newyorker4life
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2016
- Posts
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Curious to hear your thoughts and comparisons!
FYI, the comfort DOES get better. You can manually stretch it out to help kidckstart it, but I've also found that after enough wearing it will sort of shape and fit to your head...almost like breaking in a baseball glove.
Also, I only where mine when I'm walking...outdoors, nonetheless. I have zero problems with microphonics -- I don't hear a single step. I thread my my cord inside my shirt --- it was something I discovered a long time ago. That may be more practical for me b/c I'm wearing workout shirts (vs. work clothes or something similar)...but maybe something to experiment with.
So far .....PM3 hands down is way more comfortable out of the box. Surprisingly more comfortable. On a scale of 1-10 in comfort I'd say PM3 is a "9". I really REALLY want to love the Sine but right now comfort is a "5". And more surprisingly the PM3s have the least microphonic feedback when I'm walking, even though they are over ear and create a much tighter vacuum seal. Which seems to contradict all microphonic logic, but I'm just reporting what I'm hearing.
To compare Sine + Cipher to PM3s, I also got a dragonfly red (DFR) portable USB DAC to go with the PM3s- to give PM3s some additional "oomph" and to see if I could hear a difference driving the PM3s with a separate DAC; like Cipher DAC helps drive Sine.
Source is iPhone with Spotify and ripped FLAC / MP3.
And I'm going to fire up my Tidal and ROON free trials this weekend. I love new toys.
I'll post more as I go along in my comparing & listening .....but so far in terms of PORTABILITY, Sine + Cipher is certainly way way way more elegant design than clunky PM3 + DFR + Apple CCK. I can't imagine using Mojo or anything bulkier than USB DAC which is already too clunky. Just listening from iPad / spotify and writing this, PM3 + extra hardware is dangling from the iPad in landscape mode. It's a bit frankensteinish. I put a pillow under it all to prop it up. That dangling is still putting stress on the Apple CCK. Another big bummer with DFR/CCK is I lose volume & track control on the PM3 iOS cable. That is NOT convenient if I have to adjust volume with iPad even just laying here, let alone on iPhone if I'm walking my dog and want to adjust volume or change tracking.
So what about sound quality. Okay. I'm a headphones noob. Sine sounds overall punchier and louder, so far. I think Sine pushes more treble forward with everything but classical and better separation. PM3 is smoother, more fluid, balanced. I don't have to raise volume nearly as high with Sine vs PM3 alone. PM3 alone still sounds warmer and bass particularly warmer. Treble, with some classical tracks, PM3 has more detail. Without DFR/CCK, I have to increase volume much higher with PM3 and it gets a bit muddier. Add the extra DAC to PM3 and source volume doesn't have to be nearly as high of course.
In terms of sound quality and cost here's something I have to consider. I got a refurb PM3 for $319. The Sine was $550 with tax in NY. If I didn't know PM3 was returb I would swear Oppo sent PM3 brand new.
Initial impression - Does the Sine sound $230+ better than PM3 on its own, no separate DAC? I don't think so. Does Sine sound better than $319 PM3 + $200 Dragonfly + $30 Apple CCK? I definately don't think so.
I think what's going to happen is I will have to evaluate comfort and sound quality and cost. The PM3 alone, no extra oomph or extra goodies is $230 less than Sine, and has two year warranty.
Once I have Tidal and Roon up and running, will update.
It is a lot of fun playing with all these new toys.....