I was wondering if there were any good alternatives to the Bose QC20 now? I bought mine 6 months ago and have been mostly happy with them, but I'm already having an intermittent connection in one side. They have a pretty flat frequency response combined with excellent noise isolation due to...

Quite an interesting article at Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7567/smartphone-audio-quality-testing

It has turned out to be a particularly hot summer this year, and I am finding my MDR-7520 too hot to wear for hours at a time now. I don't think there is anything that can be done about the headband, but the earpads are replaceable. 1. Does anyone know whether the MDR-7520/Z1000 can use the...

There has been a lot of interest in DSD recently, with a lot of the higher-end DACs adding support for it. But is DSD actually any better than PCM?   Even from papers which are pro-DSD, you have graphs like this: So DSD has lower noise below 20kHz, and significantly higher noise above...

I have been meaning to do something about getting a new DAC+Amp for some time now. The problem is that any time I think I have made up my mind, I read about problems someone is having with it, or something new comes along that is supposed to be better.   I had almost convinced myself to...

I noticed that we have a number of "best looking" topics on the forums here - best looking headphones, best looking tube amplifier for example, and other image-heavy topics such as the "show us your vintage headphones" topic, but we don't seem to have anything for DACs despite their increasing...

I have been looking to upgrade my system and move to an external DAC, and while there doesn't seem to be anything that meets my needs exactly (ideally I would have a DAC that accepts an HDMI input, and/or has a built in audio delay option) from reading up on things, it seems like DACs are...

Are there any DACs out there with an HDMI input that supports the lip-sync correction spec, or DACs that have a variable audio delay?   I'm looking to upgrade my headphone setup for watching movies, but televisions all have variable video delays now (anything from 16-200ms) so a "standard"...

Need some new sealed headphones and am looking for good isolation and a flat response. Budget is not a major concern but I'm not planning on spending more than $1000, and the less I spend, the more I have to spend on other gear - I need to get a new amp as well.   From looking at...