It has been a week since my last response, and you are pretty spot on in terms of what you said and what I decided to do (i.e. go for desktop setup and get portable later). Btw my iBasso is coming tomorrow (at local post office) so I cannot wait
As you mentioned my price bracket was actually touching for a good Dac/Amp combo for desktop solution, however many of you mentioned the versatility and capability of this headphone against different EQs. Since I am not planning to go on a holiday for quite a while (cough pandemic), I actually bite the bullet by going tiny bit out of my budget, and went for RME ADI-2 DAC FS - in UK it comes with 5 years of warranty. It has not arrived yet (a month for that to arrive from a very reliable retailer). As you mentioned I will think about the portability later, it will not be urgent for a while; and yes you are right I do think about the long-term investment and quite serious about having solid setup that could take me for a long journey.
I also had my eye on the A90/D90 combo, however once I can stabilise my budget again in the upcoming months, maybe I can combo it with A90 in the future.
Great to hear that!!! Congrats on the significant move forward in this hobby.
You definitely went the right path. I guess that the RME would be in competition with SPLās Phonitor.
Basically at this price there are a ton of different options. Like literally a ton. You can get lost just by looking into all of them. The ones that come to my mind are the Phonitor and Burson Audioās higher priced AMP/DACs.
5 year warranty is pretty darn good, you are covered if anything happens.
I usually get an email when there is a response in this thread, but I didnāt get one so I didnāt see your response. If I had seen it earlier, I definitely wouldāve spilled my 2 cents earlier
Iāve been pretty busy in the last month or so. Iāve been working on my largest article (yet to be published), I finished & published the iBasso DX300 review (on Head-Fi), and then I also finished writing some short write-ups for some IEMs and a entry-level source.
SR2 is STILL my favorite headphone. Love this thing =)
Canāt wait to hear your experience and to see how close/far it is from mine.
Thanks, Iāll have a look at it. I must admit that I am nervous about this purchase. I hated the HE4XXās, liked the Sundaraās OK and I am a little underwhelmed by my Edition XXās.
However, I thought these had the highest ceiling of the three. Time will tell.
IDK, but a guy on Head-Fi is obsessed with these (much like me). Unlike me, he owns several TOTL headphones like the Focal Utopia ($4000) and Abyss 1266 Phi TC (min. $6440 ā according to the Abyss store which is in Eur). He said that the previously-mentioned headphones are different but no better than the SR2. If you are wondering, itās @Jamato8 on Head-Fi. Iām not familiar with his history, but at some point this man owned a Sony R10, so Iād consider his opinion valid at least. He called the SR2 one of the best sounding headphones on the market, regardless of price.
Provided you have enough clean power, this bad boi can handle a huge amount of EQ in the bass.
This is by virtue of the driver, more specifically its speaker inspired rubber surround.
The bass is proper puncy, stabby almost, when elevated with EQ. This introduces a very nice dynamism. I think it can even beat out the venerable Fostex Biodynamics in terms of sense of punch, hence why I sold my Ebony.
The stock tuning is very boxy and midcentric to my ears, it is just honky and flat out low-fi sounding. Actually, I donāt have qualms with saying that is sucks ass without EQ. That is the transformation it gains from EQ.
With EQ I think this beats out the HD650 without breaking too much of a sweat.
I always EQ everything I have, for me it is a natural part of the hobby as nothing is perfect but can be made almost perfect.
No headphone I have heard comes close to the level of improvement gained from EQ as the SR2.
Itās a very capable driver with an especially good timbre, itās just the tuningā¦
I would urge you to dabble a bit in EQ, it can do absolute wonders Iām telling you mate.
I have an EQ (Schiit Loki) and I do dabble for fun now and again. And I have had headphones that required EQ to be listenable (T5p.2ās come to mind) and I got rid of them.
I must confess I enjoy a rich boost in the very upper frequencies.
As you can see, I raise bass pretty linearly from 300Hz down to 30Hz. Then I shave off the mountain hill in the mids to get rid of the honky quality. Those are the most important changes.
Tbh, for me the final form is the stock pads and the SR2 the way it is. Iām listening to the large perforation pads right now, but thatās because Iām supposed to do a comparison of all the different pads.
Iām extremely busy right now, so I canāt even get to finish my iBasso DX300 AMP11Mk1 vs AMP12 write-up. Then I also have the pad write-up to do, which Iām anticipating the most.
I think I will give your EQ a try in the future (canāt say when). With this being said, what EQ app/software did you use?
