Hey all. New member. I found this forum after ordering a new pair of headphones and a DAC/amp. I know, backwards right? The original plan was a new set of speakers and AV amp for my house, but a discussion with my wife re "noise" and a hard look at my bank account and lifestyle convinced me a new pair of headphones was a much better idea.
The last time I seriously looked at audio equipment was 25 years ago when I had a huge collection of CDs and LPs. My stereo + speakers weighed at least a three hundred pounds.
That's not how I listen to music anymore- usually it's with headphones and walking the dog is my favorite time to do so. Over the years I've owned quite a few headphones / earbuds. The absolute best sound of all of them was a pair of etymotics driven by a cheap headphone amp and sourced from a player which could manage Ogg Vorbis files. It sounded great but there were some problems- (1) I rarely manage to go for more than 6 months before I lose earbuds. The etymotics are long gone, probably left on an airplane. (2) My OGG player is so old that it actually uses a hard drive and can't store very much of my old digitized collection. Battery life at this point is measured in seconds. (3) my iPhone is way more convenient to carry around and I can stream music to it, which is fantastic except the sound quality is unimpressive. Over the years convenience has taken precedence over performance (cheap earbuds so when I lose them it doesn't cost much) and iTunes because it's there already on my phone.
What changed? I found my old Bithead headphone amp and my old Sennheiser HD497s. The sound was so much better than what I've been listening to that I sat there entranced for about 1/2 hour. Then something popped in the amp and I lost the left channel.
So, I decided if I was going to go for best quality headphone sound that I could reasonably afford, it would require the following:
Audio source: I needed something fairly low loss but able to fit within the crowded memory of my iPhone. Streaming is really the only option here. Luckily I found Tidal, which is capable of streaming very high quality sound.
DA conversion: The iPhone headphone out isn't bad, but running from the iPhone through my old Bithead amp to the HD497s was much better (until it fried) so I figured a DAC/amp would probably be worth it if it could make that much difference in an inexpensive pair of phones. I picked a Teac HA P-50 DAC / amp because it would work with the Lightning port on the phone and seems to have all the right stuff. At $200 I probably could have skipped it / gone cheaper, but I guess the reviews sucked me in.
Transducers: The HD497s sound actually very good but the 10 foot cable is a PITA and was starting to go. Also they look stupid as hell when walking in public. Reading a lot of reviews suggested I could improve the sound and looks a lot if I stepped up to around $200 and so Audio Technica ATH-MSR7 headphones.
Anyway, I suspect I'll soon be looking at tube amps and even more expensive phones, so hello!
