Head-Fi Lo-Fi: basics & the joy of music
May 30, 2010 at 4:28 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 31

anetode

Headphoneus Supremus
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Liking both music and technology leads to a weary ambivalence as you wonder which one's the means and which one's the end. I've lurked over a variety of dense threads over head-fi and diy forums, but each devolves into post after post of arguments over the specifics of a technical measurement or aesthetic preference. No one ever seems to want to admit the lower bounds for listening enjoyment.

During my time frequenting head-fi I've grown spoiled to the extent of using an outboard DAC to feed a power-hungry Stax amp, which in turn energizes a ridiculously good sounding electrostatic headphone. The rig delivers just the sound I want, albeit with an exorbitant electricity bill and a decidedly "tweako audiophile" look to the system. But I don't mind slumming it with a car stereo or a beater set of Sennheiser HD25s powered by a sandisk clip. Hell, given the choice of listening to music over a thirty-year-old fisher price tape deck and listening to indoor/outdoor traffic, I'd still tune in
basshead.gif

 
So let's start a lo-fi thread: what's your basic necessity for enjoying music. I'm speaking of Koss portables and muddy-sounding Best Buy all-in-ones. What's the crappiest system you've owned that has allowed you to indulge in music with an acceptable amount of intrusive distortion or frequency deviation?
 
May 30, 2010 at 4:48 PM Post #2 of 31
Minimum is probably KSC75 with a Clip that has all my favorite albums.
 
I used to enjoy music on crappy Sony sport buds, but since the KSC75 only costs $3 more, why settle?
 
May 30, 2010 at 4:53 PM Post #3 of 31
My dishwashing and housework rig - iPod to PortaPros.
 
May 30, 2010 at 5:57 PM Post #5 of 31


Quote:
My dishwashing and housework rig - iPod to PortaPros.


Dishwashing rig, now that's what I'm talking about!
 
I have a feeling that most listening takes place in acoustically hostile situations, so the bare minimum of portable headphone + portable media player is the ideal head-fi rig.
 
There's the delicate balance of ambient noise attenutation, cost, potential for hearing damage over the long haul, etc., but those things would make it just another sound science thread :p
 
May 30, 2010 at 7:54 PM Post #9 of 31
at work sometimes, if im there alone, i cant wear my jh-13's and i plug my ipod into a set of free dell computer speakers. in the end i love high fidelity music, but it really is more about the more for me, i can jam out to almost anything. Though for some reason i can take lower quality speakers than headphones. I wouldnt even attempt to listen to iBuds, they sound horrid. Though those free dell computer speakers while not great are passable.
 
May 30, 2010 at 9:15 PM Post #10 of 31
Any old radio or whatever. Sometimes it's even nice to have the rustic feel of a bit of static, although clearly it depends on the music. Some stuff is easier to listen to on bad equipment, and some stuff just sounds like nothing. Ironically, it's probably the music that already has distortion (heavy metal or what have you) which suffers the most from excess static, and classical music which suffers the least, despite it being significantly harder to reproduce perfectly.

Anyone in this thread who says they couldn't stand a little static in an old radio, likes equipment, not music.
 
Jun 2, 2010 at 7:36 AM Post #11 of 31
Clip+ and cheap MX buds, works very well for outdoor activities and also falling asleep.
 
Jun 2, 2010 at 3:21 PM Post #12 of 31
On the go or when doing housework a clip with some ksc75s is perfectly acceptable.  And I also enjoy listening to my basic car stereo - although it can't be anything too subtle because of road noise.
 
Jun 3, 2010 at 12:29 PM Post #13 of 31
My "at work" is pushing it; clip with one earbud in, turned down low as it will go. I think it works because most of the listening experience is left to the imagination.
 
Next worst is the garage "rig," which consists of either the clip or a smart-phone plugged in to some crappy computer speakers. I couldn't bare to put anything nice out there though, there's enough metal dust and cutting fluid on them it's a wonder they still work at all.
 
There is a lower limit though: I had to upgrade the car stereo. It sounded like someone was playing a fisher price radio into a sewer pipe.
 
 
Jun 3, 2010 at 8:51 PM Post #14 of 31
So long as it is not too colored, I enjoy stock headphones and portable cd player quite a lot, it's just my mind has to resort to a lot of imagination, like a kid pretending a brick is a firetruck. Good mental exercise. What I can't tolerate is seriously degraded sound quality from windows kmixer, way too colored headphones or source.
 
Jun 3, 2010 at 9:36 PM Post #15 of 31
I could possibly be convinced to stoop so low into low-fi as to actually use my HD800's... for the sake of the music, of course
 

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