Audio Audiophile and gears

Those are not even in the picture. Possibly a pair of NDH20, didn't decide on the open back. Practically have all the popular ones ( after giving away at least 10-12 pairs) my headphone addiction is really really deep.
 
quaratineinthesejeans said:
View attachment 108411 Good headphones are not very expensive. All flavours are available at reasonable prices, all one has to do is some research....but wish I could stop with these only ( most sane person would be more than happy)
I'll will try to find each and every pair I still have and upload a photo of an insanely stupid collection of cans.
Though it's essentially a gear thread, hope at least a few people can learn from my mistakes.
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Thats a nice collection, I believe making mistakes and learning is a very interesting portion of this journey albeit an expensive one. While it does get addictive but I doubt I have much regrets so far :)
 
Guess it depends upon the depths you've fallen, I've fallen pretty deep...my car is the testament to the depth of my audiophilia hole..a feaking 20 plus year old Japanese car that no one drives anymore. But unlike most of the headphones I like the car. It's chaep,old but still runs pretty efficient. Please don't ask the model or make, let's just say, it's the oldest car of this mourning and drunk city.
fLUX said:
Thats a nice collection, I believe making mistakes and learning is a very interesting portion of this journey albeit an expensive one. While it does get addictive but I doubt I have much regrets so far :)
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That's less than one tenth of the stupid collection. Too ashamed to post everything.
 
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quaratineinthesejeans said:
Guess it depends upon the depths you've fallen, I've fallen pretty deep...my car is the testament to the depth of my audiophilia hole..a feaking 20 plus year old Japanese car that no one drives anymore. But unlike most of the headphones I like the car. It's chaep,old but still runs pretty efficient. Please don't ask the model or make, let's just say, it's the oldest car of this mourning and drunk city.

That's less than one tenth of the stupid collection. Too ashamed to post everything.
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Would love to see your collection , do post a pic please :)
 
Nalin said:
@fLUX can you name all models shown in your pic and possibly some brief views on Auris.
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The one at the bottom of the stack is Soekris 1021-DAM R2R DAC.

The Amps are

Auris Euterpe - SET tube amp with inbuilt ESS 9018 DAC. I have put detailed impressions on TIAF.

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Feliks Elise - OTL Tube amp from Feliks , runs DD beautifully especially the HD600.

Auralic Taurus MKII - Class A solid state, good power reserve to run majority of the HP.

All of the amps have pre-outs too
 
For the IEM guys out here :-

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Credits: Head-Fi Member Personal Rating
 
Spent enough time A/Bing HD560s, Sundara and Deva with both very high quality DAC, amp setups and absolutely lowest end DAP ( but nothing in between..don't have any decent portable set up)
And to my ears...and considering the prices...it's very simple
Buying Sundara doesn't make any sense now.
If you have a good amp get the HD560s, if want to keep things simple...wired version of Deva is absolutely unbeatable at the present price. It's very easy to drive with absolutely fine quality and volume even with the puniest of DAP ( M3 Pro in my case)
HD560s is possibly the cleanest sounding headphones Sennheiser makes. Clean, dry and slightly larger soundstage compared to HD6** series ( I am certainly not the one who thinks large soundstage= better headphones, it's often not the case, HE1 has much smaller soundstage compared to HD820/800S, AKG K 712 has huge soundstage, but it's nowhere close to the best 5 affordable open cans)
TLDR:
Looking for open audiophile headphones for cheap:
Deva, eyes closed ( the single ended balanced connection idea itself is really insane...waiting for a single ended balanced cable)
Looking for ruler flat accurate ( and somewhat dry sounding) headphones for audio related work:
HD560s, again eyes closed.
Sundara needs a huge price cut. Hifiman cannibalised it's own headphones again.
 
quaratineinthesejeans said:
Spent enough time A/Bing HD560s, Sundara and Deva with both very high quality DAC, amp setups and absolutely lowest end DAP ( but nothing in between..don't have any decent portable set up)
And to my ears...and considering the prices...it's very simple
Buying Sundara doesn't make any sense now.
If you have a good amp get the HD560s, if want to keep things simple...wired version of Deva is absolutely unbeatable at the present price. It's very easy to drive with absolutely fine quality and volume even with the puniest of DAP ( M3 Pro in my case)
HD560s is possibly the cleanest sounding headphones Sennheiser makes. Clean, dry and slightly larger soundstage compared to HD6** series ( I am certainly not the one who thinks large soundstage= better headphones, it's often not the case, HE1 has much smaller soundstage compared to HD820/800S, AKG K 712 has huge soundstage, but it's nowhere close to the best 5 affordable open cans)
TLDR:
Looking for open audiophile headphones for cheap:
Deva, eyes closed ( the single ended balanced connection idea itself is really insane...waiting for a single ended balanced cable)
Looking for ruler flat accurate ( and somewhat dry sounding) headphones for audio related work:
HD560s, again eyes closed.
Sundara needs a huge price cut. Hifiman cannibalised it's own headphones again.
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Sorry, if I have missed it earlier but how does the 560s compare to 598SE. If I remember correct I think you own the 598 also.
 
560s is lot harder to drive. I like the 598 very much, but these 560s are completely different headphones.. precise, clinical and somewhat dry. Honestly for work, I will definitely choose them over HD600/6XX.
But 598 is still a fantastic consumer headphone. With 560s you definitely need a decent amp ( adding to the cost)
It will be a very controversial statement, but with a decent desktop setup, I will take the 560s over HD600.
If I only have a phone and laptop HD598>HD599
If I have a DAP, Deva (not the HE400i, and definitely not Sundara)
If budget is higher, Ananda ( don't have it now with me, but it was very good)
Anybody got the Gold Planars (GL2000) yet? Thinking about ordering one. Stopped believing in most youtube videos and online reviews ( those are even worse) I've read 2 reviews of some hifiman headphones in reputable sites and pretty sure, many people are writing reviews even publishing comparison charts without even listening to them once.
That idiot DMS thinks, passive headphones can compress sound on the go!! After Tyll and Joker, almost everyone doing audio reviews are really bad. Some are outright liars.
Anybody has the innerfidelity graphs stored somewhere?
Really interested in Crinacle's graphs on certain IEMs. This guy is very clever, he always ducks technical questions.
Can you believe he didn't even know what a limiter is and gave lectures on loudness war. He describe heavily gated snare drums with abnormally long reverb tails as nice puncy natural sounding snare. And this guy is the modern guru!!
Someone here mentioned Crinacle's work with Moondrop audio and tried to make a huge deal out of it!!
Jason of painfully honest tech ( YT) is helping Drop to tune their headphones for years silently, so did Joshua and hundreds of others. It's ridiculous how a man try to sell himself by working with Moondrop!! What an achievement!!
 
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The HD600 and 650 ideally need a very good desktop setup and scale tremendously with tube amps as you go higher up the ladder. I had a HD6xx , tried it with my my previous class A SS ( used to retail for 400$,) and sounded as sterile a headphone can get( sounded better of a warm class A portable I had) .

After getting fairly decent amps , got the HD600 back again and the Ananda barely saw any use. After the Auteur have sold the Ananda and retaining the HD600.

I have not tried the hd560s , as per user feedback these are relatively much easier to.drive compared to hd600 and have better synergy with SS amps.
 
Yes, 560s are easier to drive compared to hd600 in terms of volume. But they also need a lot of power to sound non sterile (specially tubes), but to my ears both hd600 and 560s sound very close when powered with A90/D90 combo.
Yesterday evening, found out a new box in the basement ( it was there since December 2019, and completely forgot about them)
It's the HD660s!! Bought them just after launch.
And boy!! These are NOT SIMILAR to HD650/600 at all. They are actually HD700 with all the flaws rectified. HD700 were possibly THE WORST Sennheiser product. They sounded clean, but that aweful treble and terrible shape and rubbish build quality.
I don't know if 660s use the same drivers or not, but they sound strikingly similar minus the flaws.
I've read some 660s reviews and I'm pretty certain of some facts
There are many reviews of headphones which are written without even using the headphones once ( many reviewers just copy stuff from other reviews)
660s certainly don't have the 600/650 series drivers. They sound completely different with a much wider soundstage, way more clarity and precision. Overall a better pair of headphones and definitely a step up from HD6XX series.
Don't know if something is wrong with my ears, but I can definitely appreciate the rather a big difference ( and in the right direction) between HD600 and 660s ( don't have the 650, but from memory 600 and 650 were very close, in fact 650 is darker sounding and 660s isn't dark)
 
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How is the xDuoo MT-602 for a first dedicated amp (at Rs. 8.5k)? I plan to use it with my Tempotec Sonata HD Pro as a DAC and the HE400i v2020. What's attracting me to it is the 1300mW output at 32ohm and the hybrid tube design, and that it's supposed to be a bit warm, which I think would complement my Hifiman cans.
Also yes I also understand that the sound will not be 100% clean and uncolored, but I will mainly use this to listen to music and hence don't care particularly if it's not 100% accurate, but it should be enjoyable.
 
So the other day I was talking to a guy from India who just got his new 64 audio U12t, I called it relaxed sounding since I know it's signature but the guy took offence and said no it's reference and accurate. He said he only uses Studio Monitors in his home also. I mean you can be that accurate guy all you want but rarely it will give you joy which all of us are finding in this hobby.
 
Nalin said:
So the other day I was talking to a guy from India who just got his new 64 audio U12t, I called it relaxed sounding since I know it's signature but the guy took offence and said no it's reference and accurate. He said he only uses Studio Monitors in his home also. I mean you can be that accurate guy all you want but rarely it will give you joy which all of us are finding in this hobby.
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I had listened to the U12t for a about 20 odd minutes and Solaris for a good 50 minutes. Totally get where you are coming from, the U12T were nowhere near as exciting as the Solaris , I too could not appreciate its value in that span. I reported the same to the owner and he did not take offense , but he said that you listen to this set for 10-15 days and go back to other IEMs you will understand the value. I have noticed similar thing happen with my DAC/Pre-amp , did not feel like it made a huge difference initially and then I lent the gear for a few days to someone else and my system sounded like its soul had been taken away.

However there are few I know who quiet enjoy listening to the U12T and also enjoy the Z1R which I understand is more enjoyable/dark sounding IEM (did not get to try this) , so I am assuming the IEM kind of grows on you once you start using it.

Its very wrong for anyone to expect that you like the gear they own in the same manner that they do and vice versa , however its natural tendency to take offense and can say that I too have been guilty of this on occasions in past.
 
fLUX said:
I had listened to the U12t for a about 20 odd minutes and Solaris for a good 50 minutes. Totally get where you are coming from, the U12T were nowhere near as exciting as the Solaris , I too could not appreciate its value in that span. I reported the same to the owner and he did not take offense , but he said that you listen to this set for 10-15 days and go back to other IEMs you will understand the value. I have noticed similar thing happen with my DAC/Pre-amp , did not feel like it made a huge difference initially and then I lent the gear for a few days to someone else and my system sounded like its soul had been taken away.

However there are few I know who quiet enjoy listening to the U12T and also enjoy the Z1R which I understand is more enjoyable/dark sounding IEM (did not get to try this) , so I am assuming the IEM kind of grows on you once you start using it.

Its very wrong for anyone to expect that you like the gear they own in the same manner that they do and vice versa , however its natural tendency to take offense and can say that I too have been guilty of this on occasions in past.
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Solaris has some fundamental flaws unlike Z1R, Solaris at that price is not worth it imho. u12t is something that is favourite of many because it's tuning doesn't have any flaws and one can listen to it for hours unlike Z1R.

I also don't get it why something can't be enjoyable and reference at the same time. u12t is boring according to many who like enjoyable IEMs but it’s the exact combination of reference and enjoyable that I am referring to here. Some people get gear to only analyse their music as it seems.
 
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