Sennheiser PC37X randomly goes bad after disconnecting the cable ?
Greetings, Yesterday I was using my headset like normal with my macbook, just listening to music and on a call with people like usual, and the headset was perfectly fine. The stock wire that came with the headset is extremely long and yesterday it annoyed me very much that it kept getting tangled with itself, so I decided to see if the cable is replaceable. I pulled out the cable from the headset and saw the adapter, and looked online for a replacement. Upon plugging it back in, the audio sounded extremely muffled and washed out. Im not sure what I did wrong to make it mess up like that as I've always taken good care of it, ive had it for about 2 years and its always just been chilling on my desk, but anywho I thought the cable just went bad and ordered a replacement. The replacement came, and the issue is still persistant, so I am not sure what the issue is I've tried multiple different headsets and the issue is not with the port, and I also tried it with my windows laptop and...
Apr 23, 2024
Audiophile grade headphones start, at a bare minimum around $200 for a few old AKGs that are widely considered to be mid-fi. Decent mid-fi starts at around $300. I personally don't consdier anything less than hi-fi (approx 900 and up) to be "audiophile" , but mid-fi headphones will at least get you a very large improvement.
Consider what you want to achieve out of this hobby. If you don't place a great deal of value on your headphone listening, just get some mid-fi headphone, some decent amp/dac combo unit and enjoy. If you want to go for audio bliss (ie, be an audiophile), you will have ot adjust your budget priorities. For example, I'm about 5k in and still hunting for upgrades. Any serious audiophile will tell you to skip the mid-fi step altogether and hit hi-fi right from the starting line.
For a starting audiophile I would recommend the following:
Source: Schiit Wyrd (USB isolator, required for any PC source using USB) - $100
DAC: Gustard X20U (balanced Sabre DAC, exceptional value, easily modded improvements, big upgrade path for I2S) - $800
Amp: Schiit Jotunheim (new product, balanced, which I tested back-to-back with my $1,700 Ragnarok and it was only a little inferior, mainly not as three-dimensional) - $400
Headphones: HiFiMAN HE-6 (one of the best headphones period, amazing value, extremely power hungry) - $1000.
Cables: The amount of benefit depends on the quality of your power. There's a number of high-value manufacturers, but I really like the value and performance of Audio Sensibility out of Canada.
So minus cables, this system represents a very strong start into hi-fi headphone listening. The HE-6 are end-game quality and can be tapped off of speaker amps. I auditioned the Jotunheim and its value is real. The Gustard is going to destroy anything around it's price point, the next upgrade is around 2.5-3k point, and it offers I2S with 4xDSD support which is an a large improvement by itself.