Yeah, although admittedly none of them are really interested in wireless headphones lol
That and the value there is a lot higher, a quality wired with a quality source will kinda smack up any wireless I’ve heard for much much less. Also so much easier for actual portable, outside of any isolation. Gave up on taking headphones portable in recent years as iems and daps got so good
It really is incredible how far the market has come in the last 5 to 10 years. Heck there really wasn’t a portable bt amp that could drive full size headphones without a dongle until recently.
Then there’s the chfi market that is soring with value options that never existed before.
Yeah, hard to ignore that value and performance lol
Couldn’t agree more
699$ for the new bowers and wilkins wireless. companies are testing the market.
edit: not sure if they used them before, but they are using carbon fiber cones
Huh, wonder if the carbon fiber is just a marketing thing for them or it’s actually decent. Does look nicer than their old headphones lol
@Ohmboy saw you mentioned me in that cable thread, figured I’d answer here instead. Power cables have been a weird one for me. I didn’t really see much value in them up until I got some nicer higher end gear, along with a powerplant and then they started making some sense, but now I’ve ditched the powerplants (in some cases) and found them to be pretty substantial and worthwhile in some of my setups. It’s hard to give any sort of blanket statements, since they will be different for every setup and for every cable
Honestly seems kinda fun to try and make a list of some of my favorite cable types in here, but I have a feeling that might end up being a bit too useless unless I increase the amount of context I give with them
You weren’t kidding. The things that caught my eye are well over 1k… 
I was really interested in the Cayin HA300 until I saw the price lol
You can find HA300 for around 2.5k used at this point depending on tubes included, I wonder if now the mk2 is out that the og will drop further, although I don’t think it will go lower. That being said 300b are expensive for good pairs, and 6sn7 are getting up there as they get more rare, so it might be costly to retube down the line
There is also the HA-6A which was pretty good from the shorter demo I had, I don’t know if I’d say it’s just a scaled back ha300 since there were some differences, but considering those retail for 2.5, I wonder if you can find some around 1.5k used now. Also cheaper to retube than the 300
Thanks for the reply! I don’t mind waiting a few years as I save up money. For now, I’ll enjoy what I have but it’s really tempting to spend money on the more expensive stuff. Since I enjoy the Mk3 Argons so much, I’m leaning towards more warmer fun sound signatures and I think tubes are known for that, right? More studying is required
Well, I would likely get some nicer headphones if you are going to consider a HA300 to take advantage of that, don’t know if argons would really be doing that lol. Never tried that pairing so don’t know how it would be, the ha300 actually did a decent job driving some of the planar I like, although it’s on the more loose and richer side of things which didn’t always work well. With an argon it would likely accomplish the goal fine, but no clue since not tried that pairup
So, I would say it highly depends. I actually think a lot of my favorite tube amps lean on the cleaner and more neutral side of things (with is reflected on that list lol), with some potentially even ones you could mistake for a more cleanly solid state amp if you aren’t listening super critically lol. I think you’ll find with higher end tube amps, they can all sound wildly different from each other, but with more budget tube amps they tend to follow the “warm, rich, and gooey” stereotype. For why that is, I think it’s a few things: 1. they don’t have the budget to get quality components at that price point to make a more technical leaning amp and/or don’t have the design chops, and 2. really because a lot of buyers at that level/price point tend to expect that “tube sound” more, and aren’t interested in more neutral leaning tube amps (but again that’s a lot more different in the higher end side of things). The cayin is more focused on the fun and warm side of things, but there are plenty of other examples at that price point that don’t. Of course also depends on the rest of the chain too.
You can tube roll to change the sound of course, with varying levels difference/success depending on the design, but I think another misconception about tube amps is that the tube is what mainly determines the sound of the amp, which really isn’t true in some designs, really depends on the amp for how much the tube will influence the amp, and there are cases where it will sound drastically different, or not all that different enough to care. All depends there. High quality tubes are important, and trying out a few options can be valuable, but I’m personally not one of those who goes crazy with swaps of all types and cares too much, because I’ve not encountered an amp where tube swapping it changed me from loving to hating it or vice versa, there’s only so much swapping tubes can do
Fascinating, I wasn’t aware of that about tube amps. Thank you for the detailed explanation! I don’t know if I’ll still have these Argons down the line but they helped me discover more about the sound signature I like. Besides the expenses, the one thing that scares me about this hobby is figuring out synergy throughout the chain. Luckily we have people like you that can help with that by testing out all these units. Thank you 
that’s the beauty of the hobby no headphone purchase is a mistake as long as it helps you learn about something about yourself whether it be preference or taste.
This is an interesting surprising review of the PX8 vs the Focal Bathys… He prefers the PX8
Oh interesting, looks like b&w have upped their game compared to their last gen headphones (or focal dropped the ball lol). Guess I’ll have to pick up one of those too then lol
Removed K1000, decided it was redundant when MS exists. Moved Auralic to Low as I felt I just didn’t enjoy it as much as what it was grouped with
Added section jumps, further cleaned some things up, added and working on a shortlist section, working on cable section, will continue to add pairings, added a somewhat rambling section which will either have things added or removed as I feel like it.
Edit: and moved APL down a bit in the DAC list
Edit 2: removed spring 2 kte cause I don’t really like it myself
To skirt around any potential passive aggressiveness that at times plagues this forum, is it just me or a lot of posts that I read recently “cope” posts? All about how they’ve misunderstood this hobby, so badly to where they misattribute their bitterness and lack of interest as a fault of the hobby rather than a fault of themselves? Just wonder why people still stick around if audio isn’t a priority for them, if they get no enjoyment, if they only exist to bemoan how wrong they think everything is. We get it, go bitch somewhere else, no need to bother people who are actually interested and cripple discussion for people who care.
I’ve got my own thread now, I should be able to complain about the state of the hobby just like the others lol
It’s always a reasonable question to ask “what are the limits, how far do I want to go, is it worth it?” but the answer is usually “take a time-out from the hobby and search within yourself for those answers”. Some people bitch just to bitch, and taking a step back from any hobby is good for clarifying (or discovering) perspective. That’s my take on it, anyway; there’s a split between looking for answers and just raining on other peoples’ parade, and sometimes people have a hard time figuring out which is which. This is especially prevalent when people either feel personally slighted or cheated, whether its unrealistic expectations or the inability to exactly recreate someone else’s experience.
Makes sense to me, that last part is a good point. I understand that frustration navigating that hobby well, I guess I just more am talking about people who it’s very clear that they’ve either:
a. given up, and encourage others to give up too
b. feel that everything is “wrong” and exist only to not offer solutions but complain about that “wrongness”
c. people that don’t really care, yet encourage others to feed the cycle
and so on
Really just people that exist only to rain on those parades, or just people seemingly against the hobby as well, that constantly complain about it and try and actively push people out of it. That’s what really drives me nuts. If you don’t like the hobby, then that’s perfectly fine, but don’t then interact on a hifi forum to then try and push others out as well
This man has a fine jacket.
