[system11]

Hi, I did a lot of reading various threads and guides on here, but I'm right back where I started at this point and would like some suggestions.
 
I listen to my music mostly on a portable player (Cowon D2, X7 when it arrives), everything is FLAC or 320k mp3.  I like a lot of types of music, mostly prog rock though - about the only genre I don't listen to is techno/dance in its many forms.  I like a warm sound with good bass on tracks that demand it, the highs can't be too harsh as I have tinnitus and too much raspy treble sets it off.  Having said that I don't want the treble to be flat, just not drilling into my head on every cymbal.  Closed circumaural are a must as I use them in an office environment and don't like to subject other people to my music.
 
I currently use Panasonic HTX7 which work fine unamped at volume 10-14/40, I'd like to avoid having to add an amp - budget is under $1000.  If it helps at all I always hated Japanese speakers back in the day for being too harsh, and preferred the sound that came from old 70s Mordaunt Short and Leak speakers - if anyone remembers those you'll probably remember the sound I mean!
 
Thanks

 

[system11]

Been reading more reviews here and there - would the Denon AH-D7000s work properly with a Cowon media player (30mW +30mW at 16 ohms) without an amp?  Is there something else I should look at too?

 

[system11]

Well if anyone was interested I settled on buying some Denon AHA100s, seemed like a good risk between the positive comments from non-amped portable users, and the ability to easily resell them if I don't like them.  I'll post my impressions when they arrive, probably after Christmas though at this point.  I wanted to pull the trigger now as we have a VAT increase coming in January.

 

[desktophifi]

Didnt see your thread before man, i guess its too late to recommend something.
 
I look forward for impressions on your hp's. 

 

[system11]

They arrived today - absolutely fantastic, lucky guess I think as these nail exactly the type of sound I was looking for.  I had a number of EQ settings applied for my HTXs, but I'm running these flat and they sound spot on where the source is high quality.  Warm, treble not drilling into my skull, midrange slightly stronger than I'm used to so I might EQ that a little (will allow the customary 50 hrs of use before playing with settings as I see a lot of people believe burn-in is real, I'm not qualified to judge yet), bass is perfect (Bob Marley put a huge smile on my face), isolation is exactly what I wanted - people can't hear it but I can hear moderate amounts of nearby sound which is ideal at work.
 
They really do show up flaws in the source though - without exception all the newer CDs (encoded to 320k) I've listened to sound harsh and forced compared to all the old ones I've encoded (also 320k), I guess the compression is being made extremely obvious.  The best example of this is Out Of The Blue by ELO, I have the original pressing of the album and the 'remaster' as flac files I made a few days ago.  The remaster just sounds loud and blaring compared to the original.  Opening the files in a wav editor showed the remaster doesn't have any peaks, it's -all- peaks.  I did ELO's Time and Genesis' Trick Of The Tail at the same time - again in both cases I have old versions and remasters - same story, the old masters sound fantastic and the new ones sound ugly and raw.  I can see a lot of stuff I did at 192k some years ago is going to need re-ripping and either flac or 320k encoding depending on how often I listen to it.  Lucky I have a 160gb iAudio X7 somewhere in the mail too
 
I donated my Panasonic HTXs to a friend at work who thought earbuds were good