With $700, what should I buy? - Page 2

This is madness. Nobody should recommend anything before asking a little bit of background: which headphones you currently have? Music source... etc. There is no point of spending a lot if differences are so thin to notice. 

 

Not because you can it means you should. 

700$ is a fairly enough budget for a decent pair of headphones for listening sessions. 

Edited by squallkiercosa - 12/31/12 at 1:22pm

Well your budget permits a lot, well I could recommend the HE400, Schiit Magni and Modi and your set

I really love my Schiit stack, and I posted my impressions a few days ago. Give me a few minutes to copy them and post them here.

Thomas

Well your budget permits a lot, well I could recommend the HE400, Schiit Magni and Modi and your set

I really love my Schiit stack, and I posted my impressions a few days ago. Give me a few minutes to copy them and post them here.

Thomas

Lots of people have. The synergy is debatable though, some say the Objective stack give HE400 a very accurate detailed sound, while others argue that it is a bit too detailed in the top end and detracts from the midrange/bass too much.

I currently have the Modi and Magni along with Audio Technica A900x which I'm enjoying very much.  The Audio Technicas in general are said to be very good with J-Pop but the open AD900x would probably be more suitable for classical than my closed A900x.  

 

I also have the new AKG K702 65th anniversary edition on order which at least 3 members here already prefer to the HE400.  Hard to believe, I know, but I guess I'll find out when I get them.  Just something else to consider.  The Schiit stack is definitely recommended for building a high value rig.

Grado RS1i; you don't need an amp/dac. An ipod or headphone jack in your computer is plenty of power to make these headphones sound amazing.

Well, sound wise you can get something better than the fiio IMO

HE400 + O2/DAC or Schiit stack. I have it with the schiit stack to save about $100 however the setup sounds phenomenal and I doubt you can get much better sound for the money. 

Go and listen to some different sets of headphones, and you should know what you hear/like. Remember just because one headphone is inexpensive and the other expensive doesn't mean anything, and there is plenty of hype out there so choose what you like to hear, you can purchase a 100$ headphone and love it. Also your headphone is going to be your main component, and yes what you put in is what you get out but, in the end it comes down to the signature of the headphones IMO. So go demo headphones within different price ranges and compare their sound signatures to each other and hear what you want to hear. People here can only give suggestions on what they like where as I would recommend a Grado because I love the sound, but I don't know if you will. So take everything with a grain of salt and listen for yourself. Good luck, enjoy whatever you decide on purchasing.

Detailed? Good imaging? J-pop? Sounds like Stax Lambda material to me, but the amplification requirements would make it far less portable than your MacBook Pro.

 

The HiFiMan HE-400 (with velour pads) would also be a good choice, and also quite decent-sounding even from portable sources, but its frequency response puts bass and treble notes just a bit in front of the vocals. Reminds me of that old Stax SR-202 + SRM-212 setup I had, in a lot of ways, but I preferred the vintage SR-Lambda (Normal bias) to that particular modern descendant.

 

However, I do emphasize what the poster above said about auditioning headphones whenever you can to find out what you like. I didn't know I liked this SR-Lambda for its vocal presentation AFTER getting several other headphones down the road, SR-202 included, and I didn't know I'd be able to appreciate a bass-and-treble-emphasized headphone until after I auditioned the HE-400, since it's a V-shaped headphone where the midrange doesn't totally suffer for it.