[jkrokidas]

Hello everyone! Been a long time reader and made many purchases from information from everyone here. With that said, I'm currently in a situation where I am not quite sure on what to do so here goes.

Currently own
Sony MDR-Z1R
Sennheiser IE-900 IEM
ifi go blu
Passlabs HPA-1
Fostex HP-A8

Past
DT990's//TH900's

I love bass as you most likely can tell and tend to listen to Hiphop/House/dance but also enjoy music like Hans zimmer/orchestra at times. I just recently had to purchase a BNIB utopias as the price was to good to pass up and hearing such great things about them had me sold but...I have yet to open them. I'm not sure if I should sell them to upgrade to a better dac as the HPA8 is my first dac purchase and is showing signs of age but is still in working order and keep my Z1R. Or to sell my Z1R and make the utopias my daily and add some money in and purchase a upgraded dac like the Hugo2/RME ADI-2 pro or even to say try a tube amp. Only concern there is the low impedance on the utopias and how it will play out on a tube setup. Reading from other posts are mostly years old and wanted a refreshed perspective since this space is ever evolving. Everything listed here were just examples. Would love to hear your opinions. Thanks for reading!

 

[tomb]

The absolute best amp for a Utopia - if you can find one - is the ECP Audio DSHA-3F. An excellent runner up is the Beezar/ECP Audio T4. Both are out of production now, but show up on the used market from time to time.

A lot of people (I'm not one of them) think the Yiggy is the best DAC. I'd find something ECP Audio again, if you can (there are balanced ECP Audio Walnuts that can be found). That headphone deserves the best, along with the Clear, and the HD800, too.

Yes, I'm a MOT and I built some of those things in partnership with ECP Audio. But I don't have any of them (except for my personal copies and I'm not letting go of them). I'd sell you one in a heartbeat, if I had them.

 

[tomb]

Here's just a small example from here on Head-Fi:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bee...sha-3f-first-and-last-ing-impressions.935742/
I would also submit that a tube change can potentially effect significant change on the T4 performance/sound quality. The stock JJ tubes are outshown by many quality NOS audio tubes.

(More can be found in other places, too.)