Closed back upgrade from M40x, 500 $ range

Headphones Headphone Discussion / Help
21

Well, the question is how good the Aeon Rt is to be regarded as a downgrade, so to speak, from the actual Aeon 2.
I cannot judge that.

But if we move into the planar plane, you can still throw in the Hifiman Sunudra.
The Hifiman He400i 2020 is said to have performed again.

I’ll throw in the Audeze Lcd 2 C, which might still be available second-hand.
I’m a real fan of it and it would be one of the best for the music I listen to.
I wrote something about it in the Audeze Lcd 2 classic threath.
Especially where its faults and weaknesses lie.
It really surprised me in a positive way for a planar headphone.

I would keep my hands off the Fostex.
If I had to, the Emu Teak would be a good choice.

22

I believe the OP is just looking for closed backs. I’ll b sure to finally grab myself a pair of audeze finally in the near future though.

23

yes, I’m looking for a new closed back, just bought a Sivga Phoenix for a open back!

So, I’m between a new NDH20 for 500 or a used Elegia for 420 or a ÆON RT for 450

PS : What’s up with all the cables for the AEONs?

Screenshot_20210101_223824

24

ok guys, got a very good price on NHD20 locally (10 % more than amazon, being South America, is a good deal) and I have 30 day free return, so I will be testing it (ships tomorrow) and if I don’t like it, just gonna return it and try the RTs or the Elegia

(the RT and Elegias are way overpriced here tho)

Thanks for all your help and I’ll keep you up to date

Cheers!

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25

Got the NDH20 for a few hours now

Damn these sound good, way better than my m40x (I certainly hope so for the price delta), but man those pads are small, I can’t even fit my ears in them, the inner diameter of the pads is a few milimeters too small for me, probably will end up returning these for that reason

26

something that I did not ask about the AEONs is AMP or impedance for that matter, my modest ifi zen dac would be enough for planars?

27

I would get an amp upgrade. No matter how you upgrade your cans, the amp you have will be the bottleneck.

Bite the bullet now and upgrade freely later. My opinion.

There are lots of threads like this you can read.

28

Depends on which aeon. aeon 2 yeah as they are portable, aeon RT or open-x? bit more demanding so you’d probably want to get a special cable for the zen dacs balanced port this way you get the most power out of the zen dac… otherwise upgrade the amp

29

The AEON’s are fantastic. Amazing detail and soundstage.
But even though they’re only 13ohm, they do need some juice. The ifi Zen dac won’t be close to getting the most out of these. When underpowered they sound hollowed out.
On my Asgard 3 they really shine. They also do great with my xDuoo xd-05 plus.
Looking at the specs, I bet the ZEN CAN would do great if you add that to your Zen Dac.

30

thanks for all the answers, I can’t (economically speaking), upgrade both at the same time and taking into account that I bought the ifi zen dac a few months ago, I will probably buy the headphones first and later in the year, I will upgrade to a separate dac and headphone amplifier

31

Just saw the Zeos review of the Schiit Vali (3? 2+?) and he used it with the Aeon Open from Massdrop and said that it was pretty good, so, hijacking my own post, I was thinking about getting the Vali as a headphone amp and a tube pre (with a Cambridge Audio AM10, the guys over at Schiit said it will work good), and it’s within my reach, opinions?

32

Check this out

33

thanks, it’s quite clear that the ifi zen dac headphone amp is not good enough, but there is nothing about the Vali, but Zeos was quite happy with it and the Open Aeons

34

thanks to everyone, ended up getting the Aeont RT Closed with the XLR cable, now to recover from the economical damage to get a better amp!

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