haste347
New Head-Fier
So I grew up messing around with audio equipment. My dad had 70's 'budget audiophile' equipment consisting of the heaviest receiver I've ever seen, a Technics "4 channel" and speakers that had 15" woofers, 8" mids, and 3x 1" tweeters each. The cabinets were about 4x3x3' and were at least 1" particleboard veneers. The woofers had square magnets, oddly enough.
Anyway, I came across my dads collection of cans from the same era. Several had individual volume controls and sounded OK until I got a little older and decided to hook up the headphones that had the 1/4" jack cut (for whatever reason) to the high-level output from the receiver. It was at that moment my eyes were opened to the potential that headphones had with the powerful bass and depth of sound my ears delighted in.
In search of replicating this experience, I purchased a few sets of cans over the years, yes, I foolishly purchased the Bose when they came out, then quickly found a mid range Sennheisers, finally ending up with the HD650s paired to a "desktop" portable amp with my PC as a source (high end sound card). The clarity was there, but was lacking in the bass department, IMO.
Then I desired to have a more portable (and private) audio experience as my career involved more time on planes and cell phones allowed me to toss my FLAC/high-res MP3 library on an SD card to bring an increasing amount of my library with me. I tried a mid-range set of Ultimate Ears (before Logitech bought the company and the highest end was around 1-2k USD) and was not impressed. I trudged along with a few different brands in the lower end category, like 1More (which sound ok), until I decided it was time to give it another go with the discovering of how portable USB DACs had become.
I came here, read a bit, and decided that the iBasso DC04 with a set of IT01s (and corresponding 4.4 cable) met my budget well enough and the reviews of being a great bang/buck gave me hope in an improved experience. Wow! These have really impressed me and taken my experience several levels up. It's the closest I have come to that moment of hooking those old cans to excessive wattage. As I experience these gems, I find myself thinking "Ahhhh, finally" from time to time.
I could be happy for the rest of my life with these, however, this begs the question: what would be the next level up from here? I could see myself spending up to 1.5k-ish on a set of IEMs if the gains would be another several levels up.
What I would seek to improve would be removing the harshness in the upper-mid to lower-high frequencies and reducing the bit of fatigue that I experience with my current iBasso setup.
I greatly appreciate any recommendations!
Anyway, I came across my dads collection of cans from the same era. Several had individual volume controls and sounded OK until I got a little older and decided to hook up the headphones that had the 1/4" jack cut (for whatever reason) to the high-level output from the receiver. It was at that moment my eyes were opened to the potential that headphones had with the powerful bass and depth of sound my ears delighted in.
In search of replicating this experience, I purchased a few sets of cans over the years, yes, I foolishly purchased the Bose when they came out, then quickly found a mid range Sennheisers, finally ending up with the HD650s paired to a "desktop" portable amp with my PC as a source (high end sound card). The clarity was there, but was lacking in the bass department, IMO.
Then I desired to have a more portable (and private) audio experience as my career involved more time on planes and cell phones allowed me to toss my FLAC/high-res MP3 library on an SD card to bring an increasing amount of my library with me. I tried a mid-range set of Ultimate Ears (before Logitech bought the company and the highest end was around 1-2k USD) and was not impressed. I trudged along with a few different brands in the lower end category, like 1More (which sound ok), until I decided it was time to give it another go with the discovering of how portable USB DACs had become.
I came here, read a bit, and decided that the iBasso DC04 with a set of IT01s (and corresponding 4.4 cable) met my budget well enough and the reviews of being a great bang/buck gave me hope in an improved experience. Wow! These have really impressed me and taken my experience several levels up. It's the closest I have come to that moment of hooking those old cans to excessive wattage. As I experience these gems, I find myself thinking "Ahhhh, finally" from time to time.
I could be happy for the rest of my life with these, however, this begs the question: what would be the next level up from here? I could see myself spending up to 1.5k-ish on a set of IEMs if the gains would be another several levels up.
What I would seek to improve would be removing the harshness in the upper-mid to lower-high frequencies and reducing the bit of fatigue that I experience with my current iBasso setup.
I greatly appreciate any recommendations!
