[nikongod]

Im fairly satisfied with my system.

My solution is actually fairly simple although time consuming and perhaps slightly expensive to reproduce. In hindsight, boomana's oft given advice is just buy expensive gear. Thats where I am now, and taking this advice would have saved significant ammounts of money on shipping worthless junk around, and random experimentation on gear that everyone told me was not too hot. I still like the DIY stuff and would happily experiment with that even in the fact that I have only ever lost money doing so.

buy 12 headphones. sell the 4 you dont like and buy 4 others. then buy 4 more for a total of 20. of these there are probably 4 that I regularly listen to, and 6 that I occasionally listen to. The other 10 are ones that have a cool and special sound that I only want occasionally but want badly enough not to sell, rotate through them anyways and sample a few FOTM's because thats what we do here.

The whole amp thing is a bit trickier, but follows the same themes:
buy an amp. sell it. buy 2 amps. sell 1, but build 3 or 4. sell 2 of the DIY amps, build a single better one. sell that. buy another diy kit. build it. upgrade it to an absurd level and put it on the shelf for a few years. buy an amp for 1 headphone (the melos for the HP-1000) and upgrade it per the various instructions posted about. buy and sell few more amps which are not worth mention. buy mpx3 toaster. buy singlepower extreme. Sell MPX3. Sell extreme, buy supra. buy a different MPX3 while waiting for the supra. supra comes (finally) sell MPX3. sell supra. buy truly cheap 708b amp, and upgrade it. sell supra. build silver ghost. build "the small transformer coupled amp with one tube in an enclosure that did not come out quite as hammertoned as I would have liked" give away 708b because there was no interest to buy it but its now got a great home. thats about where I stand now.

Somewhere in there I experimented with stax headphones but sold them for dynamics. Im happier with my dynamics, but kind of wish I still had the stax so Im getting back into them.

the whole source thing is a bit more complicated.
it started out with various grades of portable crap.
then I won a mildly busted mccormack cd player in a raffle and fixed it. it was awesome, but it has succumbed to age and is no longer fixable by me (bummer, I really liked it)
buy MDHT constantine.
buy analog setup (rega P3, bottlehead seduction)
buy zhalou and mod it.
sell constantine
sell P3, buy vpi scout
sell zhalou
put the scout on the shelf and build a DIY TT, phono-stage is the same.
buy TPA COD parts. be a lazy bum and dont put them together even a full year and a half later.
buy e-sound E5
buy beresford clone DAC and mod it. sell it.
buy adcom because it is budget friendly.

Its a long and winding journey with some times where it appears that I have gone downhill in my efforts to reach the top, but overall Im pretty happy. My digital source could stand some upgrading, but thats ok: its pretty satisfying as it stands now.

 

[ABathingApe]

I'm very happy with my mid-fi gear. I heard some HD595's out of a cambridge on the weekend, and now I'm even more excited for my HF-2's as I have never owned Grado's or open cans. 2 things are on my list that are a must are a nice tube amp, and a decent pair of Martin Logan's or Quads

. But those can be purchased years from now.

 

[BigTony]

Hi-F1 is as much a 'hobby' as a means to an end!
My speaker rig is great, my home cinema the envy of all that see it, my headphone rig is pure audio bliss - but i still like to meddle. I guess we don't upgrade because we need to, its more because we like to - perfection is best unobtainable as it robs us of desire.

 

[aimlink]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nikongod /img/forum/go_quote.gif Im fairly satisfied with my system. My solution is actually fairly simple although time consuming and perhaps slightly expensive to reproduce. In hindsight, boomana's oft given advice is just buy expensive gear. Thats where I am now, and taking this advice would have saved significant ammounts of money on shipping worthless junk around, and random experimentation on gear that everyone told me was not too hot. I still like the DIY stuff and would happily experiment with that even in the fact that I have only ever lost money doing so.

I enjoyed your testimony.

But don't you think you can't truly appreciate what you have without having heard the other stuff you felt you didn't really need to get and that may have been a waste of money?

 

[aimlink]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigTony /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi-F1 is as much a 'hobby' as a means to an end! My speaker rig is great, my home cinema the envy of all that see it, my headphone rig is pure audio bliss - but i still like to meddle. I guess we don't upgrade because we need to, its more because we like to - perfection is best unobtainable as it robs us of desire.

Desire will always be there. It's a matter of how you direct that desire. The desire to experience that perfect sound is an elusive and frightfully expensive one in a consumer driven industry where there's always some new and ground breaking product that's out. It's getting worse as the years pass.

 

[john53]

Nikongod,i got dizzy after reading all your post

 

[Bengt77]

I don't own a headphone amp, nor do I own any headphone that's considered to be a truly high-end one. That's not to say that I'm not very satisfied with my setup, because I certainly am. I'm really glad I invested in some good Audio-Technica headphones, since they're so easy to drive. Had I went for Sennheiser or beyerdynamic, then an amp would have almost been a necessity. Both my full-sized headphones sound really, really good. Not only out of the headphone-out of my receiver, but also from the audio-out of my MacBook. I'm really happy with them, and thus with my setup.

 

[krmathis]

I am perfectly satisfied with my home rig.

The Isabellina -> Signature 30.2 / β22 -> K1000 rig is pretty much everything I have strived for in years, and I do not really see where I can take any further steps. The SR-007BL get little use these days, but I do not see myself parting with it since it was my first serious headphone (replaced a Grado SR80).

A bit to go on the office rig, but I am working on it.

 

[TopPop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dogbane /img/forum/go_quote.gif Unlike the majority of posters here, my source is an Onkyo CD player (not an ipod or computer soundcard), and my amp is the headphone output of an Onkyo receiver. Given that, do you think I would still obtain significant gains in performance by purchasing a new amp or DAC?

Not necessarily. It depends upon the quality of both the internal DAC and the onboard headphone amp... there are some pretty sweet sounding CD player headphone outputs out there!

 

[Pyriel0]

I am happy with my setup of buffalo -> firstwatt f1 -> K1000/Dx1000

I have have 1-2 upgrades left to do on the dac just because its the first model buffalo. I'm ordering the counterpoint output stage + all 0.1% resistors(got the list saved on mouser

) to insure the output stage is the best it can be instead of using the IVY(opamps). After that I might use better power supplies for the dac/counterpoints but I am very skeptical of that.

Anyways I started last November with the citypulse dac/ shanling ph100 / k701. Then bought another ph100 to use them both balanced to run the k1000(and bought it). Went to a meet and heard lots of top tier stuff + my k1000 on better stuff than I had. Did some research and ended up with the buffalo and f1. So it took me about 3/4 of a year of research and a meet to figure it out. Just bought the Dx1000 a couple weeks ago for a fun closed can + it doesn't leak much noise for when others are around(I listen to a lot of metal with screaming).

I am a fan of buy big once and be done with it. After I got the initial setup(k701), I knew I was going down "the path" and decided to sprint right to the end instead of buying/selling all the time trying every different headphone.

Only thing I still really want to hear is a top end stax setup at a meet one day.

 

[koven]

I'm fairly satisfied with my setup, but like others have said, it has not stopped me from looking to upgrade. The curse of this forum!

 

[AudioDwebe]

iPod; iBud; Done!

 

[leeperry]

Essence STX w/ nice op-amps(such as the LT1358) > genuine leather Manufaktur DT770/600Ω = done

 

[Raptor34]

Perfectly satisfied with my current setup. I love it

 

[nor_spoon]

I am satisfied with what I have. I like to think that I have found components which play well together and my ears are happy most of the time, except for all the horrendous recordings out there, but that is what it is. The good ones really shine.

Another important thing is, considering my budget, I suppose I am pretty much in the sweet spot regarding diminishing returns.

Now, I feel more like tweaking the "little" pieces and details. I have no urge to swap the bigger components as of now, but who knows in the future.