Upgrade to Flagship - Recommendations Required
May 30, 2017 at 8:08 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 22
willybravo

willybravo

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Hi everyone - long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm basically looking to take the next step in my headphones life and upgrade to a flagship setup.

I don't consider myself to be an expert on the technical side of things at all but I really do appreciate high quality sound and feel I have a pretty good ear to differentiate high end products.

To give you an idea of where I'm at, my current stuff is as follows:

Beyerdynamic DT880
Little Dot MKIII Tube Amp
Musiland Monitor 02 US DAC

Music I generally listen to and enjoy would be electronic, dance, new wave, vocal, classic rock and perhaps a bit of pop/indie. Fav bands include Bon Iver, The xx, Pink Floyd, Whitney, Flume, Led Zeppelin, RY X, HONNE, Arcade Fire, Chet Faker, St. South, Hot Chip, TV on the Radio, alt-J, xxyyxx just to name a random selection.

In terms of the sound signature I'm after, I would probably be leaning towards Bassy but also enjoy Balanced as I do enjoy my current setup.

I'm looking for recommendations for the complete setup. My budget is flexible to get a great result but also don't want to spend excessive amounts of money for little gain so value for money is also a consideration. I would say that I am comfortable spending $5k +/- $2k to get it right - but also aware I'm not exactly sure the level of budget required to get a decent flagship setup.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Cheers.
 
Last edited:
May 30, 2017 at 8:33 PM Post #2 of 22
willybravo said:
Hi everyone,

I'm basically looking to take the next step in my headphones life and upgrade to a flagship setup.

I don't consider myself to be an expert on the technical side of things but I really do appreciate high quality sound and feel I have a pretty good ear to differentiate high end products.

To give you an idea of where I'm at, my current stuff is as follows:

Beyerdynamic DT880
Little Dot MKIII Tube Amp
Musiland Monitor 02 US DAC

Music I generally listen to and enjoy would be electronic, dance, new wave, vocal, classic rock and perhaps a bit of pop/indie.

I'm looking for recommendations for the complete setup (other than source) so any help would be much appreciated!

Cheers.
Click to expand...
Your going to need to give a budget as there are many ways to go also a preference in sound signature.
 
May 30, 2017 at 9:21 PM Post #4 of 22
May 30, 2017 at 9:41 PM Post #7 of 22
Your talking about spending up to $7 grand and want to use a $150 dac ?
 
May 30, 2017 at 10:04 PM Post #9 of 22
Usually we recommend headphones,amp and then dac for most setups as this makes the most difference in sound for most setups but if your going to spend this much I would highly recommend a Schiit Yggdrasil as it adds life to whatever it is added too. It would be my first purchase. It can scale very big .
 
May 30, 2017 at 10:19 PM Post #10 of 22
buke9 said:
Usually we recommend headphones,amp and then dac for most setups as this makes the most difference in sound for most setups but if your going to spend this much I would highly recommend a Schiit Yggdrasil as it adds life to whatever it is added too. It would be my first purchase. It can scale very big .
Click to expand...
OK - good rec. So you would say replacing this into my current setup would provide the biggest step up in quality and then upgrading the amp and headphones later would provide smaller step ups in quality comparatively?
 
May 30, 2017 at 11:14 PM Post #11 of 22
For that budget, I'd do a Focal Utopia ($4000) with a Woo WA8 ($1800) or a Chord Hugo 2 ($2200). That is within your budget and will give you world class sound. And if you ever decide that you want to upgrade the DAC/AMP section, you have some flexibility to do so later. But this combo is about as good as it gets for the money.
 
May 30, 2017 at 11:38 PM Post #12 of 22
drbobbybones said:
For that budget, I'd do a Focal Utopia ($4000) with a Woo WA8 ($1800) or a Chord Hugo 2 ($2200). That is within your budget and will give you world class sound. And if you ever decide that you want to upgrade the DAC/AMP section, you have some flexibility to do so later. But this combo is about as good as it gets for the money.
Click to expand...
Nice.

For me, portability isn't necessary. Would you get better value for money with a stationary setup or are the WA8 and Hugo2 still on par in terms of performance with an equally priced stationary setup?

What DAC/AMP upgrades would you make down the line if you went for one of these options initially?
 
May 30, 2017 at 11:47 PM Post #13 of 22
willybravo said:
Hi everyone - long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm basically looking to take the next step in my headphones life and upgrade to a flagship setup.

I don't consider myself to be an expert on the technical side of things at all but I really do appreciate high quality sound and feel I have a pretty good ear to differentiate high end products.

To give you an idea of where I'm at, my current stuff is as follows:

Beyerdynamic DT880
Little Dot MKIII Tube Amp
Musiland Monitor 02 US DAC

Music I generally listen to and enjoy would be electronic, dance, new wave, vocal, classic rock and perhaps a bit of pop/indie. Fav bands include Bon Iver, The xx, Pink Floyd, Whitney, Flume, Led Zeppelin, RY X, HONNE, Arcade Fire, Chet Faker, St. South, Hot Chip, TV on the Radio, alt-J, xxyyxx just to name a random selection.

In terms of the sound signature I'm after, I would probably be leaning towards Bassy but also enjoy Balanced as I do enjoy my current setup.

I'm looking for recommendations for the complete setup. My budget is flexible to get a great result but also don't want to spend excessive amounts of money for little gain so value for money is also a consideration. I would say that I am comfortable spending $5k +/- $2k to get it right - but also aware I'm not exactly sure the level of budget required to get a decent flagship setup.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Cheers.
Click to expand...

Audeze LCD-3 (or wait for the LCD-2Pro - cheaper and supposedly has more bass)
Meier Corda Classic FF
Meier Corda DACcord FF

The DACcord also has a preamp output (not the Classic, as most other manufacturers would put it in the headphone amp instead of the DAC), so in case you want to add speakers, you just hook it up there (and no need to power up the headphone amp).
 
May 31, 2017 at 12:50 AM Post #14 of 22
ProtegeManiac said:
Audeze LCD-3 (or wait for the LCD-2Pro - cheaper and supposedly has more bass)
Meier Corda Classic FF
Meier Corda DACcord FF

The DACcord also has a preamp output (not the Classic, as most other manufacturers would put it in the headphone amp instead of the DAC), so in case you want to add speakers, you just hook it up there (and no need to power up the headphone amp).
Click to expand...
Thanks. When is the LCD-2Pro expected? Where can I find more info on it?
 
May 31, 2017 at 2:35 AM Post #15 of 22
willybravo said:
Thanks. When is the LCD-2Pro expected? Where can I find more info on it?
Click to expand...

I just stumbled onto a thread, Audeze brought out the prototype at CanJam SoCal but haven't posted about it themselves. It's in the Fullsize Headphones subforum - impressions were that bass balance is kind of close to LCD-2 but not as "dark" and congested. I'd hazzard a guess that, give the old LCD-2 was a lot stronger below 1000hz than above it (although the graph is otherwise very smooth apart from that), they probably retained the same basic curve but the difference in response at 10hz to 800hz vs 2000hz and up was reduced.
 
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