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
- High-mass platter and chassis.
- High-quality platter material and strong vibration isolation controls.
- High quality arm, a very well-engineered, very accurate and well-dampened arm and pivot mechanism.
- Quality MC cartridge.
- High quality phono stage, preferably a tubed MM phono and high-end step-up transformer.
- Quality speed controller.
Moreover, the need of a high quality MC also greatly increases alignment difficulty so that you'll also want a high-end protractor or the ability to tune by ear, a channel balance checker, etc. Microscope-assisted angle adjustment is also recommended. Frankly, most people here are probably not that interested in audio quality from their record player, as even if they got, say, a Basis, Xtension, SME, etc, they wouldn't have the amp or speakers to realize the true strength of records. How many of them don't even have a linear amp, let alone 60 lb speakers in a listening room? Anyone can be happy with the warmth of record playback, you don't need a quality system for that, but the true power of record playback -- big dynamics, realistic tone, and black backgrounds almost as good as digital (with the best audiophile pressings virtually indistinguishable from CD) -- sadly costs a significant amount of money.