~US$250 street price alternative to D2000 - Page 6

if the shure srh840 and denon d2000 is considered a side step to your current setup, and the M50 would be a downgrade (i forgot what you currently are using), then your budget needs to be at least 500 IMO. And for that much you can ask Smeggy to build and send you completed Thunderpants. Considering your taste is mostly in classical with rap coming in as your least listened to, I'd say stay away from figuring out which cans can give you the best bass and instead focus on which cans can give you the most clean mids and treble, with bass coming as a last priority (especially considering the bass boost switch on some amps).

With beyer, as has been stated, you will definately need an amp no matter what, plus you'll be limited to 250 ohm cans tops unless you spend heap big money on a darn good portable amp. I would say you should try AKG Q701/2 or K701/2. If not those, then maybe a Grado. I have no knowledge whatsoever on grado, but as far as AKGs flagships go, they have excellent sound stage, very good treble, very good mids, and are somewhat lacking in the bass department (though it seems apart from LCD2, who isnt).

apart from trash like Apple iBuds, just about everything will benefit from a DAC. Most headphones, i think, will benefit from an amp, though some require it while others just sound a tad bit more refined with one.

i'm really hesitant on providing a recommendation because I havent actually heard any of these. What i did, and mind you this is an EXTREMELY rudimentary way to do it, I went to the headroom website and compared their frequency response curves between various headphones. I put HD598 on the chart and compared srh840 and all the other ones that were recommended. The M50 obviouly has the most bass, and you can tell that the bass produced is about 10 db higher than the bass other cans produce. I went down the list and compared each to the headphone which i knew what it sounded like and decided that getting M50 was the best most cost effective option.

You should go on the site and compare the Q701/2 to the K701/2. i think the Q is supposed to be a bit better overall, but i dont konw the difference between 701 and 702 models. It could just mean "revision 2", which usually means they made improvements.

If you can, you might want to save up and try Beyer DT990 or 880. You obvioulsy cant power the 600 ohm can using a portable amp, but you should be able to get by with a can up to 300 ohms. I guess for you, coming from ath-m50, i'd recommend beyer dt990 250ohm. If you want less bass but more overall refinement, then i guess try out AKG's, but I doubt that after being used to M50's you'll like the more neutral sounding phones. heck, I got my m50's in just today and I played a couple songs using stock headphone output of ipod. The ipod isnt quite strong enough to deliver on the bass, but I have a feeling once I plug in my LOD into the E11, or once I test music with my gamma 2 at home (at the gf's right now), i'll be getting my face blasted off. even from stock headphone out there were a couple spots i picked up in the music where the bass was almost overwhelming the rest of the music. i need to test it with more music first, plus I need to burn it in before I make any final decisions. I plan to write a review when possible.

I tried out a couple songs (bass test only) from the M50 last night. As expected, with the 38 impedance load on the ipod 7g headphone jack, the bass wasnt at all overpowering. That is largely in part because of the roll off. Today, the L9 LOD cable will arrive and I'll be able to test my ipod via the LOD instead.

My immediate concerns are the 11 foot cable length. That is extremely unwieldy. After a year or so I'll definately be modding the M50 so that It simply has an input jack that I can use any cable with. I'm also happy with the build quality of them, though i'm unhappy with how they fold up, and how the leather pouch they came with is barely big enough to hold them and their cable. I really like the screw on professional jack it came with though. One other thing I noticed is that the M50 jack will not fit my ipod's jack if the case is there. I'd have to surgically modify the case to accomodate the jack. Luckily, I only plan to use them via the E11, so my concern now is only that the L9 jack wont fit next to the m50 jack.

I'll also be able to test it later today with my proper DAC. When I first got my DAC, I tried listening to my speakers through laptop headphone output, DAC output, and ipod headphone output. I was testing specifically for the bass because it was easy to actually SEE the speaker responding. Out of my laptop headphone jack, the speaker wasnt even visibly moving. from the ipod headphone output, the speakers were visibly moving to accomodate the bass. Out of the DAC, the speaker cone displacement was amazing. I still couldnt hear anything in the bass because a 5 inch driver cant produce tones like that too efficiently, but I could see them trying for all its worth.

For this reason, I'm fairly sure that using the M50 from my ipod via LOD and using the M50 with my DAC will provide earth-shattering bass compared to the headphone output of my ipod.

Tested with standard ipod headphone out vs E11 headphone out, low gain, bass boost off. I noticed a slight difference in clarity and better balance overall. needs more extensive testing and also burn in. From my DAC i'm expecting a much bigger difference.