Its not exactly fair. I think a fair comparison would be the pulsar vs    Dynaudio C1 Bowers 805 Diamond Raidho X1

The ls50's don't need huge wattage; but the highest quality power you can provide them. I've compared an ayre AX-7e with a w4s class D monoblocks and the Ayre just outclasses it in everything except being able to play at concert level SPLs. The LS50's just scale so well with higher quality gear...

Naims i find makes for a pacey and exciting first listen. The novelty wears out and I end up looking for something more refined.

naim gear isnt known for being overly detailed. These british manufacturers who have a rep for producing analytical and clinical gear would include the likes of cyrus

The PWD is always a hard one to figure out. It really depends what firmware you're on. I find the 2.4.1 to be the best

Get yourself the kef x300a. The imaging produced by the uni-q driver is not paralleled by anything in that price region

Light harmonic geek out. Heard it at CES. Hands down demolished anything in the same category. Made the flight worth it.

I would stay away. It appears to be an average DAC riding on its brandname.

The DACs that I'm awaiting for quite keenly is the lightharmonic geek pulse. Looks to be a giant killer - a Da Vinci Junior (comparable to the dcs vivaldi and MSB dacs) of sorts from the same creator and designer

look at the kef x300a. may be out of your budget but they sound sublime for their price. amps are built into EACH speaker, and there is internal dac circuitry.

you can find a Perfectwave DAC mkii used for the same price. I compared the two when shopping for DAC's and they DAC-v1 was just outclassed entirely. The PWD has stood the test of time. Its still a crowd favourite after all years of being compared to other dacs.   Another "FOTM" dac would be...

SOTM usb card. Benefits all usb based DACS from my experience.

Balanced PSU.   http://www.airlinktransformers.com/balanced_power_supply/standard_balanced_power_supplies/BPS1500/   Everything cleans up

unforunately nope. It was gone before Hifiman went large

I loved the LCD-2.2 sound, but after 6 months of headaches after 30 minutes straight- i couldn't take it anymore.   The experience was so much so that I actually ended up leaving headphone audio altogether. These days i can't even stand the most comfortable headphones like the HD800. IEMS and...

been looking into the zitron and nordost as well. curious. I don't think many people have extensively tested both. Usually the average enthusiast will buy one brand then tout that what they bought is the best thing ever. A bit hard to find any truth in these things

does anyone here know which cables go well with the LS50 (if you're into the whole cables thing)? I know its a matter of system synergy; amps and dacs have to be factored in.   Amp: Ayre AX-7e DAC: Perfectwave DAC MKII   To be honest i'm super happy with my setup atm, but would just like to...

I find them ridiculously good for the price.   They scale tremendously with higher end components. I'm using a PSaudio PWDMKii and a Ayre AX-7e with mine which are significantly more expensive than the speaker itself, but I have no qualms about it. I even purchased the dynaudio C1 top-plate...

As a heathen i post pictures of speakers   Still near a desk. it counts  

  Which is exactly why you will need an external PSU to power the DAC at its best. That or get a better DAC that's isolated from PC power in the first place

After a long journey in Head-fi, I would recommend IEMS (custom or universal) if you wish to have    Portability Comfort Intimate sound Privacy Cheaper price (you won't need 5k amps and dacs to get the best out of them)   These are all the fundamental reasons why we go head-fi in the...

lol

  for that get a mjolnir.

extended highs. what the lcd-3 fixes (to a certain degree)