A Step Above Sennheiser HD 600?
Hi, hope the day is treating you well. I am curious what headphones are considered a considerable and worthy step above Sennheiser HD 600? HD 600 are my favorite headphones ever so far (I tried most of the popular options within 500$ USD price range). Something with a neutral signature, considerably more resolving. Would it be Focal Clear? Sennheiser HD 800S?
Jun 2, 2023
Of course the product makes absolutely no sense. High-resolution music = stuff you can barely hear in a silent environment with good heads, let alone on the go on a portable music player. Brings nothing of value to the table and asks an outrageous price.
Spending that much on a portable music player is almost certainly not a good idea. You're better off buying a laptop, harddrive, and soundcard or DAC/Amp. You can probably get all of those on the cheap for around $600 and you'll get equal performance plus far more versatility and far more storage space for your 24bit FLAC files.
Most users only use portable music players on the go (at the gym, jogging, driving, etc). These environments are never silent, ideal listening environments. Even in a silent listening environment with $1000 headphones, I can't hear a difference between 16 and 24bit. The chance that anyone will hear the difference on a portable music player is about nil.
It would be great if anyone in that small niche could describe such a scenario for us where: 1) High sound quality (ie. lossless, 24bit) matters, and 2) It's impractical to use a bigger setup (ie. laptop, DAC/Amp)
Being a student, I value everything being as portable as possible. When I have my Westone UM Pro 50s with custom eartips, I cannot hear anything outside when I am playing music. So I am pretty much able to hear anything and everything in my music. I don't need to pull out a DAC and Amp with my laptop just to play music when I can use a DAP for the same scenario. Now and days, these players really do give full sized setups a run for their money. I am not always by my gaming desktop since I'm am up and about. So I can see the use of having an expensive DAP for scenario 2. Another problem is that I like my smartphone and DAP separate. For Android, the SQ is far in between the good and horrible. So I need something that sounds awesome but functions (UI and Playback Design) good as well. As for if you can hear the difference between 16 and 24 or lossless and high bitrate lossy, that's a thing I'm unsure of. I feel I can hear the difference, but it could also be psychoacoustics. Honestly, I don't see the value of spending a couple grand on DAPs like AK380 and the like. But if I had that type of money, I guess I would too.
I'd recommend for these types of niche products, Massdrop provides links to third-party reviews in the product description.
For those who feel it's all snake oil or too expensive... Don't buy it :)
I'm happy to be able to listen to music now without headphones most of the time...