I’d say while you’re in the lower price (under 500) market, enjoy it while you can. To me the fun is in the journey. If you jump into the over 500 market, you will find that in a lot of ways it surpasses those in the lower end and it’ll be hard to go back. I stayed in the under 500 market for like 5 years. There’s plenty Gems in that range. Now that I went over the thousand dollar mark with my Aeolus, you find how much more you can get and then you’re stuck up there lol. I barely got the Aeolus for 1300 a few months ago, and since then I’ve bought the aeon 2 for 900 (on sale for 760) the rnhp for 500, enog for 200, and now the tuba for 700 lol. Oh and the nighthawks of course. Point is. Once you hit that mark, it only gets easier to drop up to a grand on headphones and gear.
So I’d enjoy and appreciate the awesome stuff you can get under 500. Get quite a few in the range if you can. It’ll help you further explore different sounds and then that will give you more of a basis to make more informed decisions when you decide to move into the higher end. I honestly think you will miss a lot of the enjoyment and knowledge you can gain by taking small steps and building up from there. Then when you get your first high end pair, you’ll appreciate them that much more.
I’m also already looking into getting the birfrost 2, elegias, clears, eikons, and more. The deeper you dig into the hole, the more you will want to dig even deeper.
But that’s just my long and drawn out though. Thanks for reading! Lol
that being said, even though I have the few higher end stuff, i still find myself reaching for all of my headphones in the lower range (teaks, nighthawks, 650s, 4xx, 7xx and many more) so I definitely don’t regret buying any of them and I have no intention of getting rid of any. Just the m-50x’s. Those had to go! lol.
Thank you for the very extensive reply, I don’t know most of the stuff you mentioned unfortunately lol.
I think I’ll go with the k712 pro then and I’ll see where the future brings me. Now it comes the even harder part: choosing a dac and amp or dac/amp. I might do a new thread asking for help. Do you have any suggestions?
Hmmmmmmmmm. What would your price range be. I only have 2 amps I use right now, 3 with my tuba that’ll be here tomorrow. But I have heard plenty about a lot of amps
For the k712 pro? If you can’t get a magni 3+ and topping d10 (or another dac), I do think the k5 pro is pretty solid and would drive the 712 no problem
For the magni 3+ I’m waiting for schiit europe to reply to me, for the topping d10 I’ll have to wait 3-6 weeks of shipping from drop, but I can wait if it’s worth it. You think that the k5 pro at 180€ it’s a good standalone option as dac/amp?
Thanks
Yeah if you can, And you’re not concerned with moving it around, id say try to shoot for a separate dac and amp but that may just be me. I like the option of being able to use the same dac if you upgrade your amp later. You likely won’t want to or need to mess with a new dac until you really start getting into the higher end stuff anyway.
Although you can always use the k5 as a dac if you get another amp if the future. But I’d say even then, a decent separate dac will probably outperform it.
One thing I’ll say about the X2HRs (Got my pair about ten days ago) is that, while the soundstage is quite big, the detail and imaging they have is lacking in my opinion. Sure you enjoy movies with them quite a bit, but I personally don’t feel as immersed into the movie because of the imaging they lack. Same goes for music.
As for the sound, boy they have bass. It’s not a bass that sounds like farts (which a lot of people think of when the word bass is mentioned), or a bass that’ll make your ears shake, but rather a deep well rounded base. It does become a bit overwhelming at times since they bleed into the mids a bit, but it also depends on your preferred music styles (they’re not that good for instrumental or rock, but they’d be awesome for something like hip hop or EDM).
They do get to have some quite piercing highs at times, but nothing that can’t be fixed with a tiny EQ.
That doesn’t seem too bad but that is a wait. I would go crazy if I got the headphones and had to wait to enjoy them lol. They will sound very dull and low without it. For rca cables I honestly usually go with the cheapest decent ones I can find because you won’t see them and I don’t believe it makes a difference. It may make the tiniest .01 percent difference but not what you’ll notice.
That being said, it’s also not a horrible price for cables either. I just got a pair of rcas for 10 bucks that aren’t quite as pretty but will do the same job lol.
Actually taking another gander at them they seem pretty nice. It sounds crazy, but anywhere you look, short cables are harder to find and more expensive than the six foots. So 20 is actually not bad at all. I run my cables in a channel under my desk since my dac is about 3-4 feet away from my rnhp and future tuba, so extra doesn’t bother me. If you’re going to stack them then that’s actually a pretty good price for short rcas. I think the cheapest decent shorts I found online was like 25 or 30.
I literally can’t find short cables on amazon. The best cheap that I know are Amazon basics but the shorter ones are 1.2m. I’d definetely prefer to stack! I want to see what schiit replies to me about restock.
