No posts for 6 months? I feel a need to bump this thread back into existence.
The thread has been very useful to me in searching for the best reasonably-priced phones I can find -- i.e., less than $400. The search was necessitated by an acute cochlear injury that left me nearly deaf for 24-48 hours and has been slow to resolve. It initially left me with hyperacusia and some terribly annoying extraneous sounds. I most enjoy listening to classical crossover and operatic sopranos, but those vocal parts have been the ones that seem to engender an extra sound I'll compare to static. It's now going on 5 weeks, and I'm nearly back to normal, but there were some very tense moments a month ago wondering if my days of enjoying music might be over forever. During that time, I was seeking ways (a little wildly if I'm honest) to make music sound like it used to.
I found that my computer has a digital output, so I started by running an optical cable to a DAC that, indeed, made things sound better (phones
and speakers), but the improvement was so slow, albeit steady, that I found myself perusing all the threads on Head-Fi that had were titled with specific headphone makes and models. Now, as it turns out, I have owned MDR-7506 phones for about three years, and I've always been very happy with them, but because they cost me only $80, I assumed that there would be something that would be better but still under $200. I received the ATH M40x from Amazon and put them on expectantly. They were, however, significantly inferior to my current headphones. I gave them a few hours of burn-in without noticeable effect and sent them right back to Amazon. There was way too much bass, and I couldn't prevent it from interfering with mids and vocals with equalizers. I tried some QC20s that my brother recommends highly. They're amazing for in-the-ear phones, and I actually purchased my own for mobile situations, but they are not MDR-7506s. Same for Sennheiser 558s.
Sometimes, the answer you're looking for is right under your nose all the time. After a very interesting 5 weeks, I'm coming to the conclusion that there's probably little use in continuing the searching. I think that for the kind of listening I do, in which exaggerated bass must be avoided, the Sony MDR-7506 may be the perfect sweet spot, especially considering that its bass capabilities are more than adequate for the rock and pop I listen to. I still need a second set of phones for use in a different part of the house, though, so I've decided that my next purchase will be a MDR-V6 just to see if, as some say, they may be marginally better for protracted listening. Whatever the result, I'm sure I won't be returning them.
So, I want to extend sincere thanks to all those knowledgable folks who posted in this thread and from whom I learned so much. I still have two questions, though.
1 -- For the second set of Sony phones, I'll be buying an amp because their input will be from an iPhone or iPads. I have my eye on the
Fiio A3 (successor to their E11). The only cost limitation is that I'd like to spend less than $200, and I'd prefer that the amp be portable. Is this A3 a good consideration?
2 -- The DAC I installed between my Mac and my phones is the
Orei DA21. It's billed only as a DAC, Orei makes no claims for it as an amplifier, but the signal it puts out is very strong, so strong that I had to insert an inline volume control between the DAC and the MDR-7506s. It's externally powered, and I think it's obvious that it does amplify as well as convert the digital signal. I must say that the Sony phones sound really good in this setup, but my question is whether a dedicated amp could add anything here.
Ron
