I see these two NICEHCK earphone cables but one is 3x the price of the other. Both are all copper, high purity, 16 core. Is there a qualitative difference I'm missing? The connectors...

When I read reviews about Hi-Res DAPs, I am attracted to the price-point, described sound quality, and sound signature of units like the Fiio X3ii & X5ii, the IBasso DX80, the Cayin N5.   However, I am rather accustomed to the convenience of browsing my music library using metadata, such as...

I received some RE-600s a week ago and put about 100 hours of musical burn-in time with them, having lived with RE-262 the last couple years.   What I am hearing is some hardness in the upper mids and less warm presentation than either my RE-262 or my main speakers (Proac Response 1sc), which...

With Lollipop my Samsung Galaxy S4 can now play through an OTG to my ifi iDSD Dac/amp, which has a built-in battery. But when I plug them in, that DAC's battery charges the phone or the phone's battery tries to charge the DAC. (I can keep the phone from charging the DAC by turninng the DAC on...

It seems that impedance is an indicator of how difficult headphones are to drive. But are 150 Ohm IEMs as difficult to drive as 150 Ohm full size cans?   For instance, the Geek out recommends the 450mW for <100 Ohm cans and the 750mW for 100 - 300 Ohm cans. I use HiFiMan IEMs (RE-262) @ 150...

  I picked up some HiFiMan RE-262 IEM’s which were just slightly used. Having a Sony Walkman NWZ-X1050 before the volume limiter was implemented, I thought perhaps it would be able to drive them without an amplifier. Well, it can… but you really won’t be happy with it that way. They are very...

(My question is at the end. The rambling story is in between.)   In the early 90's most of my investment was in building a audiophile home music system. I still love the experience of music through it today and have been fortunate to only replace one component in that time... not that I...