[Medikit]

I decided that I'd like to get some better sound and given that I will be using my laptop pretty frequently I need a combination of portability and noise isolation. Because of this I'm pretty interested in earbuds. I'm willing to spend as much as $200 and the E4c's are really standing out to me. Unfortunetly it seems like I'm not really going to be working with the best source in the world and in about a year I'll probably be picking up an ipod which also has a sordid past with the E4c (according to posts I've research).

My laptop is an IBM Thinkpad T43 and has a Soundmax soundcard. I'm not interested in adding another soundcard unless it's extremely portable. For this reason the Turtle Beach AAM does interest me but I'm not sure exactly what it will be able to do for me as I haven't even tried decent headphones yet.

Anyone have some recommendations for me based on my system? Is the E4c too much power for my little laptop? Am I silly to be spending almost $200 when I might not even notice a difference compared to an E2c?

 

[HFat]

I've got a similar (identical?) card in my R51... it does a decent job of powering my "OMG 300 ohmz you NEED an amp" HD580s. It's obviously not an ideal source but it's pretty good. I don't have any really current-hungry phones to throw at it but I think it should be able to power an IEM adequately (I know nothing about IEM but they're designed to be driven out of portable devices, right?).
The noise floor is not as low as one could wish so that could be a problem but it's still way lower than on certain other laptops I've owned.

My general approach on this issue is that you can always upgrade your source later.

 

[Medikit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HFat My general approach on this issue is that you can always upgrade your source later.

Yeah, that's going to be my approach as well. It's a shame that they can't do a little better when we're spending as much as we are on these things. Do you ever notice any hissing or anything with that?

 

[HFat]

I'm quite happy with my Thinkpad actually. It's got easily the best sound of any of the laptops I've owned and I didn't pay that much for it in the first place... possibly a 20%-25% markup over similar no-names and I've got additional features as well as build quality and durability (hopefully) to show for it.
The volume control sucks big time however! And the gfx card doesn't like FS2Open... Why doesn't anyone build perfect laptops?

I haven't heard any hiss. I can hear static though, but I've got to push the volume control and to listen for it to hear anything so it's not much of a concern for me... but I figured it might be a problem with IEMs if they are as sensitive and isolating as I'm imagining (again, I've no experience in that aera).
The noises that really bother me come from the hard-drive and the fans.