Well, I ended up buying a 1212m anyway mainly because my OCD got the best of me. Will update if I don't forget 

I'm currently using an old AV-710 chaintech as my transport to feed a digital signal via optical to my Parasound 1100HD DAC. Would my sound improve if I upgrade to something like an EMU 1212m or an ASUS Xonar card and use the coax output? Anyone here did something like this and noticed an...

Like the title says, would it be a bad idea to leave my DAC on all the time? Reason being is that I find that it sounds a little better after it has warmed up for an hour or so. Would I be shortening it's life significantly? 

Orpheus, Sony R10, Grado HP1000, K1000, Stax Omega II HD800, LCD-2   By the way, I haven't heard all of them (only the HP1000 and K1000), but after reading the forum for nearly a decade these are usually the ones you see experienced head-fier's listing as the best of the best

I'm starting to think some people here spend more time bashing Skullcandy and the Dr. Dre headphones than actually listening to their own "far superior" headphones

Lost midrange with the flats over the bowls? Weird   The peakiness could probably be fixed by a good tube amp.   Quote:  

Yikes, taking a loan for headphone gear? You did the right thing...   Quote:  

Nothing in that price range is going to be worth the money over what you have now. If it was me I would probably upgrade my headphone before spending more money on an amp. Just my opinion   A $300-$500 amp will improve your Grado's nicely, but that makes no sense whatsoever

I did try turning it all the way up. It only gets better to a certain degree, but overall the sound is lacking in dynamics and just very average. I know it's not fair comparing it to an full blown cd player, but I was still expecting a little bit more.

Hmm, well, that's odd. Actually, I have two CD players that when I change between them don't have to touch the volume on the amp. But when I plugged the ipod in the sound was very faint, almost muted until I turned it way up. The highs and lows sound rolled off quite a bit.  Maybe I'm just too...

Hmm, so I'm probably just going to return the SendStation dock even though it wasn't that expensive. The sound quality just doesn't do it for me   I don't think anything is wrong with it, it's just the signal is weak. I have to turn my amp up nearly twice as high as when I'm running it from...

I recently got one of those SendStation pocketdock things that allows you to utilize the ipod's line out since I wanted to forgo the whole cable thing   Well, the thing works fine, but to me the line-out sounds like crap (actually, in this case I think another 4 letter word would be more...

Do the HP2's count   When it comes to metal they are a noticeable step above any of the other Grado headphones save for maybe the PS1 which I haven't heard. Actually, I haven't heard a headphone that does metal better yet. But yeah, they are nearly impossible to acquire nowadays   In...

The funny is that that Uncle Erik owns a pair of Grado HP2's, and there is not another headphone that I have heard that does better justice to that album imo. Absolutely stunning   I'm would be genuinely curious to hear his opinion of it, but he probably abandoned this thread by now

  Quote:   Actually, I just looked at your list and realized I left off like 5 haha. You have almost identical musical tastes as mine. I mean eerily similar   The only thing that I might not agree with is Peal Jam and NIN. I think both are great bands, they just don't really do...