Couldn't agree more. I get the impression that some people enjoy spending all their time finding new ways to listen to the same music rather than using that time and money to expand their musical listening. A decent smartphone and a cheap but good pair of earphones and you're set for all sorts...

  What happens if you burn them for 100 hours and are stuck on a 4 hour flight with some IEMs you don't like?   Why not just - radical notion here - listen to them when you get them?

It amazes me people will pay such ridiculous amounts for headphones and players when they can just EQ the music to make it sound different.

  Shoddy.

  Yes - light makes things appear to have colours. That's the way the world works.

As far as I can glean from all the press, the big USPs of the AK240 are - to quote from the What Hi-Fi article here: http://www.whathifi.com/news/astell-kern-unveils-new-ak240-portable-audio-player-at-ces) :   - In addition to a brand-new look, the AK240 includes a series of new features not...

i've tried Viper on my rooted S3 with Boefla and, well, meh. Its a massive battery drainer and doesnt improve the already excellent sound when using Neutron music player. Strikes me as a bit gimmicky really.

Fit is everything with an IEM. If it - and by consequence the sound quality - moves when you do, its going to drive you insane.

  Well they've been earning interest on all your money these last few months, so its hardly going to break them, is it?

  What miracle paradigm-shift materials are they using in their IEM construction that haven't been used before then? I don't want to get into the burn-in debate, I really don't, but you must see the lunacy in your statements? p.s. No way in the world am I ever going to buy a pair of IEMs...

  If they sound bad out of the box, they are bad.

More prime Miles due to be released in a couple of months' time - great news, as far as I'm concerned:   http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/miles-davis-jams-on-spanish-key-in-1970-20140122

April eh? Where can i find details? I looked in the meet up forum section but seemed to draw a blank....I am pretty blind though.

  Well, why not buy another one then and sell me your used one for twenty quid? That should cover the postage.  If it really is that good, you'll be making a benevolent gesture that can only lead to more of us hearing the best sound quality ever. If I don't agree, you can have it back.  ...

  I'm in London - which is local if you use that tunnel under the abandoned well out back. Chuck your Studio V3 down and I'll catch it at the other end. Your question of price vs happiness is an interesting one. Does anyone have a formula? Obviously it will have to build in disposable...

  Good idea. Once I get your money in my Paypal (PM me for details), I'll order it straight away and will be sure to provide a sentence or two on how it sounds. Deal? I wonder about these standalone DAPs - is there much future in them, do you think? After all, that Sony ZX1 is basically a...

What a horrible post. I'm perfectly entitled to single the Tera out as the epitome of what's wrong with the audiophile DAP market, so back off please. And to add salt to the wound, I just discovered it doesn't even have its own internal storage built in. What a joke. Anyway, here's the thing -...

Well, the Shuffle sounds rubbish as well then - thanks for pointing that out, will make sure I never try one.   As for the Tera - how poor that you can only get 20 albums on it.  That makes it about €100 an album then.  Ouch.   Look, if someone wants to send me a Tera to test, I'll happily...

  If you already have an iphone in your pocket, why's it so important to have a Tera player in the other which allows you to change tracks without looking at the screen? Can't you just play an album on your iphone, put it on shuffle or even make a playlist? On top of that, I've looked at the...

They had Ashton Kutcher running them, for one thing.

You have an ipad, an iPhone and a Tera player in your pocket? I guess after forking out for those, you don't need a wallet anymore, but still, you must have big pockets.

I don't hate the products - I hate Apple, the company.

  Sennheiser HD800 = £1000 Colorfly C4 = £450 Put them together and I can't eat or pay the rent and look like a complete tit when on the bus.

  Sure, why not? They wind me up. Doesn't have to be rational - its an emotional thing which I can't explain, but that doesn't make me wrong.

The Tera plater is a wallet murderingly extortionate €1680. Even the Sony ZX1 is €700. When are these madmen going to stop punching us in the neck? By the way, for those who need to know this stuff, I personally use a Samsung Galaxy S3 (19300) as my portable player, since I was gifted with it...