Yeah, late but I am looking for a gift. Balanced sound (not for a bass lover), non fatiguing highs, good isolation, comfortable wear, the rest is optional. Nice would be a tanglefree and replaceable cable. Wireless only if it really doesn't cut into sound quality at this price point. Thanks...

 For 1k you should nowadays get something like 120WPC in a beautiful case, with some room dsp and adaptive loudness. With perfect, neutral sound. And you don't. I own a bunch of 1k HiFi amps and they are ****. Seriously. Marantz PM-8003? Sound great upfront but the soundstage has no depth at...

So, if the BE3 and BE5 are V-shaped, where did the M2C go? I want to recommend it to people but it's out of production :-\

Oh god*!&("%$* !!!! I'm on travel on that day. Maybe I'll send my headphones instead of myself, I'd be able to offer Sony MDR-1A, MDR-MA900 and AKG K-242 Sextett. And some funny 20 Euro garbage and maybe Blox M2X earbuds if someone is interested. Oh, and AKG K-550.   Best regards, Christoph

Xip.org has put up a fantastic video explaining the basic science behind digital audio. I was impressed. http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml   Have fun.

So what? The HD800 have terrible build quality, the coating is actually very bad and if you put them on public display, after 2 years you can see the bare plastic below it.   For me the important part is that those go for studio monitor instead of "audiophile". I want the equivalent of a high...

Hmmm, now I am torn :-\

Thanks for the replies. Source is a Xonar DX. From the looks I will get an I+. Also pondered an O2 but I need something against the shred in modern recordings. Maybe later.

Hmmm, sounds interesting.

Will this end the loudness war??

Well, thread title says it all. The K-550 are fantastic but with the majority of source material they just highlight how cold, harsh and flat the mixes are. Well, nothing you can do about the flat but the cold harshness can surely be battled. So I want an amp that ads a nice warm touch, maybe...

Hmmm, NuForce IconMobile... http://en.goldenears.net/index.php?mid=GR_DAC_Amp&category=287&document_srl=5210 That frequency response :-P Reading reviews, they speak of neutral to bright. Well shucks, if you see this FR, it's basically broken. Neutral my cute behind ;-) And in typical...

Quote: I hope you have the proper room for those, bass traps and all

Quote: Yeouch!!   You do realise that the ODAC is terminated with 10k ohm and delivers 2V p-p but with near zero current?? No wonder it was so agressive, it clipped like mad. Beware

I will break down the cable argument with two audiophile tennets:   1.)**** in, **** out - Ivor Tiefenbrunn, Linn 2.)Information that's lost can not be recovered   Basically, if your source is ****, the system will sound ****. If there is one component in the chain that will rob the...

Quote: I literally fried mine in a plane by being too curious. Why is my ear getting hot? *funny smell* One channel burnt out. Fortunately I had my K319 also with me so I wasn't without music on the trip.   Quote: Short answer: depends. Mine would be no, not if you can get Blox...

Quote: The THD+noise is really poor. I wonder what the reviewer's setup is.

Quote: No. Because you cost me thousand of bucks with that nonsense. You are into cute headphones... I am also into speakers. The $1600 Dac1pre in speaker terms becomes selling you a 10k amp with a 5k source. Stupid since the DAC1pre is already a final grade tech piece and yet they want...

Another vote for the O2.   Although it will be a bit before I get one, moving and money is tight. But as engineer and speaker nut, nwavguy has my full trust. The O2 is an exeption at it's price point.

Not the ODAC, it has an outputimpedance in the region of a few Kilo-ohms. Not quite the wanted <1 Ohm of a headphone amp ;-)

Just to chime in, the Clip+ is NOT transparent. There is quite a bit of crud in there, obscuring very fine high level detail. In electronica, the "seams" of sounds will be much rougher. Basically distortion covering a bit of the signal. But it DOES still sound very good.   With my M2C buds...

So I recently got into the topic of "objective" electronics contructions. Basically if key measurements are good enough, the whole thing will sound like a "gain wire". Or have no sound in itself. Now, that may not be what pleases all people's ears most of the time. Certain "sounds" are liked...

Damn, a tablet. If it had been a pmp I might have jumped for my portable rig. *sigh* E 17 + portable USB source would prolly be all the portable SQ I could ever want. If not, I'll get an E11 to stack it fully :-P

Quote: Huh, what Archos?? *peaks ears*

The sound was so very clear and articulated... everything had a lot of snap and dynamics, just like from a real guitar amp. My system sound is a bit flat next to it, a nice repro but not this close to the real thing. It really sounded like it.