[illini]

Quote:

Originally Posted by quadmaniac /img/forum/go_quote.gif I dont notice any difference between the "normal" and "loud" volume settings

Thats cause normal and loud setting is a volume limiter, you will notice more volume on loud less on normal.

 

[Calexico]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SactoMan101 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Isn't using the Sennheiser IE8 with the Sansa Clip almost ridiculous overkill for that little player?

The Clip may be cheap, but it's one of the best sounding DAPs on the market. It's smart budgeting, rather than overkill. $300 IEMs with $50 DAP > $150 IEMs and $200 DAP in my opinion.

 

[SactoMan101]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calexico /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Clip may be cheap, but it's one of the best sounding DAPs on the market. It's smart budgeting, rather than overkill. $300 IEMs with $50 DAP > $150 IEMs and $200 DAP in my opinion.

What I find interesting is that people on this message thread say the Sansa Clip sounds great with high-end IEM's like the Shure SE530, Ultimate Ears Triple.fi 10 and Westone 3. I just got a 4 GB Clip and will find out how the downloaded Amazon MP3 albums sound on my UE Super.fi 3 studio IEM.

 

[kg21]

I thought any iem would be easy for the clip but it did have trouble driving my xtrememac fsi or w/e it's called (the predessor to the atrio M5). Maybe because the xtrememac is a dynamic not an armature? It works well with my scl4 and soundmagic PL-30 however. Oh and yeah it sounded good with the er-4 and triple.fi too so I would imagine it would handle the se530 pretty well.

 

[never2clever]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calexico /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Clip may be cheap, but it's one of the best sounding DAPs on the market. It's smart budgeting, rather than overkill. $300 IEMs with $50 DAP > $150 IEMs and $200 DAP in my opinion.

To the question of expensive headphones and cheap players:
The players have the benefit of economies of scale, so its quite possible to make an amazing player for cheap (and just sell lots of them). I guess you could do this with headphones - its just trying to find something that is the outlier.

That said, its possible - its also really easy to mess up when you cut costs. Things like connectors and power supplies can effect sound as much as algorithms and DACs.

Also, for those of us who are into over-rationalization, the headphones (especially IEMs) can justify themselves for comfort and isolation (especially when flying).

But a different perspective: at $250 (or even $500), the headphones aren't the most expensive/important part of my "system" - the music collection is!

 

[never2clever]

When I started this thread, I hadn't realized how much more diverse the IEM marketplace had gotten in the past 18 months since I bought my UE 5pros. When I bought those, there were really only 3 choices (Shure, UE, Etymotic). Now there are many. And there seems to be good diversity in the various tradeoffs.

So what I thought was going to be a simple quest limited by the player, turns into a bigger question of figuring out what I want in an IEM and what the best tradeoff is. And there is an intimidating amount of postings with opinions on the subject.

 

[miruko]

I'm going to try the clip and PK2 combo.