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
I've been listening to the the soundtrack from Gladiator (damn it's good!), and the Primo 8 exhibits excellent separation of instruments in even the most complex passages. To see how it dealt with something more driving I've been using Peter Gabriel's Security, in particular "The Rhythm of the Heat," ""I Have the Touch," "Shock the Monkey," and "Kiss of Life." Between those songs, you get a great selection of tribal drumming, drum machines, Jerry Marotta working the kit so hard that the drums were probably still vibrating half an hour after they turned off the mics, fine bass and Stick playing by Tony Levin, and Gabriel's remarkable and complex voice. The Primo 8 served all of that goodness up with aplomb, making me want to listen more and louder. Acoustic and vocal centric music like Jimmy Webb's recent albums and Vince Gill also sounded great, as did Diana Krall. These IEMs are just fun to listen to.
Fyi, they work quite nicely when plugged directly into my iPhone 6 Plus, hang together well with the Shanling M2(despite it's slightly high output impedance), but they really shine with my phone feeding my ifi iDSD nano. I don't have anything further in terms of amps/DACs to try them with. I guess I should also mention that all the source files were ripped from my CD collection and are in either alac or aiff formats.
Anyway, while I don't have the familiarity with competitive products either with IEMs or amps, my ears have been tuned on a pretty outstanding speaker system, so I'm not without audiophile experience. I think the Nu Force Primo 8 is a fantastic set of IEMs for the drop price.