I've been reading this gorgeous thread for a while, it's about time I contribute:    

Thank you, I ended up getting the Sennheiser MX-580s. I was surprised to see such a low price item under "the good" in that review. I'll concur; they are pretty decent, especially for $24.   I also picked up some RE2s, which I'm completely disappointed with. They are nearly impossible to get...

Sweet jebus, I just found out what those actually cost. I mean I've heard them before, but never looked them up. I assumed they were gouging their customers at half the price best buy has them for.

Profit margin. Those dealers have great wholesale prices relative to their MSRP. Senn (and most of what people on this forum are buying) have prices a little closer to their value, so the big chains don't want to pick them up.   For reference: most retail outlets won't look at something that...

Ear-buds are fine, what would work in that category?

Maybe sounds like an odd question, but basically looking for a set for the office. They will be driven by a FiiO E7 dac/amp. The problem is that I don't face the door, so people often sneak up on me; sometimes accidentally. It would be great if I could still hear background conversations when I...

Quote:   I totally agree with this. And I can't explain why.

Fav': Violin, Uke, acoustic guitar. Cello is way up there too.   Least: Sax, synth violin, slide guitar   Counterexamples: ZOX does a great synth violin (or at least electric), and zep uses slide guitar in a beautiful way. I can't think of counters to how terrible saxaphones sound to me...

Well, alright. So after poking around at them for a couple of days and then a couple of days reflection, I think it would be valuable for me to say a few things about the XB500s, even if not in the positive light others have shown it. I don't intend to be negative, but perhaps my different...

  Quote: hmm...I did not try EQing them, but I will tonight. EQing from software isn't really an option, simply because I have a lot of gear from a single source that works great as is. Ultimately I would have to buy a separate EQ to drive one amp just for the one set of cans. If they...

Been following this thread for a little while because I've been looking for a good set of cans for rap/hip-hop/etc. I found a friend who had a set of the Sony XB500s, and I'm glad I got to try them out before investing.   Two things struck me: the first that the bass seemed artificially...

Damn zumpp99, amazing collection there. How much is the storage requirement?   For myself it's 28,551 songs, 2170 albums, at a bit over 350gb. Mix of lossy and lossless. I've been a lover of music for a long time, but only recently got in to high end audio. I'm in the process of...

  Quote:   Quote:   Seconded on both counts. Exceptional Albums from 08. For 2010 I'll submit:   Black Keys - Brothers Ratatat - LP4  

Robert Plant | Alison Krauss - Raising Sand

DIY DAC for ~$50, Millet Max for ~$200 and AKG K701 for ~250. That was my initial thought anyway.   If you're going portable maybe a quality player (won't weigh in to that), AMB mini cubed, and a pair of ATH-M50s

I find most people simply don't know. All they've ever had has been OEM car stereos, an ipod with original earbuds, and perhaps an ipod dock or some other set top with built in speakers. They are in it for background noise and an occasional sing-a-long. They have never heard "good" to know what...

Those are both very interesting charts. Thanks for posting!   I've also got a pretty good ringing in my ears that keeps me from getting much out of sounds around 7k, but I keep listening and enjoying anyway. I don't think anyone should give up hope. There's something out there to be enjoyed  

  Quote: Doppler is only if you are changing distance in relation to the microphone (moving toward or away from). I mean unless we're talking about spanning large enough parts of the universe that hubble's law comes into contention.   But distance from the mic can mean the volume is...

Quote:   Right on. And this goes for lossy or lossless compression. Keep in mind lossless doesn't mean high quality, it denotes the manner that data is converted and stored. You could sample a song at 50kb/s and use a lossless compressor, it would sound terrible and be missing most of the...

One of the biggest things is induction: If you want to change the charge on a coil it takes a certain amount of time (called induction or induction rate). In a speaker you are constantly varying the voltage to cause it to vibrate. Voltage is an electromotive force, so the higher you have the...

  Quote: Then you need to not have a laptop? You especially don't need to have crippled 3d performance in the form of laptop video cards and power sensitive processors. You need a proper video card to handle on screen polygons/nurbs/subs/parasolids/whatever-it-is-you-do, and you...

Jack Johnson - All At Once; It comes on distorted and in one ear, gets people thinking they know what they're listening to, then as soon as the voice comes it it kinda makes you jump.   Muse - Blackout; just has a classical feel to it, but hits a good range of sound types   Sia - I Go to...

  Quote: Large companies make products for profit. They skimp on every component they think they can get away with, and then make sure their wholesale profit is ~100% of the cost, and then the reseller (JB, BH, etc) do about the same from there. Their only advantage is the reduced cost...

I have 702's on my LD-MKIII right now. I tried them on my MKV for a bit, but they seemed too harsh.   It depends on your preferences. I'm a little oversensitive to things that seem too bright or harsh to my ears, but keep in mind either way you go, you could probably swap tubes or chips to...

I am reminded of the phrase "A well edited tree is a telephone pole."    That's most of what's going on here, IMO. Overzealous techs trying to take out every hiss, pop, singer's breath, background noise, etc until the music sounds sterile and dry. Then they crank up the volume and pass it...