I spent 35 years chasing work to feed my familly. Now that I'm retired I finally have time to return to my first love MUSIC. In my youth I had more invested in my stereo than my car but still much cheaper than the many wonderful children that just like BB King said now she wants to give them back. Now on a fixed income while I may have more of a lead ear than I did then, I do have the advantage of actually having been there at the epicenter of the greatest music of this century. The music that was birthed in the cotton field from a marriage of rich african beats with gospel music in places like Tupelo MS . Carl Perkins a cotton picker himself gave us Elvis Johnny Cash Jerry Lee Lewis by sharing with us this wonderful black american soul music. Civil rights detoured this music for a time by way of the brittish. During this unrest in the US the brittish music invasion took us into the richest musical era of our century. Fueled by a cosmic social political energy this post WWII music is the benchmark we are all looking for in our pursuit of the best audio equipment. The late 60's and early 70's music are so powerful that it would be hard to not notice how many remakes of those tunes are in the forefront of todays music. It would be naive not to believe that it is this music that is as important as any other periods of Renaissance that is fueling our passion of the high fidelity sound. My Dad moved us to Liege Belgium until 1966 where I discovered the Beatles and Rolling Stones listening to the BBC on our wide band radio with copper wire strung accross the attic for antenna. I would wire my turntable to the speaker to the family radio and would record the BBC sounds on my wolensak tape recorder. That's how it all started. Oh yes I'm quite shure you can tell where it went from there. Yea dog! Next was half a year salary on a McIntoch preamp a Pionner 4 channel amp a Dual turntable and of course a reel to reel tape recorder KLH and AltecLansing speakers and of to the Woodstock music we went. CSNY blaring, Carlos Santana Soul Sacrifice, Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin with all the intensity of the VietNam war. Compared to the mono sound of the family radio Hi-Fi stereo was epic. And isn't that the magic we are all looking for in todays equipment. I will forever be grateful to all the technical developments that gave us such rich and magical enjoyment. Now I'm so far behind the times that I have to go to the grandkids for tech help. One thing those times taught me it is not just about the money but rather the experience. As I am new at this new world I really appreciate company's like Grado that put sound before status symbol standards. Pride in their craftsmanship and value. They did such a good job on the sr80i's that I would save up for the ps500i's. I might even save up the 2500$ for the magic McIntosh is putting in their new DAC preamp not for the prestige but for the love they have of the music. I like the questions on this forum, help getting thru all the snake oil preying on our passion of the music. Being on a fixed income I need all the help I can get understanding what kind of equipment goes with type files?balanced output?usb powered DAC?low ohms in headphones, music stage reference etc. I know this is long winded I just hoping that if you know where I'm coming from someone out there might be good enough to help me relive the love I put on hold to raise kids. Thanks
Alright man, lemme try and help you out...
It really depends on your budget when your considering a DAC and Amp for desktop headphone use, you can spend several hundred dollars up to several thousands, if not far more. My personal bias is a stand alone DAC + tube amp will result in the highest quality sound. Personally, I enjoy the slight coloration that a tube amp adds to music, then again some people swear by solid states. A DAC, in a nutshell, is the magical piece of technology that turns the music from digits (0s and 1s) to music that we can hear. The better the DAC, the better the 'source' of your music... if your using good files. We'll get to files later.
If I had $500 and I were you I'd get the ALO PanAm. Its a small tube amp + built in DAC, which sounds wholly decent with any headphones that are highly demanding. If you own the HD 800, LCD3s, or the HE 6s this won't cut it. But there again, if you own any of the aforementioned, your probably up to spend a bit more on a AMP/DAC for desktop listening. If your looking to spend a bit more and want to stick with an integrated DAC/AMP I'd recommend PeachTree Audio, for one.
Its a bit tough to tell you 'exactly' what to look for other than this. Go with a reputable industry name and realize that hi-fi equipment is a diminishing return investment. In that, if audio quality, is on a scale of 1-100, increasing the quality of your audio from 70-71 may only cost $500 (just throwing a number out there), but increasing it from 90-91 may cost $5,000. Sorry man, I am just trying to make this all transparent and easy to understand for anyone who decides to read it. So there is that.
For amps, you have a lot of options. I recommend tube, you can swap tubes out to alter the sound signature, they look beautiful, as do many well-designed solids, and they make the music sound a tad bit warmer, not overwhelmingly, just slightly colored. To do it right, you probably need to spend $1000 or so, again, the rule of thumb is to stick with a reputable name. Read the forums, get acclimated with various recommend brands, and do your homework. Half the fun is building 'the machine' in my opinion
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If your looking for a jaw-dropping combo and you feel like your wallet is a bit heavy here is a set up: ALO Studio Six (Tube Amp) $3100 + PeachTree's Stand Alone DAC ($500) or, if you fancy some more portable, the CypherLabs' Algorythm SOLO -dB (~$550) has a damn good DAC chip in it, albeit not nearly as good as PeachTree's.
Look, getting one of PeachTree's integrated ($1000,$1500,or,$4500) or ALO's PanAm Integrated ($500) will serve you very well. Alright having covered that lets move on...
Ok, balanced output, so I'm not going to go through all the science, but basically, in theory, a fully 'balanced' headphone (has to do with power sources and drivers) will sound better than its counterpart. It is hotly debated whether or not this difference is actually discernible to the human ear, however for audiophiles that is often besides the point. If you have really nice headphones or IEMS (in ear monitors) you might be able to use a balanced output if you want to. Its another costly investment, if I were you I'd spend it elsewhere. If you say your using Grado's, honestly, I wouldn't worry about it. Your sinking money into something that likely won't move the needle on the tangible SQ (sound quality) index.
Alright, lets go to Ohms. Again, I'm not getting into the nitty gritty. Basically, the higher a headphones' Ohms is the tougher it will be to drive. By that I mean it'll need a more powerful, usually more expensive, amp. The higher the Ohms the more 'resistance' the headphones have and are therefore harder to drive. Again with Grado you don't need to worry about this too much, their headphones are generally 32 Ohms if I remember correctly, which means they aren't hard to drive. Using any of the aforementioned recommendations and you'll have no issues.
Alright, lastly, files. So basically, when music is recorded it is uncompressed, everything from when it was recorded is still present. When music is compressed typically** it loses part of the original recording, hence it is of a lesser quality. So why would people compress music? This should be a crime! Well, for one, uncompressed audio files are way larger than compressed files and take up more space. The second element is that most people generally do not care whether there file is some compressed 128 kbps MP3 garbage or uncompressed audio. They might say they can't hear the difference, but that is a lie, everyone can hear the difference its a matter or whether or not you care. If your using compressed files I can really only recommend two options. There is a form of compressed audio that is 'lossless' thanks to nifty engineering. What you need to know is these formats are FLAC and ALAC (Apple's iTune's compatible version of FLAC), if your using iTunes and ripping CDs to your computer I'd advise this as its just as good as uncompressed but saves space. If you so desire, the uncompressed formats, which are of equal quality, are AIFF and WAV. More space, same sweet music goodness. If you have to use traditional compressed formats stick with no less than 320 kbps, some argue 256 kbps (what iTunes publishes their music as) to be sufficient. And for you, it very well may be, for myself, 320 kbps is the floor and I stick with FLAC/ALAC/AIFF/WAV if possible. If you (or anyone else) have any further questions on 'files' please let me know. I'm happy to further explain or whatever. Lastly, sometimes you'll hear about 24 bit audio. I wrote a lengthy explanation on another forum page which I'd have to dig up, but to make a long story short don't buy it. The human ear can hear everything it can in 16-bit in practice since nobody has a 'golden ear', 24 bit is not even iTunes compatible, and above all people buy into 24 bit in the vain hope they can somehow eek out that 96-97 or 98-99 SQ, sorry folks you can't. No doubt, this point will be argued against hotly, however I assure you beyond any reasonable doubt that my assertion on this point is 100% factual.
So, I think I've explained what you asked for. I'm happy to help. Being on a budget myself (recent college grad), I understand the need to sift through the proverbial B.S.
Best of luck. (and listen to Radiohead's OK Computer if you haven't already)
