Which headphones of Drop's currently available?
I have some rewards points to burn but there's no obviously good options on Drop right now for headphones Contenders Ultrasone - maybe? I don't own any Ultrasones, so curious. Looks like garbage travel headphone which could be useful also. Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro. - Maybe? I have the DT 880 Good price point, really uncomfortable headphones but could be interesting to try the upgraded version. E-MU - strong contender but $400 is a bad price point for what it is. Which of the above would you choose and why? Nothing else on Drop is relevant to my interests, because Already own 6xx 820 800 s Ether cx Garbage / Consumer grade Meze 99 - garbage bass canons, hard pass No gaming headphones obviously Sennheiser wireless - no to wireless/bluetooth Hifiman - I have 2 of drop hifimans and they make really bad cheap shit on Drop, hard pass on HE-R7DX Aeon - I own the closed, Drop refuses to address #padgate so no reason to buy open Beyerdynamic 177x - wireless, nope Too similar 8x / 560s...
Mar 28, 2024
A bit disappointing considering that my cheapo motherboard with a Realtek ALC892 has no background noise at all. IIRC Massdrop's original product page for the Slim advertised a "jet-black background", but I guess it's no longer advertised as such.
Although, sometimes your source could be to blame... have you guys tried using different USB ports to see if there's less noise? Oftentimes, front panel USB ports are very poor quality and generate much more noise than your motherboard USBs and even USB 3/3.1.
The fix for me was using a heavier shielded ferrite core USB cable like this:
http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=5457
Cleaned the noise right up for me.
I currently do not have access to anything above 32 ohm to test on, but at a guess I'd say anything over 50 ohm would probably be enough to cancel out the noise floor (maybe). I don't think I will be able to test this before the end of the current drop but i will report on it when I can.
Honestly hiss from the slim with my sensitive IEMS seems to bother me less and less... or it has lessened for real from break-in.
And yes, it happens on both low(line-out) and high gain.
It's a constant and very light white noise in the background, and as a result noticeable on low impedance cans and iems.
What confuses me is that moedawg140 says "[He] did not detect any hiss or background noise when using the DACport and SE846 combination."
http://www.head-fi.org/t/778966/review-centrance-dacport-slim-dac-amp-combo
Yet I can hear it quite clearly on all my headphones and earbuds if I listen for it.