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
And the point is while being a gamer and using pretty expensive headset (Beyer's MMX 300 to be precise) I don't give a damn about all of that surround sound scouting modes marketing bullshit. I do however want to get a good quality for stereo playback whether it is a game or music listening or whatever.
So basically I have to use some proper DAC/Amp with my headphones for decent listening experience. Well, you know, proper power delivery filtering, async usb connection, decent DAC, proper amplification section, all that stuff. The problem is, those are not meant to be used with the headsets and therefore don't provide you with a mic input. So in addition to using the DAC/Amp hypothetical me has to use his on-board audio (Realtek-made sigh) or a discrete sound card from ASUS/Creative/whatever.
The question is, with the demand for some proper DACs going on lately why no manufacturer tried to add an ADC with mic preamp to the mix? I know there are Creative discrete audio cards (E5, G5 etc) and I tried G5 myself. Nowhere near my O2+ODAC combo in terms of audio quality, and EMI both for headphones out and for mic in drove me nuts in addition to that. By proper DAC/ADC combo I mean the device that uses all the benefits of a good DAC/amp I mentioned earlier but adds a proper ADC+preamp for mic input. I know some USB controllers (namely Savitech's ones) allow configuring such a device.
I'd like to know your thoughts on this guys.