[Steve999]

Yeah, QC2s are ultra-comfy. Not to be on your case abut the same phone on two different threads, dear kind sir, but the CD780s for $70 - $100 are ultra-comfy too, in the same league as the F1 and the CD3000. Sony knows about comfort. I'm really just agreeing with you and adding a phone to the list.

Quote:

Originally posted by Music Fanatic Actually, the only 'phones I've found which are even close to the QC2 in comfort are the Sony F1 (a $150 'phone), and the Sony CD3000 (a $300 'phone).

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Quote:

Originally posted by Music Fanatic Actually, the only 'phones I've found which are even close to the QC2 in comfort are the Sony F1 (a $150 'phone), and the Sony CD3000 (a $300 'phone). Some say the K1000 is also super comfortable, but in my opinion, while the K1000 is not bad in terms of comfort, it can't compare with those two Sony 'phones above.

I think the K1000 is great, because it barely touches your head.

The A900 is the single most comfortable can I've used.

Next would be the Sony CD1700 and Senn HD590/570, and K1000.

After that the CD3000, worn-in HD600, and K271.

I would describe all of the as extremely comfortable, where comfort should have no disctration from the sound.

 

[xand]

Quote:

Originally posted by reeseboisse I'm giving the benefit of the doubt here, and assuimg that when you say "reencoding", you mean re-ripping from whatever CD you took it from, but I still just have to say this in case: You can't take a 128kbps MP3 and simply reencode it to a higher bitrate to make it sound better; MP3 is a lossy format and hence once the data is lost, it's lost. No getting it back, and so all that's going to be accomplished by reencoding them is that the quality will be degraded even more.

yup. i meant reripping and re-encoding.

Quote:

Using LAME you can rip a CD very quickly. You set it up once, then all you need to do is put the CD in and push go. Track titles are fetched automatically. Depending on the speed of your machine, you'll end up with encoded mp3s in between 5 and 10 minutes, with feck all effort on your part.

Actually, you probably also need CDEX or EAC, I personally use eac. The setup wizard on EAC is great, just let it set it up for you, all you have to do is get LAME 3.90.3 from http://www.rareware.org

 

[commando]

Quote:

Originally posted by xand Actually, you probably also need CDEX or EAC, I personally use eac. The setup wizard on EAC is great, just let it set it up for you, all you have to do is get LAME 3.90.3 from http://www.rareware.org

Sorry, I meant to say EAC not LAME. Anyway, my point was it takes 5-10 mins per CD and is automated

 

[tjmaxwell]

I want to thank everyone for their advice. I just sold my QC2 headphones for more than I originally paid for them and bought some Audio Technica A900 headphones from a seller here on Head-Fi. These headpones really do look terrific. I also returned my 15 GB iPod and purchased a 40 GB so I could re-rip a lot of my music to take advantage of the improved sound quality of my new headphones. I just hope my untrained ears will be able to tell the difference!

Now, when it comes to re-ripping my CDs, I generally use iTunes. If I cranked the AAC bit rate up to 190 or higher, would that be acceptable, or do I really need to get EAC and Lame? If iTunes would work, what bit rate do you recommend? Thanks for helping a newbie out.

 

[xand]

why don't you do a short test yourself? Pick a sample of three cd's you listen to, and see if you can tell the difference.

AAC at 192kbps should be quite good, but I do feel that LAME 3.90.3 at APS might be even better? (but take up more file space, approx ~220kbps)

The best way is really to listen to samples yourself - noone else here can tell what you can/can't hear.