So I've decided on getting the hd700 as my first pair of open back cans . Going to be using it mostly to listen to Spotify on my iPhone and to play some cod on Xbox 1 . Been looking at the fiio e18 & dragonfly red , but tube amps have always interested me .
Up until now I've been using a pair of SE 535's to listen to music with one of those clip fiio amps & a couple of turtle beach headsets for gaming . After years of stalking the threads I still don't know about 80% of what you guys talk about so any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated lol .
While I don't have a iPhone or Xbox these are not devices I would recommend to drive the HD-700. A friend who used to use Spotify premium service had some music loaded on his LG phone and when we compared it to 320cbr MP3 files on my Fiio X3 the files were clearly cleaner and more dynamic sounding. The HD-700 paired with the Fiio X3 was my GF's choice for portable tunes for almost a year, its a great pairing for portable listening. Since I've never tried the e18 or dragonfly red maybe someone else can comment on them paired with the HD-700.
I would highly recommend a tube amp with the HD-700, as the poster above noted the LD-mk2 is a good start, suggest looking at Garage 1217 amps also.