New member here and I just want to quickly introduce myself. I live in SF bay area and I’m working for one of the major PC gaming peripheral company. I always wanted to take this hobby seriously for the longest time but only had a chance to do so recently. You can also find me in couple other audio forums with a same username.
My first decent headphone is the Sennheiser HD598 which I bought about 9-10 years ago and still using it to this day. It resides mainly at my office at the moment.
Recently I bought the Sennheiser HD6XX, wanting to experience the amazing mids/vocal everyone is praising it for. I enjoyed it quite a bit but found that the recessed lows and top ends bothers me. Specially with some acoustic tracks. I purchased the Hifiman Ananda shortly after to get what I’ve been missing from HD6XX. This thing is something special. I like how it sounds pretty much on every music genres I listen to but then again It doesn’t have the amazing low end slam and soundstage I started to appreciate after long term audition of HE1000v2 and some Focal’s high ends. At this point, I realized I probably should be careful with my next upgrade because I don’t want to end up with an absurd amount of transducers to cover every fraction of sound qualities I’m looking for. After quite a bit of research, I went for ZMF Verite and I’m glad I did. It covers pretty much everything I look for and I can stop the chase until my curiosity takes over again
I won’t go over the dacs, amps and tubes route because those are the rabbit holes I’m in right now because this introduction is at the border of brief and long winded but I do want to mention how @ZeosPantera and @DMS have been tremendous help in my audio journey so, Thank you.
Indeed. Getting the synergy you’re looking for is tough and required a lot of research to closely predict the result you’ll be getting out of a certain component in your chain. That and add a bit of luck, you may end up with what you’re after without spending too much money.
Bifrost 2 [USB-RCA] - LYR 3 [Sylvania Bad Boy] - Verite [Universe Perf. Hybrid]
Those are for music and non-competitive gaming. They give enough warmth/body to the sound w/o losing too much detail and texture in mids/vocal. The lows and highs are extended very well to sub bass region and maintain airy highs without roll-off. Just enough to round off the highs so there’s no harshness.
Bifrost 2 [USB-XLR] - Xduoo TA-20 [NOS Brimar CV4003] - Hifiman Ananda
This is my main setup for competitive gaming. This and DTS Headphone X give enough soundstage and very accurate (surprisingly) imaging needed. I don’t mind using this setup for music as well. That tall wall of sound from Ananda is quite something else.
Ipad pro/iphone - Fiio BTR5 [balanced] - HD6XX
My go to for chores around the house.
iphone - Fiio BTR5 [single-ended] - Anthem Five custom IEM or 1More Triple driver IEM
This is my travel companions.
In storage/for sell: SMSL-SU8 and Burson Audio Play [3x V6 Vivids & 2x V6 Classics]
