64 Audio tia Fourté IEM Discussions | Drop

Oct 24, 2020

mdeousLol, have you heard of the Sennheiser Orpheus? Currently $60,000 – up $10k from their launch price. And they’ve sold every one of those they’ve produced! In the speaker world, prices go even higher, there are plenty of six-figure options, and at trade shows it’s not uncommon to see them exhibited next to exotic supercars... in fact, I took this photo when visiting Munich High End:

High end audio has a much higher ceiling than most people realize. I love that I can get a taste of luxury for a much lower price with headphones and IEMs. I see this Drop as a flagship audio effort from a brand that has impressed me in the past, and the 25% discount is an extremely good deal. I’m not able to afford this right now, Covid hit me hard, but if I could I would.

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Oct 24, 2020

Oct 24, 2020

EvshrugThat's pretty crazy! And yeah I'm pretty sure there is a good reason for that price, I couldn't afford it but I'm happy for people who do. Great pictures btw!

Oct 24, 2020

Oct 24, 2020

mdeousThanks! I thought some photos would be more fun than just saying “it’s a wild world out there.” I haven’t been on a trip like that in three years, so it was fun to relive the memories. I actually haven’t been able to afford audio products above $1000, even though Audio is a big, fun part of my life. I think it was 2016 I saved up and an HD 800 was my big purchase of the year (instead of a big TV, or a new phone), the next year I did get my current phone, and I was making a bit more working two jobs so I also invested in a cool headphone surround processor on Kickstarter (this was also the year that Axel Grell sponsored me to fly to Munich, Germany, to help at the High End event and meet Sennheiser staff). Since then it’s been mostly paying off my car (yay!) and saving up for my first house, which of course got eaten into by lockdown work limitations, but I’m glad to own something nice to enjoy again and again. I’d share if I could!

Oct 24, 2020

Oct 25, 2020

EvshrugThat must have been such a great experience for someone passionate about HiFi! Owning something you wanted badly is such a great feeling, I would probably not spend $1k on HiFi as I feel like I wouldn't be able to fully appreciate their quality anyway (or would I? I never tried really high-end stuff so I don't really picture how much of a difference those can make), but last year I finally managed to buy a watch I had been lurking on for a while, and oh boy is it satisfying to finally have it at my wrist!! And here comes a watch picture in a hifi thread haha!

I hope your work situation will get better soon, I'm sorry for that!

Oct 25, 2020

Oct 25, 2020

mdeousIt was a slow burn to reach the TOTL level, hah! I started looking at headphones in 2008 because my dorm room was right next to my friend’s, and I wanted to play games late. I scoured the web for research on the lightest, most “speaker like” headphones I could find for $80. Ended up keeping those for two years while I found out about the possibility of headphone surround. That first headphone indeed was light, and had a huge sense of size and “out of your head” sound, but it wasn’t until my second headphone with a more balanced signature and twice the price that I realized that the thin sound of my laptop speakers and $80 headphones was largely responsible for why audio had become a “background music” thing for making unpleasant times slightly more bearable. Until around 2010, music just couldn’t hold my attention by itself, and I mostly cared about the “functional audio” in games and dialogue. The quantifiable difference between the $80 and $160 headphones wasn’t that much – I was still hearing all the instruments and all the notes – but the little differences added up to make all the difference, and it really helped to have made some friends who generously shared advice and music recommendations. I only ever had one or two headphones at a time, and I usually held on to each for at least three years. I didn’t want to spend more, because there was always something else to spend money on, but every once in awhile the upgrade bug caught me. Nice thing about audio gear, it usually holds its value and has a strong used market. Thanks about your wishes for my job/income situation. I certainly am not unique! I’m just lucky I didn’t have to start over completely, and in October I got a raise that brought back 1/3 of what I lost, so we’re above paycheck to paycheck /pandemic assistance level. I hope you’ve had some stress relief and a solid financial situation too! Unfortunately I can’t see your cool watch photo, but I’m happy for you! I do think watches are cool... did you know that accurate, portable clocks are what made long range sea navigation and mapping possible? The watch was a technological leap equivalent in importance to smartphones... they just made so many things possible. The history of clocks and watches is fascinating! Cheers! 🍻

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Oct 25, 2020

Oct 26, 2020

EvshrugI'm being censored! (ok, the issue is probably more of the pebcak type) Let's try again...

History of watches is really a wonderful topic, and I love how watchmakers have always pushed technical limits of what we though was possible. And they still do, and that's amazing, for example Piaget who managed to build a 2mm thick watch (yes, this includes the case, the movement, the hands, and the crystal!) with their Altiplano Ultimate Concept. I'm glad you got some support to help you deal with the situation! I'm one of the very lucky ones who haven't been financially impacted, but I feel really bad for those who suffered from it (and a lot around me did), that's really been a shitty year, and we're far from being done with it... Anyway, enough with those depressing topics! 🍻

Oct 26, 2020

Oct 26, 2020

mdeousThat’s a fantastic picture, and a gorgeous skeletonized watch!

Oct 26, 2020

Vote

Oct 27, 2020

mdeousNo, no, no, no. There are no good reasons for YOU as a customer, for these audio prices, but there are decently explainable reasons why certain audio equipment cost so much. For example, a 10z bar of gold costs ~1500 usd to mine and manufacture, you absolutely can't produce a bar of gold for less than say 1500 bucks or whatever, same with audio equipment, some of these parts are expensive/labor intensive. HOWEVER, a 3000 pair of headphones will sound almost identical to a $200 pair of hd6xx for example.

Oct 27, 2020

Oct 27, 2020

League544Yep that was more or less my feeling, thanks for confirming. On that topic, I was wondering, where would you guys place the peak of the diminishing returns curve for HiFi hardware? Past which price / category does it start costing a bigger premium than the benefits it brings? (from my perspective I feel like it's around $400-$500, but I'm curious to have the opinion of people more familiar with that stuff)

Oct 27, 2020

Oct 27, 2020

mdeousHonestly I’m not too knowledgeable about headphones, but very about iems. It honestly depends on the components and the way that the IEM’s are built but even with that said a $50 pair of KZ zsx sound 95% as good as my 1000 dollar Voyager 14. So My FA9 and my V14 sounds identical in every way. Shockingly, because these Chinese companies are able to copy flagship knowledge armatures. They can make $50 headphones sound as good as thousand dollar headphones because they are basically using carbon copies, some say almost perfect replicas. You can get really terrible headphones for 50 bucks or you can get headphones that sound like thousand dollar headphones for 50 bucks it just depends on the brand. These ultra expensive headphones are using old outdated non-flex ship Armature’s that they haven’t updated in the past 5 to 10 years, but never or rarely lower their prices (probably when they are low on money they lower the prices to squeeze money quicker out of people) It could be probably because they have to make insane margins because a lot of these smaller companies have very few sales so they have to basically rip off whatever they can to stay afloat and pay their employees + yatch fund. For iems? Diminishing returns starts at 50 bucks nowadays. It’s insane.

Oct 27, 2020

Oct 27, 2020

League544That's quite crazy! I guess the hard part with copies / cheap brands is to be able to distinguish what's a great deal from what's a shitty one though (I wouldn't know what to look at).

Oct 27, 2020

Oct 27, 2020

mdeousWell, there’s more to it than this, but some manufacturers use off the shelf Knowles BA’s, but Sonion is also on the rise, and there are like 31 BA manufacturers in China. However, some manufacturers commission Knowles to make unique designs to their specifications, have their own proprietary drivers, or skip BA’s altogether and use Dynamic drivers (or even a few use Planar or MEMS drivers!). I’m not the IEM expert to defend this case best, but really, there’s a LOT more to sound than just throwing a handful of BA drivers into a shell cloned off of someone else’s work. The devil is in the details, and those details can make the difference between ok, great, and excellent sound products. Wouldn’t it be sad if a $30 product was really performing at the limit of what was possible, and there was nowhere to go from there? A $30 (or is it now a $50?) KZ IEM may be as similar to a $1000 IEM from a reputable company as a Chevy Cruze might take you from A to B within the speed limit in the same time as a Bentley or Lamborghini, but the experience will be very different. That doesn’t mean you have to value the difference enough to want to pay for something more expensive. You spend your money however is appropriate for you.

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Oct 27, 2020

Oct 27, 2020

mdeousI would highly recommend Kz/tin/blon is said to be as good as 2000 dollar iems, it’s insane. Blon-3 I think it is. I’m sorry about all of those typos in my last post I use voice to text because of an injury.

Oct 27, 2020

Oct 28, 2020

Evshrug I completely agree with what you’re saying, the thing is Balanced armatures specifically are easy to replicate to 1:1 standards. That’s why we are seeing the real non-inflated prices that Knowles/Sonion charges, aka 50 dollar iems that sound like 1000 dollar iems. Trust me these Chinese companies have figured and probably stolen everybody’s tuning strategies, they know and have the resources and tools at their disposal to do anything this USA companies can do and even more in fact, I would do the same thing that they are doing if I was in that position, specifically undercut and expose these overpriced audio equipments, make my OWN and sell it at 10% of the price, caching! Sure companies don’t like when you stray from their corruption and you interrupt their racket, but the customers love it. I mean if you think about it, was it ever a feasible idea to charge two grand for something that weighs less than a couple of grams? I mean at that rate I can buy a diamond ring made out of 18k white gold for cheaper weight for weight wise. 50-200 bucks seems like it should of been the limit on iems anyways, not 2000-4000, that’s robbery. I also don’t necessarily agree with your car analogy because a car is an entire experience whereas a headphone it’s also an entire experience but they all sound identical from my tests, maybe a better example you should have used is not compare a Ferrari to like a Toyota but rather like a Kia to a Toyota. 50 dollar iems are kias, 2000 Toyota’s, you look at the price you would assume ”No you should be comparing Kia to a Ferrari”, but that’s where the disconnect is. The actual experience between a 50 dollar iem and 2000 is virtually identical, just like Toyota vs Kia, sure maybe Toyota will get like slightly better gas mileage and better reliability just like how a $2000 Iem will get better comfort and probably better built, but if you could buy a 2020 Kia for 500 bucks, or a Toyota for 10000, which would you pick? This is a more perfect example of the audio industry when talking about iems more so. Even headphones have insane diminishing returns past $200 Hd6xx, so idk.

Oct 28, 2020

Oct 29, 2020

League544Look, right now you’re being the opposite of a “golden eared audiophile,” and commenting waaaay too much all over someone’s product page. I’ve gotten like 15 or more notifications that you’ve made posts. I do really appreciate that you’ve been very civil, and I do believe you are genuinely meaning to be helpful, but you’ve got to reign it in a bit. You’ve made your point, but continuing to press the issue is just going to turn people off from your opinion. If you’re happy with a KZ or BLON IEM, that’s your choice. I have two KZs, a Tin Audio (I didn’t love any of them) and a BL-03 myself (the BLON was really comfortable, and while the sound has only surface level detail and a small sense of space and location, the sound is also not irritating or painful, which is half the battle), as well as pieces from other manufacturers around the world at many price points (though I couldn’t afford any above $500, I have at least heard them myself and found them able to offer “more,”). You shouldn’t assume that nobody else can hear a difference. None of your arguments make sense. Why would anyone undercut a profitable business to only make 10% as much money? You wouldn’t, you’d work yourself to the bone for no profit, and go out of business. Also, the BLON IEM that people (especially on SBAF) are raving about uses dynamic drivers, not balanced armatures. BA’s have varying levels of quality, just like so many other electronics. To measure an electronic’s value based off its weight makes no sense either! Also, in this thread you’re arguing for KZs, in another thread you’re arguing for buying a Unique Melody Mest, which by the way is also a Chinese IEM, though it sells for $1400 MSRP, which is quite a bit higher priced than $30... I haven’t heard the Mest myself, but it wouldn’t be surprising to me if it was quite a bit of a better performer than any $50 IEM. Unique Melody is a respectable brand, and though I don’t usually like their thin, treble/upper mids emphasized sound, I think it’s wild and cool that they’re integrating dynamic, BA, Electrostat, and even bone-conducting drivers in one item. Maybe you won’t trust me, but there’s a strong reason why people say “you get what you pay for.” Sure, there are the occasional tasteless products that aren’t competitive, but to say “$30 IEMs sound exactly like $1000+ IEMs” is contrary to what literally thousands of consumers have experienced and stated, and contrary to what is easily measured in repeatable scientific trials. Again, YOU can ENJOY something cheap, but that doesn’t automatically mean others might value higher performance more than you do. ✌🏻 ☮️ and best wishes, I hope you stay healthy and happy.

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Oct 29, 2020

Oct 29, 2020

EvshrugThat "whoa this is expensive" comment quite blew up, wasn't expected! xD Anyway, thank you guys for sharing your opinions. Stay cool and stay safe!

Oct 29, 2020

Oct 29, 2020

EvshrugBack to choosing some hardware, I'd like your opinion on those 2 products that I'm very tempted to try out given the overall great reviews they both have:

Drop + THX Panda Headphones, to replace my current BeoPlay H9 3rd Gen, which I love but hurt my large ears unfortunately :(
Shuoer Tape Electrostatic IEMs

What's your opinion on those? Do you think they're both worth their price? (I know they're in 2 different price ranges, but the question remains valid I think)

Oct 29, 2020

Oct 29, 2020

mdeousSorry, League found and commented on a bunch of my posts in different threads, it just so happens that I decided to focus my replies here. I think he got burned by spending money on something that wasn’t to his taste, by buying too much too fast before he got a feel for what he wanted. My first 5 years getting into the hobby, I only owned two headphones. Patience (and a trade show or two) actually helps save money and increase satisfaction. As it happens, I stumbled on this Oct 22 video without looking for it: “Who buys expensive high-end audio?” https://youtu.be/te7Iy81zeHs Quote: “If you’re cynical of high end audio... ok, be cynical. Knock yourself out! What difference does it make? Are you trying to convince people who are into it that they shouldn’t be? ... Well, I hate to break it to you, you’re not going to make any difference.” Essentially, this product here isn’t targeted towards League, and maybe not you. This is not a product I’d recommend for “beginners” or with just a casual interest, or even an automatic choice if money is no object (because it has a very specific tuning that some will like, others won’t). Honestly, if you aren’t already excited about audio and have an idea of what you want from it yet, I do recommend starting out with something like an HD 58X or IE 40 Pro to just “test the waters” and see what you want more of/less of/are at your endgame already.

Oct 29, 2020

Oct 29, 2020

EvshrugI understand your point, and I don't think that kind of very high-end hardware is for me, as I said my ears would probably not be able to tell why they're so good, in the same way someone couldn't tell the difference between a cheap whiskey and a very high-end one because their taste buds aren't "trained" yet. Still, I don't think these are for nobody, there are for sure people who would be able to enjoy the full value of this kind of stuff, just not me haha! And no need to appologize for the comments, it's ok, it's always interesting to see 2 disagreeing people debate about their ideas!

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Oct 29, 2020

Oct 29, 2020

mdeousYeah, my taste buds are still Cro-Magnon when it comes to liquor, hahah. I still tend towards the sweet stuff, like an Amaretto, Cointreau, or hard cider, but I would be just as happy and probably more refreshed by a humble can of Coke 😅 There are some things you learn by training your ears, like listening for soundstage or digital hash, but honestly I think you would hear “something” different about this one because it’s “colored” in a specific way. We’ve instinctively been using our hearing all our lives, we just don’t typically analyze it. I’ll tell you what, I probably stayed in “mid-fi” and limited my experience more than necessary for the first 5 years (well, other than out of budget necessity). So, before I went to my first CanJam in 2015, I had only had a small taste of what was possible (I was basically a neophyte). When I heard the Sennheiser HD 800 for the first time, and the Fostex TH-900 for the second time, I instantly knew I had found “another level” and the experience sent shivers down my spine. I think it was interesting that the first time I heard the TH-900 on Fostex’s $200 DAC/amp, I was like “Oh, that’s fine,” but when I unplugged the headphone from that amp and plugged it into Fostex’s exotic $7000 tube amp (that looked like a microwave oven from the 80’s!) and played the same song (Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes”), I was immediately blown away by how much richer, “thicker,” and more detailed it was... I felt like the “wall of sound” had separated into individual instruments, and the reverb on some notes made it feel like I could hear the sound decaying into the distance of a long hallway. That was a huge difference, and two years later I was with two people who hadn’t heard much more than “bundled earbuds” and didn’t think there was much you could get out of listening to headphones (ironically, they worked in marketing for a big audio company), and I lead them to the same setups, and they were blown away in the same way! Aaaah, trade shows. We’re all waiting for the Covid threat to pass and things return to “normal,” but I’m itching for the chance to hear what’s new, and meet up with some friends I’ve made in the past. I’m bored with cabin fever, just like everyone else!

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Oct 29, 2020

Oct 29, 2020

EvshrugI thought the analogy made sense, but to be honest I'm not so much of a whiskey guy (although I've recently discovered bourbon, and that was interesting). But I think I'm better at recognizing a good alcool than a good pair of headphones 😆. One thing that I might have forgotten to mention and that has some importance is that I mostly listen to music while I'm on the go (a lot less these days for obvious reasons...), so that's an important factor in my decisions when choosing new stuff. Basically I listen to music either from my phone or my laptop. While I'd love to have a fancy home hi-fi setup, I wouldn't have a lot of use of it. I've seen some bluetooth DAC/Amp that seem pretty neat though (read good things about Fiio's BTR5), maybe that would be a path to explore. What "frightens" me a bit with hi-fi stuff is that from what I understand in the end you have to stack stuff together (headphones, amp, dac, and what not), and for this you really have to know what every layer adds to the whole setup. I feel a bit like people who don't know a thing about I.T. and say "I've opened internet" when they click on the Chrome icon, overwhelmed by all the technical stuff they don't understand 🤣.

Oct 29, 2020

Vote

Oct 29, 2020

mdeousDid you know, if you type “google” into Google, you can literally break the internet? 🤣 I totally get that there’s a lot to learn which acts as a barrier to entry for many. That’s why I’ve been trying to publish educational videos on my EvShrug YouTube channel, condensing years of exploring and learning into a few minutes on each topic. One of my first “reboot” videos I shot this summer was a rapid-fire overview about what function each piece of the “audio stack” does, and what benefits you might hear from an upgrade. While each piece is required to make sound (at least from digital files), you don’t have to buy separate discrete parts... for example, a Bluetooth headphone will have a DSP, DAC, and amplifier built in! Even the $9 Apple Lightning dongle has a tiny DAC and amp inside! ... Where’s my reply about the Shouer Tape electrostats and Panda? 😱 I wrote out this whole thing, I think I must not have hit send, and now it’s gone forever! Well, let’s take a second crack at it, I guess? I haven’t heard the Shouer Tape Electrostat myself, so I can only speak generally about electrostat type drivers. Due to low inertia and resistance to modal distortion, they benefit from supremely clean response, especially noticeable in the treble where vibrations happen at high frequency. Sometimes it’s so clean that it produces bass more clean than we’re used to, “too clean.” However, in order to work, the membrane that makes the sound isn’t able to have much excursion, the driver can’t displace as much air as a dynamic, meaning that most often the bass is lacking in impact and sometimes “volume” in addition to being “too clean.” Long story short, the Shouer uses an electret driver instead of a more traditional electrostat, and it’s just used as a super-highs tweeter while a more traditional dynamic driver is doing the heavy lifting for most of the frequencies. Headphonesty did a review: https://www.headphonesty.com/2020/02/review-shuoer-tape/ I have heard the Panda myself! I was helping out Dekoni at the last CanJam before Covid, and Drop asked Dekoni to showcase a sample while they were ramping up production for first customer deliveries. I got to take it back to my hotel room and listen until sleep 😁 It’s very similar to the well-reviewed Oppo PM3 planar magnetic headphone it’s based on, though obviously Bluetooth (and DSP, DAC, Amp, Battery, and control functions) were added. If you read PM3 reviews, you’ll have a decent idea of what to expect (me and my wife both used to own one!), though another thing added to the Panda was more bass. One of the things I felt lacking in the original PM3 was sub bass, so it was good to hear the addition. I’m not going to do an actual, full review here, but if you listen on the go, a closed back Bluetooth headphone (especially one that folds up) will certainly be highly convenient. With specific regards to your large ears these are about as small as possible to still be considered “over ear” circumaural headphones and not “on–ear.” The pads touched the edge of my ears and pinned them back (which is often an intentional part of sound tuning), but the pads are really soft and the majority of weight rests around your ears and headband, so even though I personally hate on–ear “comfort,” I found these over–ears to have a relatively easy to find sweet spot with these oval cups that I found very comfortable.

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Oct 29, 2020

Oct 29, 2020

EvshrugHaha, I can't count the number of times I wrote a post... and closed the tab without ever sending it! Thanks a lot for the explanation about electrostatic drivers, that's exactly the kind of details I needed, as it's really hard to understand the differences between all those technologies for a total newbie! Regarding external DACs/Amps, I had read (or maybe I just assumed) they could greatly help make the headphones/IEMs sound better, but maybe that's true only with very high-end stuff? Anyway, I just quickly looked at your youtube channel, and your recent videos look like something I should at least watch before asking more questions! Thanks a lot for sharing!

Oct 29, 2020

Oct 29, 2020

mdeousThanks a LOT for looking!! The channel is starting to take off... over a thousand views a month last time I checked! I think the drawings help explain things more clearly, and are visually more fun than watching a talking head all the time 😂 There’s varying levels of quality and intent for each piece. Generally: Source files: the quality of the song file limits the max detail and mixing quality of everything after it. DSP: this is your EQ, filters, and special effects, I’m particularly fond of spacial audio where it makes headphones sound more 3D. Digital cables/traces: USB, optical, coax, HDMI, the conductive metal lines on a circuitboard, and a few uncommon others I guess. DAC: digital to analog converter, a more accurate conversion means a more lifelike and realistic sound, but there’s also the analog “half” which can have a similar effect on sound as an amp. Amplifier: adds necessary gain to the analog signal, and allows for volume control, lower distortion and more current “on demand” when audio calls for more power can reduce how much this stage takes away from the signal and power more dynamic, crisp, and impactful the sound can be. Analog Cables: sometimes wires inside a component, but for headphones we typically see them terminated in RCA, bare wire strands (for speakers), spades or banana plugs (again for speakers), Single Ended (the typical 3.5mm TRS Headphone “mini” plug, 3.5mm TRRS smartphone plugs with an extra contact point for microphones, the bigger 6.2mm or 1/4” plug seen on guitars and full-size headphones), Balanced (most commonly the XLR-4 pin plug, 2.5mm TRRS plug used by Astell and Kern and a few others, 4.4mm TRRS Pentaconn (imo the most versatile and solid connection), RSA Balanced, and a couple dual-plug options). Talking about improvements here is a can of worms, even among enthusiasts, but suffice to say there are bad/good/great cables but almost always the headphone engineers already considered this & stock cables are very good. Headphone: Whether an in-ear or full-size headphone, this directs the pulses of power through an electromagnet, causing some surface (the driver aka transducer) to attract or repel from another magnetic force and that surface moves to cause airwave pressure compressions, aka sound. Improving the electromagnetic impulse response and controlling the airflow around and out towards your ear has all manner of effects, to name just a few aspects of sound design.

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Oct 29, 2020

Oct 31, 2020

EvshrugYes the drawings help a lot! Thanks once again for all the info, I love this community, you guys are so nice! Far from some other communities where people are so full of themselves (I.T. security guys, I'm looking at you! stop thinking you're the elite, you're not ;) ). It's really enjoyable to meet people willing to share their knowledge. I have a last question (for the moment haha) about cables, I've read about balanced/unbalanced, and from what I understood balanced cables are better when you have a long cable length, are they of any use otherwise?

Oct 31, 2020

Nov 3, 2020

mdeousLol where’s the can of worms emoji! 🛢 🐛 Please don’t roast me League544, I’m going to be as honest and factual as I can! So, balanced cables (BAL) have less crosstalk and lower noise than the typical single ended cables (SE), but honestly there is no a lot “in it” unless you have very specific setups. There is a perception that a perception that a BAL port provides more power than a SE port, but that’s really down to amp design. For example, using a 32 Ω headphone (typical for portables), the Sony ZX300 provides 50W of power out of the SE port, and 250W with the BAL 4.4mm Pentaconn output. However, the Sony was designed to prioritize the BAL output... with the SE only AM2A amp module on the FiiO X7 music player, a 32 Ω headphone receives more than 420 mW of power. Also, the FiiO X5 Mark III has both an SE and a BAL port, but clearly it was designed to prioritize the SE port because the BAL output has more distortion and less power (this is an unusual case, but it just goes to show how important design can be). IMO the Sony ZX300 doesn’t power the HD 6XX well enough even with the balanced connection (it’s loud enough, but it sounds digital and there’s a ceiling the volume can’t reach past), but the HD 6XX sounds marvelous with the FiiO X7. However, the HD 58X Jubilee and HD 660S sound great with the Walkman’s BAL output, definitely worth the extended battery life and more compact size of the Sony over the FiiO. Going back to the cables... I think you can see now why it’s more important to consider what setup you’re going to use. If you imagine for a second that you have two separate amps with equal power output and equal care put into their design, the BAL connection would have a slight edge in clarity. However, there aren’t any equivalent SE and BAL amps – either they’re both built into the same amp and (usually) the SE connection is half of what the BAL output can offer, and there’s always a bigger fish in the sea that can perform better regardless of what connection is offered. I’m going to sneak in an Easter egg for you if you’ve read this far, something most objectivists can’t seem to accept... while the connector plug only makes a small difference, the quality of the wire (shielding, conductivity) makes a bigger, more noticeable difference. That’s a hot take, which I didn’t want to believe, but I’ve experienced it many times and had it explained by expert audio engineers. A wire with electricity running though it... it is both an antenna, and an electromagnet! So shielding is very important, it just makes the silences “blacker” and the note separation clearer. Also, the less resistance a cable has, the better. A good cable won’t necessarily change the timbre or bass quantity of a headphone... it will just windex that window, clear away a haze you might not realize is there until you hear the alternative. For example, say you really like your HD 6XX, THX-789, and SDAC (or whatever Drop calls it) combo setup – but you get upgradeitis and you’re considering buying a $350 planar magnetic headphone. Well, the Planar certainly would be different, and maybe trade some pros/cons, but if you put that $350 instead into an upgrade cable from a reputable company like Cardas, Nordost, etc, you might experience an even bigger return on sound quality because you’ve addressed one of the bottlenecks in your system. Or not. Sadly, some companies make junk and charge more, while many of the attractive but cheap replacement cables on AliExpress are just side-grades from stock cables. The stock Sennheiser HD 650 cable is really good for the price, so noticeable improvements from companies that can’t mass produce on Sennheiser’s scale tend to cost much more. I wonder if Cardas would loan me a cable if I paid shipping? In my case, I use my Walkman SE for my IEMs (because it’s enough and I get a few more hours of battery life), the BAL ports for medium-demand headphones (Walkman + HD 660S + Hammock = 🏖), and a long balanced cable for chilling on my couch in my living room.

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Nov 3, 2020

Nov 3, 2020

mdeousBTW, I used to work in IT for Apple 😅 It was pretty stressful, exhausting work though, and even my patience would wear thin sometimes. EvShrug isn’t always able to be “Shrug” – it’s an ideal I strive for 😉 I’m also a bit burned out on techno/electronica music now 😂

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Nov 3, 2020

Nov 3, 2020

EvshrugThanks again for the clarification! I don't think I'm at that point where cables will make any difference for me (I'm not even sure I'll ever be at that point), but that's an info that's still good to keep in mind. So far I'm barely dipping my toes in the hifi world, we'll see where it leads to haha! (honestly I already have way enough costly hobbies, but you never know... 😅)

Nov 3, 2020