This whole Head-fi thing for me is kind of a funny story with an irony of trying to save money, so here goes my tale:
It all started with MP3 player shopping. I wanted to buy a very cheap 1 GB mp3 player for the GYM and I was happy that I did get a $40 one from my diligent internet googles. Impressed that I saved money, I was also looking at other MP3 players out of curious boredom to see if I could find other bargains and eventually after more googling, I was reading about MP3 players and headphones at CNET.com. While I was reading their reviews about headphones, I became more and more intrigued. I then started reading reviews at Amazon.com and a reviewer mentioned the Totalbithead amp. I was even more intrigued and started googling this amp and voila!.....I discovered that headphone amps exist!
I then found out about the cmoy and pa2v2 and started to google them and wouldn't ya know, Head-fi comes up in the google search! After that, I was hit with a ton of bricks! It was like discovering a whole new universe.
After receiving the PA2v2, I was amazed that my MP3 rig was so much better than the average guy walking down the street. Then I bought the k501 and was really impressed.
Here's the irony:
Starting with trying to save money by buying the cheapest 1 GB MP3 player, and after a few googles and discovering the Head-fi board, I now am planning on saving money for the next couple of years to buy a Singlepower balanced Supra amp and a 2K source. I tell ya, I am now a victim of the disease!