Upgrading from low(?) end to high end

[Choral_Inc]

I know these questions have very subjective answers - "is it really worth 300 bucks for XXX headphones? Will the sound be that much better?"...

Here's my situation - I'm currently using stock headphones that came with my Sony W810 (HPM-82), and within the next week or two I'll be picking up some new SE 530's. I've moved away from the w810 and now use an iphone for my portable audio endeavours, and all of my music collection is v0 MP3 (some FLAC too - I use vlc4iphone to play those), ranging from electronica to folk.

Now, I just can't sit around wait to hear for myself - I'm impatient

. Will I notice a huge sound improvement come upgrade day? I'm obviously expecting better sound, but as I've never listened to any hi-fi portable audio, I don't exactly know how much of a SQ gain I'm going to get here. At the end of the day, will I be sitting there wondering why I just spent 300 dollars?


Feel free to chime in here - I'm not exactly sure what I'm asking, just really looking for general comments. Thanks for reading.

 

[Eternalmetal]

As much as my opinion is worth, you will notice a big difference from stock headphones. I have a pair of low-end Shure headphones (cost about $90 retail), and I have to say the quality difference is huge. You feel engulfed by music rather than it just shouting into your ear, and that is just with the low end model. I feel like im actually wearing a set of headphones, which surprised me when I first got them.

I just bought a pair of the Shure SE530s and am awaiting the shipment as we speak. I liked all of the other Shures I have heard and I hope these completely blow me away like I have heard.

 

[radlux]

Wow !! I envy you.

Making the jump from stocks all the way up to a high end IEM is going to be a HUUUUGE difference. Me and many others moved to low or mid IEMs first before taking the plunge for higher end IEMs so the excitement has been incremental over time

 

[Taikero]

While I'm not running Shures, I recently (couple weeks to a month) got myself a pair of Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 EBs after years of $15-$25 headphones, and I think the $150 I spent was worth every penny and then some. Replaceable cables are just icing on the frosting on the cake.

Getting these has just made me want to try out more high-end IEMs. I'm really interested in the new Westone coming out (triple driver!) and in the high bass IEMs like Future Sonics Atrio M5/M8, Klipsch Image X10, and SA6 (Not as bassy, but I've heard the SA6 is very clear). I'm sure at some point I might get my hands on some more clarity-bent IEMs like the Shure SE530s or the Triple.fi 10s, but I personally like feeling as if I'm listening to a good car stereo system when I listen to music (Not the ones you hear with rattling trunks, however), so you need some good bass to drive that kind of experience.

Currently I listen to music on these about 4-8 hours/day in Winamp with MAD 0.15.1 pulled from the HydrogenAudio.org forums topic. I use two DSPs, first being iZotope Ozone (amazing plugin), the second Studio Sound FX (free, relatively new) from QOLabs. These two combined allow me to get $1000+ sound out of $150 IEMs (This is an entirely subjective claim, but I make the assertion because I believe the percentage improvement in sound quality from these two DSPs would equate to an approximately high dollar value in extra audio equipment necessary to achieve the same effect).

 

[Choral_Inc]

Thanks for the input. I guess it starts here, lol... Let the wallet pains begin!

I see there is a thread here just recently started about "what I need to know" about the SE 530's... I'll dump my comments into there now.