no answers yet? I have the same question. Maybe for now, for iPhone, the Apple buds are about as good as any and with better connectivity?

I have a college age exchange kid returning from China in Aug. She's asking what she could bring me back.  I want it to be small and probably not more than $100USD or so.  I'm thinking she (with some help from her dad and from me via email..) might be able to score a nice USB dac or small...

I have a 10 yr old pr of Grado SR80, which I like, and RE-0 from HiFiMan, plus a couple Yuin...  All sub-$100.  I'm waffling between Senn HD-25-1 ll and V Moda crossfade m80 right now.  I'll probably use them primarily at home, mostly direct from a tube CDP (Eastern Electric minimax, which...

I found this review of the dac in the z5500:  http://www.laaudiofile.com/z5500.html    seems like it could be a better dac than a typical built-in dac in a laptop.  if you have optical and/or hdmi out on the laptop, I'd try those.  Far as I know, they will only put out a digital signal, so...

I assume you are using headphone jack on the laptop  to get sound from laptop to speakers now ..  .  I've heard the nuforce udac2 from laptop to my stereo system and it does a nice job, just plug and play.  You'll be bypassing the laptop's soundcard and headphone output.  this should be...

friend is zeroing in on one of these two so far.  Any suggestions one way or the other?  Anyone tried both? 

my Grado SR80 original foam pads croaked into crumbling petro-dust finally. (after maybe 10 yrs).  I've searched the forums here and elsewhere and am not seeing much on which replacement foam pads to get.  Is there a 'consensus' best bet for replacement foam for the SR80?  L cush, S cush...

ck out the yuins at head direct.  some of them are on sale.  the pk3's eg..  way better than apple oem. 

I've had the original foams on my SR80s for probably 10 yrs or close to it.  I noticed them disintegrating for the first time just this past month, but it probably started earlier.  So I'm shopping for replacement foam and trying to see what the bottom line consensus around here seems to be for...

my advice on the Grado SR60 is that for the price of about one or two cd's more, the SR80 is a better deal. I listened to both at the time I bought my SR80 and there was a difference that was easy to hear. 80's had deeper bass. I'd get the 80's. as for durability, mine have been banged...