getting good value for money, so these are all excellent. The HD555s i bought second hand for a little over $100 a couple of years ago. Excellent headphones.

Check out the GR02 bass editions in this massive thread (warning: high bandwidth) to see how they stack up, theres a really big chart at the bottom. Ctrl + f is your friend!
http://www.head-fi.org/t/478568/multi-iem-review-260-iems-compared-thinksound-ms01-added-10-18-12

davidcole

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Reply # 703361 19-Oct-2012 08:32

For some reason I love Sony headphones. Been through most of their MDRVxxDJ range.

Long lasting, good sound, not too bad price and wearable 6 hours of a day (at a suitable volume). Currently sporting a pair of MDR500DJs - 2nd pair of these, know right where they will break, so have tapped them up already.

And for on the road I use a pair of MDR-Q22s.

I'd really love something like the 500DJs (over the ear - almost noise cancelling) but with a USB plug + microphone for use as a headset on my work PC as thats where I listen to 80% of my music. So any recommendations I'd be quite interested in.

Primarily listen to MP3s (since about '96 I think) and lately spotify - so I'm not a proper audiophile.

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NZtechfreak

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Reply # 703380 19-Oct-2012 09:20

@exDee: Have referred to that IEM reviews thread a number of times over the last several months, thanks for posting that here so others can benefit from probably the best resource for IEM reviews on the internet.

@davidcole: I haven't tried any of the Sony headphones, but a number of their models are well regarded. Should probably get around to trying them at some point. I presume being Sony it would actually be possible to audition them somewhere like JB HiFi? RE: mp3 - mp3 encoding has improved a lot since '96! I hope you're at least listening to recently encoded versions of the songs :) I haven't listened to mp3s in a few months now, I decided back in about 2005 that I wanted to have the option of listening to flac in the future when storage became ubiquitous enough to do so, and now that it is I re-ripped all of my CDs a few months back to flac (still in the process of tagging them, egads it takes a long time to properly tag ~300albums, especially when you're fussy about having high resolution album art). Just need 128gb micro SDXC cards to come along so I can have the whole collection in flac on my phone instead of just my favourite albums.

Speaking of flac - can't recommend Bandcamp highly enough! Got the Beastwars album over the weekend and such a good service there at Bandcamp - listen to album streams in their entirety, buy on CD/mp3/FLAC/ALAC etc. To top all that it even looks after the artists, great stuff.

Twitter: @nztechfreak
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kiwitrc

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Reply # 703390 19-Oct-2012 09:35

Subscribing to this thread.

freitasm

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Reply # 703393 19-Oct-2012 09:36

kiwitrc: Subscribing to this thread.

You could just click the "Watch Topic" button ;)

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

kiwitrc

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Reply # 703395 19-Oct-2012 09:38

freitasm:
kiwitrc: Subscribing to this thread.

You could just click the "Watch Topic" button ;)

Yeah I realise that but just wanted the others to know they werent alone. Just checked out bandcamp, amazing!

davidcole

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Reply # 703401 19-Oct-2012 09:49

kiwitrc:
freitasm:
kiwitrc: Subscribing to this thread.

You could just click the "Watch Topic" button ;)

Yeah I realise that but just wanted the others to know they werent alone. Just checked out bandcamp, amazing!

You know, this one time, at bandcamp....

Sorry couldn't resist - now back to the OP

Jaxson

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Reply # 703404 19-Oct-2012 09:52

kiwitrc:
freitasm:
kiwitrc: Subscribing to this thread.

You could just click the "Watch Topic" button ;)

Yeah I realise that but just wanted the others to know they werent alone.

I have a pair of Sennheiser 202's and I quite like them from a bang for buck perspective.

http://www.headfonia.com/sennheiser-hd-202-review/

NZtechfreak

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Reply # 703405 19-Oct-2012 09:55

davidcole:
kiwitrc:
freitasm:
kiwitrc: Subscribing to this thread.

You could just click the "Watch Topic" button ;)

Yeah I realise that but just wanted the others to know they werent alone. Just checked out bandcamp, amazing!

You know, this one time, at bandcamp....

Sorry couldn't resist - now back to the OP

Had to be done.

@kiwitrc: Awesome isn't it! I had heard about it ages ago and that it was good, flagged it for perusal and then simply not got to it. A friend reminded me about it over the weekend because I needed flac versions of the Beastwars album and couldn't wait on postage for the CD, so I looked it up. One of those "Doh!" moments when I realise I totally should have checked it out earlier. Apart from being a truly excellent service for consumers, the fact it looks after artists properly too just makes it so much better in my eyes. On to a winner there.

Twitter: @nztechfreak
Blogs: HeadphoNZ.org

timmmay

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Reply # 703410 19-Oct-2012 10:21

I own and run the website Headphone Reviews, which has been #1 in google for that phrase for years. It's mostly about user reviews, but I get quite a few headphones through to do review on.

I get all sorts of headphones for review. Right now I have:
- Beats by Dr Dre (US$400)
- Audeze LCD2 (US$1000)
- California Audio something ($100)
- Audio Technica A900
- A couple of in-ear headphones
- LOTS that I've heard or sold. Senn HD-650, Sony CD-3000, Beyerdynamic, all sorts really.

I have a headphone amp with a dac driven by the optical out of my PC.

I don't know how keen I'd be to send them all to Auckland, but Wellington would be fine.

Mauricio - you're welcome to review the ones I have and the ones I get in future, and if you get headphones to review through I'd really like to borrow them for a couple of days to add the reviews to my website. I may even be able to write some content for Geekzone.

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