[Mods12]

Which one of these should i get i raised my budget a little and narrowed down to these. If you have other suggestions let me know

 

[MalVeauX]

Quote:

Which one of these should i get i raised my budget a little and narrowed down to these. If you have other suggestions let me know

HM5 with a Fiio E10.
 
Very best,
 

 

[Mods12]

How do the m50s and hm5 compare without an amp

 

[MalVeauX]

Quote:

How do the m50s and hm5 compare without an amp

The HM5 sounds linear and has a good sound stage.
The M50's sound like a bassy thing with harsh treble and a small sound stage.
 
The amp has nothing to do with their comparison. The amp is merely to power them to their specified driving level. The HM5 has higher impedance and needs more power to be driven properly. The M50 is an efficient headphone and will run from a potato. But if you're getting a decent little DAC you can get an AMP too (Fiio E10 for example) and it is a moot point as it will power most headphones under 300ohms anyways.
 
Very best,
 

 

[Mods12]

Quote:

The HM5 sounds linear and has a good sound stage.
The M50's sound like a bassy thing with harsh treble and a small sound stage.
 
The amp has nothing to do with their comparison. The amp is merely to power them to their specified driving level. The HM5 has higher impedance and needs more power to be driven properly. The M50 is an efficient headphone and will run from a potato. But if you're getting a decent little DAC you can get an AMP too (Fiio E10 for example) and it is a moot point as it will power most headphones under 300ohms anyways.
 
Very best,
 

Ill probably get HM5. i will be powering them from my Computer, not an ipod or portable device. I wont need an amp to power them if i use in my laptop or pc right
 
 

 

[MalVeauX]

Quote:

Ill probably get HM5. i will be powering them from my Computer, not an ipod or portable device. I wont need an amp to power them if i use in my laptop or pc right
 
 

 
I would highly suggest you get a discreet DAC/AMP, or use a sound card with a known quality DAC/AMP chipset built into it if using PC.
 
The reason being, the onboard solutions of laptops/PC's are generally pretty poor, to simply average. They tend to be noisy. They also don't provide a ton of power (some can provide adequate power though).

A nice USB DAC/AMP will work on laptops & PC's.
 
There's no reason getting a nice resolving headphone if you're using a noisy low quality DAC (source), especially if you're using nice quality digital media (music). If you're using old low bit rate MP3's, well, it won't matter what you do, they'll be awful either way.
 
Budget with good quality: Sound card (Xonar DG $30). USB DAC/AMP (Fiio E10 $80).
 
Very best,
 
 

 

[manveru]

 
Quote:

There's no reason getting a nice resolving headphone if you're using a noisy low quality DAC (source), especially if you're using nice quality digital media (music). If you're using old low bit rate MP3's, well, it won't matter what you do, they'll be awful either way.

Well, I wouldn't say there's no reason. Even driven directly from a laptop/pc, upgraded headphones will still sound better (assuming they can be driven ok) than whatever he's using now, which I assume is worse. I agree that upgrading the source as well will likely make a very appreciable difference, but I just hope he won't have to kill himself to get a card or DAC, since he's already stretching his budget. Then again, this is Head-fi.

 
Well, in any case I find the HM5 to be extremely easy to drive as well. Yes, it should improve with an amp, but it should still work fine out of a computer too. IME, the 6 dB difference in sensitivity over the M50 will make a much bigger difference than 26 ohms of impedance, in terms of how easy they are to drive. It will however make them more susceptible to noise from a potentially noisy computer jack.

 

[Mods12]

i am using crap turtle beach x12 i got them a while a go when i used to play xbox but i dont anymore so i want to get a decent pair of headphones for under 150

 

[MalVeauX]

Quote:

 

Well, I wouldn't say there's no reason. Even driven directly from a laptop/pc, upgraded headphones will still sound better (assuming they can be driven ok) than whatever he's using now, which I assume is worse. I agree that upgrading the source as well will likely make a very appreciable difference, but I just hope he won't have to kill himself to get a card or DAC, since he's already stretching his budget. Then again, this is Head-fi.

 
Well, in any case I find the HM5 to be extremely easy to drive as well. Yes, it should improve with an amp, but it should still work fine out of a computer too. IME, the 6 dB difference in sensitivity over the M50 will make a much bigger difference than 26 ohms of impedance, in terms of how easy they are to drive. It will however make them more susceptible to noise from a potentially noisy computer jack.

 
Take an low end headphone and listen to a normal quality stream of MP3 from Pandora.
Do the same thing with a high-resolving headphone.
Use youtube at anything less than 720p if you wish.
 
Tell me which one you think sounds better. Focus on it. Hearing hiss and compression isn't a better experience.
 
Very best,
 
 

 

[jackwess]

Quote:

i am using crap turtle beach x12 i got them a while a go when i used to play xbox but i dont anymore so i want to get a decent pair of headphones for under 150

The HM5's will do fine if gaming is a priority. I have used them when playing Battlefield 3 and they did a good job. Despite being closed soundstage is spacious. 
 

 

[manveru]

 
Quote:

Take an low end headphone and listen to a normal quality stream of MP3 from Pandora.
Do the same thing with a high-resolving headphone.
Use youtube at anything less than 720p if you wish.
 
Tell me which one you think sounds better. Focus on it. Hearing hiss and compression isn't a better experience.
 
Very best,

Indeed, that is very true. All I was trying to say is that unless he's only listening to YouTube rips and 128 kbps mp3s, getting something like the HM5 wouldn't be completely pointless. A typical iTunes download would probably even sound pretty good to someone who's never heard anything better and has less demanding tastes. It's not like there isn't room for improvement at any time in the future, and I don't think it would be unlistenable in the meantime. Anyways, I realize I've kind of been blabbering about hypotheticals, sorry about that. It's really up to Mods12 and whatever his real life situation is.