[BIGWEEBEE]

Hey all,

My first post at head-fi!

(Why didn't I join sooner!?) I'm currently evaluating a new @ home / semi-portable setup. I'm looking at the HD 650's paired up with HeadRoom's micro stack (amp + DAC). My main source for audio is my PowerBook (with most of my audio encoded at 192-256 kbps, but still with the ocassional 128 kbps file floating around), and I wouldn't want my line-out to prove to be the achilles heel of my new set up. Also, I'd love to eventually throw in a cable uprgrade, but I'm not sure from which company. (I had just assumed Cardas was the way to go...) I'm hoping that this rig will be something to last me a while (at least through grad school), since the grand total clocks in around $1050 before tax + s/h. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Oliver :)]

Welcome to Head-Fi, sorry about your wallet

From what you write in your post I would say that the "achilles heel", or rather bottle neck of your system will much rather be the bitrate of your music. The system you are looking at will easily lay out the shortcomings of compression. You may want to put an external HDD on the list since the urge to go lossless will come.

Cable upgrade - which cable? mini 2 mini? There were endless threads about those lately, just search.

 

[Norbert]

Oliver is right. I have an Echo Indigo to a Corda amp (see my sig) and I clearly notice the degradation at the bitrates you mentioned. I hope you won't mind reripping all your stuff to lossless. Otherwise you've clearly identified a great rig that you can grow with. Forget about the cable upgrade for now until after you re-rip.

 

[BIGWEEBEE]

Thanks guys. As for the cabling, I was speaking both about the mini to mini and the Senn HD 650 recabling. I do have an external HD, but most of that is dedicated to all of my anime.

I currently listen to alot of my music through my logitech Z-2300 speakers and my ER-4p headphones, but just how much more revealing will this rig be in comparison to the ER-4p's?