Jim85IROC
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2015
- Posts
- 28
- Likes
- 18
Hi all. I've been a long time lurker, but just finally decided to officially join the forum so I could say thanks.
TL/DR: I bought stuff, yay!
Full story:
I've been a long time audiophile/gearhead. I started getting interested in home audio back in the late 80s when I was in 7th-8th grade. At that time I was saving my allowance/birthday/whatever money to buy a receiver, but I diverted some of the money to get a pair of nice headphones to hold me over. I picked up a pair of Realistic Pro 60 headphones for $50 on sale. I absolutely loved the sound quality from those headphones and used them exclusively for many years. For the last 15 years I've had a job where I spend most of my time at my desk, so I have headphones on all day. After the 2nd or 3rd set of foams on those Realistics disintegrated, I finally retired them to home/PC/Guitar practice use and bought a pair of Grado SR60 headphones. After I wore out a couple foams on those, I upgraded to the larger donut-style foams and used them for many years until I heard about the Monoprice 8323 headphones and picked them up in hopes of once again hearing something under 100hz. I've been using these headphones for a while now, but I finally got fed up with the lack of comfort and the mediocre sound quality. Recently I started researching my upgrade path, and had my options somewhat narrowed. I decided that once the Christmas deals started to drop, I'd get my new stuff.
I live in a small area, so there's nowhere for me to audition anything, so I was at the mercy of the Internet to make my decisions. I spent a lot of time here and using my Google-fu to help me decide. For headphones I had pretty much decided on the Hifiman HE-400s or the Sennheiser HD600. They were at the upper end of what I wanted to spend, but both seemed to be well regarded as being neutral and low in distortion. The problem with narrowing it down to these two sets is that they're pretty much at opposite ends of the spectrum with respect to amplifier requirements.
I had pretty much narrowed my amp/dac focus on the Schiit Modi & Magnus II because they seem to be well engineered, well made, and I very much appreciate that they're American made. Because Schiit doesn't run sales, my plan was to grab the headphones when the sales hit, then get the Schiit stack after.
Then on Black Friday, I found a great deal on the Monoprice amp/dac and decided that for $55 it was well worth a try. I'm not sure that this will be my final setup, but the price was too good to pass up for now.
Now for headphones. Thanks to Head-fi's main page, I was able to jump on the great deal on the HD600s that B&H is running. I was leaning toward the Hifiman headphones over the Sennheisers, but at $250 it was awfully hard to pass up.
I can't wait to get this stuff in and start experiencing some better sound. I've had a lot of fun doing my homework, most of which I did here on head-fi. This is a great forum and I'm looking forward to contributing.
TL/DR: I bought stuff, yay!
Full story:
I've been a long time audiophile/gearhead. I started getting interested in home audio back in the late 80s when I was in 7th-8th grade. At that time I was saving my allowance/birthday/whatever money to buy a receiver, but I diverted some of the money to get a pair of nice headphones to hold me over. I picked up a pair of Realistic Pro 60 headphones for $50 on sale. I absolutely loved the sound quality from those headphones and used them exclusively for many years. For the last 15 years I've had a job where I spend most of my time at my desk, so I have headphones on all day. After the 2nd or 3rd set of foams on those Realistics disintegrated, I finally retired them to home/PC/Guitar practice use and bought a pair of Grado SR60 headphones. After I wore out a couple foams on those, I upgraded to the larger donut-style foams and used them for many years until I heard about the Monoprice 8323 headphones and picked them up in hopes of once again hearing something under 100hz. I've been using these headphones for a while now, but I finally got fed up with the lack of comfort and the mediocre sound quality. Recently I started researching my upgrade path, and had my options somewhat narrowed. I decided that once the Christmas deals started to drop, I'd get my new stuff.
I live in a small area, so there's nowhere for me to audition anything, so I was at the mercy of the Internet to make my decisions. I spent a lot of time here and using my Google-fu to help me decide. For headphones I had pretty much decided on the Hifiman HE-400s or the Sennheiser HD600. They were at the upper end of what I wanted to spend, but both seemed to be well regarded as being neutral and low in distortion. The problem with narrowing it down to these two sets is that they're pretty much at opposite ends of the spectrum with respect to amplifier requirements.
I had pretty much narrowed my amp/dac focus on the Schiit Modi & Magnus II because they seem to be well engineered, well made, and I very much appreciate that they're American made. Because Schiit doesn't run sales, my plan was to grab the headphones when the sales hit, then get the Schiit stack after.
Then on Black Friday, I found a great deal on the Monoprice amp/dac and decided that for $55 it was well worth a try. I'm not sure that this will be my final setup, but the price was too good to pass up for now.
Now for headphones. Thanks to Head-fi's main page, I was able to jump on the great deal on the HD600s that B&H is running. I was leaning toward the Hifiman headphones over the Sennheisers, but at $250 it was awfully hard to pass up.
I can't wait to get this stuff in and start experiencing some better sound. I've had a lot of fun doing my homework, most of which I did here on head-fi. This is a great forum and I'm looking forward to contributing.
