Audio Audiophile and gears

ibose said:
Before I jumped into this rabbit hole, I wasn't even aware that there is actually a science called Psychoacoustics. Its surely pretty complex area but very interesting, if you are really up for it. Just started reading up on it.
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That's the real subjective part of audio.
It's not really that complex if you know the basic anatomy of brain and cortical lobar functions. But psychoacoustics is not complete yet, our frontal lobes are really mysterious.
Glad you brought up the term. I was scared to bring that word ( it's a major turn off for many in audiophile circle as it breaks down many well established bubbles in this hobby)
Anybody here, ever wondered, why in digital ( in the box) mixing/ mastering an offline computer is always preferred?
The answer is pretty obvious, the unwanted weird noises at times.
That's my biggest issue with streaming. I'm so sensitive with these faint noises that I try to avoid music on mobile phones.
As a consumer my collection is restricted to around 100 records. A very small collection mostly from 70s to 90s music ( classic rock, some thrash, punk, NWOBHM, grunge and few pop records) That's enough for me for in one lifetime.
Have them in 5/6 128GB microSD card, that's basically everything I need, everything else is extra.
Honestly most newer music doesn't matter to me, you can't even steal chords from them as they all sound pretty much the same!!
 
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Nothing scary about it. Way back around 1995 when i first discovered this new tech called mp3 and started the painfully slow process of ripping my audio cds (into 128k i think), LAME didn't exist back then, can't remember the name of the encoder, but it was on command line. Back then internet was slow and not as accessible, so most of my learning was from magazines, pcquest etc in india, and if i was lucky someone would get me foreign ones like pcworld from abroad.

Anyway, the term psychoacoustic modeled lossy compression was one of the main concepts of mp3, because it removed the (theoretically useless) information that the human ear was incapable of hearing, thereby reducing file size. It was good enough for most people, myself included. Only much later did i realise that 192k was actually better than 128 (can't hear any difference above 192).

Also, one of my pet peeves is people still using joint-stereo, which doesn't really save much on file size (did a lot of testing to conclude this), but is supposedly not as pure as true regular stereo. Again, i can't really tell the difference between JS vs stereo but why unnecessarily add complexity which doesn't even help with file sizes?
 
As you pointed earlier, it's strange how similar our childhood and early adulthood were..in two different cities in India..so similar!! Even I used to buy PCQuest and old PCWorld etc.from College Street used book markets.
Sadly you can build PCs, I stil can not!!
 
So my left side of Sundara is dead, I didn't wanna believe that their QC is that bad as many in other forums and YouTube have said they've improved a lot. Now I have to courier it to their Bangalore office on my expense and wait for replacement, hopefully a new one.

Now I'm thinking if I should keep it or sell it, what if they fail after warranty is over. I thought I'd got a good deal on it used but now I'm not so sure
 
Absolutely poor QC, I don't care what youtubers says. Nothing has improved, 2-3 months back some other TE member faced issues with sundara.
 
I really like the sound but this is big money for me and I want to keep it for way longer than a year. It's hard to decide if I should give them a chance or sell it and go for something else.
 
rockstah said:
I really like the sound but this is big money for me and I want to keep it for way longer than a year. It's hard to decide if I should give them a chance or sell it and go for something else.
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It may sound amazing, also praised my many audiophiles but certainly quality isn't worth the price in my opinion. QC issues made me skeptical so I never purchased it.
It's not a small amount and one should expect it to serve for alteast 3-4 years. You need to decide if you wanna sell it. It's not the end of the world there are many other good options to consider.
 
Nitendra Singh said:
It may sound amazing, also praised my many audiophiles but certainly quality isn't worth the price in my opinion. QC issues made me skeptical so I never purchased it.
It's not a small amount and one should expect it to serve for alteast 3-4 years. You need to decide if you wanna sell it. It's not the end of the world there are many other good options to consider.
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I'm thinking of keeping it, may be second time's the charm. I just hope if it fails again, it happens within the warranty so I can get rid of it.
What are other good options in this price range that are reliable too?
 
Yes, it's a lot of money for a pair of headphones. Guess hifiman will never improve.
Get it fixed and then get rid of it. People bashed me when I spoke about the painful RMA process of chi-fi. Unfortunately people with no real life experience keep on arguing.
I completely understand your frustrations.
Write them a strong e-mail.
Yes, they sound wonderful. But what's the point if the failure rate is so high?
Sennheiser is the king of reliability and after sales service followed by Audio Technica and Beyerdynamics.
I will sincerely suggest you to get rid of it (wonderful, if it's within Amazon's return window) and get the HD560s/ DT990 if you already have an amp. Those come with 2 years of warranty and very rarely fail.
Even if it fails after 5 years, Sennheiser's repair policy (out of warranty) doesn't suck.
I have the HD600 for 6/7 years now, HD598 since eternity (bought it from India)
The DT770, 880,990 all are very good and solid cans ( but they don't come with detachable cables, but easy to modify)
They will sound different from Sundara ( which is neither good or bad)
If you can get a good used pair of HD600/650 within 20K INR... fantastic deal.
 
Yes, very clean, precise, typical no nonsense German product. Very light (almost completely plastic,but very durable)
The stock cable is very long and terminates in a 6.3 ( comes with a converter for 3.5) not ideal for portable use. But takes any typical 2.5 cable with lock ( the same that comes with Audio Technica M50X/40X)
I specially like the Senny HD5XX/ 6XX series because of their amazing upscalability...sounds completely different with tubes.
Even the cheap HD598 scales up exceptionally well with D90/A90 combo. Yes, it's a crazy set up, where the amp DAC costs 10 times more than the cans, but the results are spectacular.
Sundara also scales up nicely, but there's ceiling to it. Yet to find any in these Sennheisers and I have a lot of desktop amps and audio interfaces with plenty of power.
But the HD598 specially works fine with normal mobile phones/ entry level DAPs too. 560s slightly more demanding.
 
Hey hopefully somebody owned a Etymotic here before.

I got the Etymotic ER2XR recently and surprisingly the comfort and seal is too good with the triple flange eartips. I expected them to be uncomfortable.

Regarding sound, I'm no audiophile but is it me or it sounds nothing out of the ordinary (like even compared to a Sony MH755 - maybe a more neutral sounding MH755).

I've only listened to music via my iPhone for like 3-4 hours. Maybe I need to spend more time with them. I don't know. Anyone used ER2XR before? what was your experience?

P.S: I've used before: Sony WF-1000XM3, WH-1000XM2, Galaxy buds + , Audio-Technica - ATH-MSR7
 
Yes, used ER4s extensively. Isn't the passive isolation fantastic?
Except for the MSR7, 1000XM3/2 are not real headphones, never used buds2, but they must be tuned in the similar manner of Sony consumer headphones.
Yes, you're actually listening to music as the producers wanted you to.
Welcome to the real thing brother. After spending a week with Etys, give the 1000XM3 a chance..you will find how terrible they sound...bad bass destroys everything. Bass instruments produce monophonic sound, XM3/XM4 makes it so weirdly distorted and bleeds all over mid. Instead of fixing that Sony boosted the 8-10k area with a 3dB boost!! And people love it!!
 
quaratineinthesejeans said:
Yes, used ER4s extensively. Isn't the passive isolation fantastic?
Except for the MSR7, 1000XM3/2 are not real headphones, never used buds2, but they must be tuned in the similar manner of Sony consumer headphones.
Yes, you're actually listening to music as the producers wanted you to.
Welcome to the real thing brother. After spending a week with Etys, give the 1000XM3 a chance..you will find how terrible they sound...bad bass destroys everything. Bass instruments produce monophonic sound, XM3/XM4 makes it so weirdly distorted and bleeds all over mid. Instead of fixing that Sony boosted the 8-10k area with a 3dB boost!! And people love it!!
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Damn, I went back to the Sony 1000XM series after a long time and the difference is night and day. o_O
 
Gamer X said:
Hey hopefully somebody owned a Etymotic here before.

I got the Etymotic ER2XR recently and surprisingly the comfort and seal is too good with the triple flange eartips. I expected them to be uncomfortable.

Regarding sound, I'm no audiophile but is it me or it sounds nothing out of the ordinary (like even compared to a Sony MH755 - maybe a more neutral sounding MH755).

I've only listened to music via my iPhone for like 3-4 hours. Maybe I need to spend more time with them. I don't know. Anyone used ER2XR before? what was your experience?

P.S: I've used before: Sony WF-1000XM3, WH-1000XM2, Galaxy buds + , Audio-Technica - ATH-MSR7
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Try to play with different tips especially SpinFits, the stock one sounds congested but the plus side is that they pump details straight into the brain. They may sound bit forward but you can tone down mids it becomes too much to handle. They benefit huge deal from something like Shanling UP2 when compared to onboard.

Enjoy you purchase.
 
rockstah said:
I'm thinking of keeping it, may be second time's the charm. I just hope if it fails again, it happens within the warranty so I can get rid of it.
What are other good options in this price range that are reliable too?
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You can select as per your preference. You can't go wrong with any of these beyerdynamic DT series or Sennheiser HD560s as suggested by Red Dragon.
Audio Technica ATH R70x is another good option, but it lacks bass a bit and you'll also need a good amplifier to drive it.
you can also try AKG 712 pro it's selling for 20k. 10-12 days back in sale, it's even sold for the all time low for Rs.16k and It's really vfm for 16k.
 
Wow!! 712 for 16k is a no brainer!! Very very capable cans. Thanks man, very good post...forgot about the R70x completely.
In fact Amazon is selling HD25 for 8.5k...Planned to buy 5/6 pairs before returning, but decided against it ( didn't have any space in the bagback I was carrying..like an idiot packed a pair of big boots for Indian summer!!)
 
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