Hi all. I started my head-fi journey mostly lurking, with a handful of mid-fi IEMs, driven out of my cellphone and cheap DAP. Then I made the mistake of asking for advice for my first CIEMs. I got great advice, auditioned the JH13 which sounded super awesome, and thought that's it, mate. Endgame!
Nope. One deadly question follows another.
"And endgame CIEM deserves an endgame DAP."
Sold my FiiO X5ii for an AK100ii. Freaking happy. But then a disturbing thought appears.
"Let's dabble with cables. Eke out the last 5% in SQ."
Bought some upgrade SPC cables, great build quality and sound. But the deadly thought emerges now. Never go with stock.
"Why are all these people stacking their stuff up?"
So I researched amps, DAC/amps, desktop setups. Bought a CEntrance HiFi-M8. Great DAC/amp. I now have a stack.
"Now let's try powering some headphones with this baby."
Never having had headphones before, I started with the popular M50x and found the sound muddy and unlistenable. Oh dear. The headphones journey ended up being really short but precise. I got the HE400i and LCD-X. Endgame reached. Happy forever.
This would be my endgame portable setup for awhile. But THEN...
"I remembered how much I enjoyed portability."
So boom, not one but TWO CIEMs ordered. You might ask why. One is a soundstage monster going on the cheap on Massdrop, one is a bass monster on discount, with really nice mother-of-pearl faceplates! And of course they both need their custom cables! You can see my reasoning skills getting less and less convincing.
That's it for now, about 400 posts here, sharing and exchanging, occasional buying and selling. I read about an amazing system and join that thread. I read about some comparisons to equally excellent products, and learn more about it in respective threads, relentlessly pursuing excellence in sound. I don't see any signs of stopping yet. So what's the lesson learnt? Don't ask deadly questions!
So once again, the oft-repeated phrase.
Welcome to Head-Fi, sorry about your wallet. Lol.
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