Is anyone building a shopping list for when this is over?

Off-Topic
41

I’ve been looking at alternatives to certain items in the case stock supplies are slow to reup.
Has anyone here heard a hegel amp and if so, what’s your opinion of them.

42

Good overall for the package, clean technicality heavy amps, worthwhile if you want something clean and good, sometimes music lacks emotion compared to other amps though

43

cool. Wanted to order a bryston online. All online stores are “In store purchase only” which kind of defeats the purpose of an online store during this situation lol.

44

so why is it hard to hear a difference from youtube (music or non music), spotify, soundcloud, etc

45

I assume your asking why it’s hard to hear the difference between compressed and uncompressed audio, which is a different thing all together.

Compressed audio is designed to sound like uncompressed audio, the differences are subtle.
In order to get high compression rates you need to remove information, otherwise your limited by entropy.
The way audio compression works is it uses a psychoacoustic model to choose information that is least audible given the other sounds playing at the time, the results are very good, so the differences are subtle if the equipment your playing though is poor you probably won’t hear it.
Even with a good listening chain you’ll hear people describe the differences as openness, air, they’re subtle.
Boards like this have a tendency to greatly overstate differences, because the people on them are focused on those subtleties.

3 Likes
46

i mean why i couldn’t hear a difference between my old dragonfly black and a stock headphone jack

47

There might not be very much difference, I haven’t listened to both of those specific DAC’s.
DAC differences are very subtle, and you need to have a good rest of the chain and good source material to really hear them.
There is also the knowing what to listen for.
With DAC’s assuming they aren’t terrible the differences are subtle, it’ll be in bass extension, trebble extension, and the way the space is presented.

2 Likes
48

then how do i get a significant different that genuinly sounds beautiful…

i mostly just want to understand why some people love certain things i dont like

also i dont have a ton of money so i wanna make sure every payment is worth it compared to something else

49

In the olden days, we had these brick and mortar hifi stores where you could go and listen to high end gear.
They are much rarer now, but if you want to hear big differences, you pretty much have to get out of the budget arena (or be very familiar with what your comparing to), with DAC’s I’d go pick your poison from the perfectly good $100 DAC’s then I’d look at something like a Bifrost 2, then you into multi thousand dollar DAC’s, and Diminishing returns apply to all of that.

Different people value different things, spend your money on headphones you like, and pick up anyone of the many quality $100 amps next then worry about a DAC. IMO

None of this is worth stretching financially for.

1 Like
50

sadly im a college student with no job who has to get by off maybe 35 bucks a week so i cant really buy a truly great 200 dollar ampdac… i just buy to feel less sad and have some cool points… nirvana is hard to get to

i just wanna know how do i get a IMMEDIATELY NOTICEABLE sound difference with the headphones that i have… it seems like a DAC is the main thing

51

Schiit Fulla 3. It sounds decent, still use it, and it gets you away from a sound card for gaming. You can find deals on the Schiit Fulla 2 which is still a decent amp/dac.

52

Im probably getting the ZMF perf suade pads for my Aiva

53

I’m set on getting the zmf aeolus soon. That stimulus check is gonna go right to zach lol

4 Likes
54

Some really nice beer.

3 Likes
55

Ah yeah I can’t really drink, if I do I might end up with a few more totl headphone amps at the moment lol

6 Likes
56

My future Eikons are in the shopping cart, taunting me. Lets see how patient I can wait. Also, recommendations on pads?

57

Ping Zach directly, he may have some BStock or review pairs available.
The default Eikon pads are the only ones I’ve tried and I haven’t seen a reason to try anything else.

1 Like
58

Yeah I have only tried the eikon pads as well

59

thanks for clearing that, first time i got the xduoo plus, an upgrade from my btr3 that’s exactly what i expirienced. a massive difference in air. less congested, pretty interesting expirience

60

I was thinking the Eikon vegan pads instead of the lamb skin.