Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kerry56 
You don't necessarily need open back headphones for those genres. Every headphone has a different sound signature, and some work better for certain types of music.
A DAC is a digital to analog converter. An audio dac converts digitally stored music to the analog signals necessary for headphones or speakers. All devices that play digital music files will have a built in dac in order to output to your speakers, but they vary quite a lot in quality of the sound they produce.
Velour pads tend to induce less sweat than the pleathor ones. I very much prefer them for this reason. They are less scratchy than foam pads and generally fairly soft to the touch. Sometimes they don't seal as well as the pleathor pads, and they are almost always more expensive, so there are down sides to using them too.
CAL's are a set of headphones. The real name for them is Creative Aurvana Live! They are well respected in their price range, and they occasionally go on sale at Amazon for $55-60. Do a search here in the forums for some user reviews/threads.
Obviously you don't need open cans to listen to those genres but it would be to your advantage to take into account what benefits they do offer. There's a reason why the most widely known high-end cans are of an open design. There's something simply missing from a close-backed dynamic can in my opinion [tonally, they tend to veer from the natural], but they do get the job done in most cases with little sound leakage. Imho of course. As for different sound signatures of cans, that's due as much as the source if anything, not to include factors like housing, tuning, positioning, etc. That holistically contribute to the sound as a whole. That said, there are great all-arounders out there in the price range, it all depends if you're looking for a more balanced or more engaging and colored signature. And there's no way to know this without getting started
As for the commonly referred DAC, that is usually the most important thing for a true discerning audiophile. Source is important above all, and a external dac represents a step in that direction. You can always take the pcdp route [cd players], or go with a vintage receiver, or purchase a dap that already has a line-out and a built-in dac worth mentioning. It all depends on preference, and just blindly purchasing a low-end usb dac is just not going to do it in the long run. Honestly, you don't have to worry about it in the price range you're looking at.
