What I found odd about this is that DMS previously absolutely loved the Hemp. He ranked it as one of the very best headphones under $1k, and he even cited it as an example of a textbook audiophile headphone. But now he ranked it a D? That’s quite a shift in opinion. @Resolve has always...

I was just on Facebook and saw an ad for the “Heavys”. I thought “Great, another gimmicky headphone. These ones claim to be for metal. I’ll bet they’re the same garbage as RayCons and Skullcandy and old style Beats and all those other lifestyle brands that sound terrible.” But out of sheer...

That’s good to hear. I’ve seen Corsair’s name a lot but I don’t have much personal experience with them. I think the only Corsair product I own is the power supply to my PC. I’ve also been looking to upgrade the SSD in my Steam Deck, and a Corsair model is currently the frontrunner in my research.

Yeah, what I meant is that most of the reporting seems to focus on the keyboard side of things and very little is being written about the audio side of things. So I hope this isn’t a case in which Corsair acquired the company for the keyboard stuff and the rest just came along for the ride. If...

Wow. Corsair acquires mechanical keyboard specialist Drop Just from reading this, the focus seems to be on the mechanical keyboard side of Drop, so I wonder how this will affect their headphone business.

Came here to say the same thing. They marked up the Meze products to fake prices, crossed out those fake prices, and then listed the normal prices as a “discount”.

Does anyone have advice on how to clean the Focal emblem? That center silver medallion is surprisingly tough to clean because on one hand, the Focal “F” is an open port, meaning you can’t use water, but then on the other hand, the metal circle has this rough concentric material that makes it...

What a strange looking headphone.

Apple recently updated the APM firmware and I swear it made transparency mode worse. When listening to my APM, I get more of that claustrophobic, ear pressure feeling now. That’s common in a lot of wireless headphones with noise cancellation and transparency, but the APM were always...

You can see it in the photo. Those aren’t shadows you’re looking at. Both meshes have a section of about 2/3rds that is darker.

Should I be concerned with this at all? I’m guessing my ears touch the white mesh, and so the natural skin oils create a stain on that mesh. Is that normal? It’s hard to avoid touching the mesh with these thin F-pads.

I was watching today’s GPT-4 intro video and I noticed something:

BBR already has these on sale. $680 CAD instead of the $800 CAD MSRP. https://baybloorradio.com/sennheiser-hd660s2-headphones

It was just added to Bay Bloor Radio’s website. Looks like the price is $799 CAD. Given that this seems to be an upgrade over the 660S in both sound and price, why on Earth did Sennheiser choose to name it the 660S2? Aside from defying their normal naming conventions, it also looks kind of...

Grado Hemp

Another vote here for the Elegia. Right now they’re at the discounted price of $399 at Adorama, and they’ve gone as low as $299 with the periodic email promo. Throw in a $9 Apple dongle (or perhaps two, since they’re not very durable), and you’ve got an excellent closed back listening...

Has anyone tried one of the new M2 Mac Minis? I’m thinking of picking one up but I’m not sure how the headphone out is. And if I have an amp like a Topping L30, do I plug it directly into the headphone out or do I need to get a USB DAC connector?

DMS has heard it. He confirmed he’s working on a review but can’t give a timeline yet.

Check the original 660S thread. The discussion on the 660S2 has been happening over there.

I’m not sure if this deserves its own thread, but it seems Sennheiser is releasing a notable update called the HD 660S2. The listing is up on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRT1ZN7Q?cafId=a831c6c6-67e7-49fb-bf61-53618926e3f6

AKG K702. They’re a nice complement to the 6XX because they’re sort of opposites. While the 6XX is intimate and warm and a little veiled, the K702 are incredibly wide and open and airy and quite detailed. Also, they’re surprisingly affordable now. I believe the MSRP used to be over $400 USD...

How powerful of an amp do you really need to drive these? I’ve considered ordering them (if they drop back down to $399), but if I have to spend $1000 on an amp anyways, then I might as well just spend the extra on an Arya Stealth instead, since that will probably work well on my Topping L30.

What’s funny is that the “DVD” was just short for my name (David), it had nothing to do with the media format. It’s been funny seeing the perception shift over the years, as I’ve used that internet handle for about 25 years, and so initially no one asked me about the discs, then they started...

I’m less concerned about the 256 AAC. It doesn’t quite sound as good as lossless, but 256 AAC can still sound very good. What I’m more concerned with the AAC decoding. I’ve heard that non-Apple devices don’t encode/decode AAC in the same way that Apple devices do, and that can lead to a...