[kraken2109]

The best way to save money is to actually spend some time learning about sound instead of reading what people say on headfi.

 

[JoeDoe]

  The best way to save money is to actually spend some time learning about sound instead of reading what people say on headfi.

Amen to that! I'll confess that many of my purchases have been purely based on hype and not research. 

 

[saxelrod92]

When I first got a pair of over ear headphones, DT 990 32 ohm, I just plugged them straight into the computer/ipod and still used AAC 256kb songs bought on itunes. Used that for about two years thinking I had the best most reference set up ever lol. Then the left driver started having some minor issues, but it got me looking again, found out about the denon d5000 when it was only 400 bucks, got it, and suddenly I became aware of the fact that what I thought was the best could actually be a lot better..........that was the start........

See from there I started spending more time on head-fi and I wasn't even a member yet lol. After one year using the denons I couldn't help but feel like they needed a little bit of amplification because my computer is maxed out and only barely hits listening volumes with foobar. Got a Fiio E11 but then the soundstage felt smaller, so I began looking more. Long story short I now have a LCD 2, the burson soloist sl and schiit uberfrost.......lol.

What Iv'e learned in the 3-4 years of lurking/being a member on here is to change how you perceive your setup. If you listen to your music and setup with the mindset that there is something potentially much better, esp after reading some of the forums on here, then you will never feel happy enough with your current setup. If you instead do a little research into audio technology and exercise your ears for hearing quality sound, then you can pretty easily just save up and get the best setup for your tastes, but without going beyond the ridiculous point of diminishing returns. Maybe along the lines of what I have currently, because I can honestly say that I dont feel the need or desire to upgrade. Yes I sometimes start going down that dark path if I spend too much time here, but then I just step back and realize that I'm using a 1k headphone that in essence is considered one of the best headphones ever made right now, without going double the price/dif sound signature. That to me feels incredibly reassuring to know any difference would be so minor that unless I was looking for that difference with careful hearing, I would probably not notice it much, at the very least that difference would be just that, different, not better. Plus paying twice the money for that minor difference is where I can easily feel like, I think I'm good for a long while lol.

The only thing I even will remotely consider upgrading in the "near" future would be the amp, just for the sake of having more power considering the type of headphones I use. Even though what I have is absolutely great for them.

Oh and for whoever mentioned getting flac off bandcamp, that is an amazing way to get quality, legal, and pretty cheap/free full albums of amazingly talented artists. The trick is they dont have a huge genre variety, but if you happen to like the genres that bandcamp has artists for, then you will be treated to plenty of free albums or 2 dollar albums in full lossless, at the worst its 10-12 dollars like itunes. If you like EDM then check out monstercat on bandcamp, every month or so they release a collection of 30 or so songs for 10 bucks, this last time for the first two hours they even gave it away for free. Like I personally love using bandcamp for lossless, otherwise its ripping CDs or the worst using a torrent which can be unknown ripping quality.

Oh and I think one thing not mentioned on the original list, CABLES haha. If you catch yourself looking at a cable that costs the same price or more than the headphones that will be attached to them or dac/amp, then just say no. lol. I just use 30 dollar range cables from audioquest or similar company, its better quality than non name cheap stuff, but without feeling like you spend lots of money for something you would hardly notice.
 
Last quick thing I forgot to mention, it took me a couple months after getting the denons (which is when I switched to lossless) before I actually heard the difference, if anything lossless on my plugged straight into a laptop setup sounded worse lol. It took a few months to realize that I just wasn't used to hearing all the bits in music, but once I got used to that and I A/B tested between mp3 and flac I heard the minor difference, it mainly being that flac felt like it had more noise at all times, I mean that like sound was playing at the times where in the mp3 version it seemed either silent or emptier. I could tell whre the compression removed bits from the file, but dont get me wrong its still a minor difference, but for me its like a "you cant unsee it" thing. Don't go out of your way for lossless, esp if your setup can't notice that difference, but if you can easily find lossless like when using bandcamp or something like that, then go for it. I should probably mention I only have 2000+ songs 80% in flac and they only take up 50gb on my 1tb hard drive lol. I dont collect large amounts of music quickly so this works for me.

Alright thats my speech for now, I give full permission for anyone to call me out if anything except the amp changes in a year from now, and even then I don't plan on changing the amp in that time frame. Ok I hope this may help out those who are/were in a similar place as I was so to save your wallets from total destruction, and to remember the reason we came here was so we could enjoy our music/audio more WITHOUT thinking about the gear haha.

peace to you all.

 

[davidsh]

I'd like to see you doing an ABX test with 320 kbit/s lossy vs. flac. I doubt I could make anything meaningful out of it.
 
Quote:

 

  The best way to save money is to actually spend some time learning about sound instead of reading what people say on headfi.

Amen to that! I'll confess that many of my purchases have been purely based on hype and not research. 

Not when you spend an hour with 009 and you're like, 'How can I get as close as possible with the funds that my savings would provide?!?' 
 
Am specifically looking at HE-6, HD800 and the new Jade 2, maybe if I save up for the next 1 ½ year... That'd be something between 2-3k.