Hello, I just joined, primarily for the audiophile products. Looking at purchasing the NHT C3 speakers for our new living room. Space is about 15 feet wide by 33 long and they will fire long ways. Space is just for general listening, music room with all equipment is downstairs, so hoping they will fill it with sound nicely. Cheers.
Mar 18, 2024
- Hifiman HE4XX Planar magnetic
- Hifiman HE5XX Planar magnetic
- Beyerdynamic DT990 PRO
- Sennheiser HD 58X Jubilee
- Sennheiser HD 6XX
//images at the very end, scroll to see. Would be very helpful too if an amp and/or DAC is recommended that goes well with the list above (combined cost of around $200 max) Thanks.Story (kinda) I've been looking at getting my first pair of open-back headphones for a while (for music, gaming and movies). I've watched many reviews and I seem to have decided on 5, but I'm struggling to pick one out of the five. I currently use ATH-M50x's (for years now), and they sound great. No complaints at all. But I would like to have a decent open back pair as well. However, without physically listening to them, it's hard to judge what the actual true lows, mids, and highs are, or what they sound like, based on the video reviews or "demos" with binaural microphones. They never seem to be accurate though (for obvious reasons: recording, exporting, upload to YouTube (compression), then viewing/ listening on a different device with different audio settings etc.) <- I know, not ideal. This is where you come in; if you have the headphones listed above, or have listened to them, please leave your opinions as comparisons. Things I'm looking for:
- Under $200 (but willing to step up a little bit through recommendations if necessary) the ones above should be alright except one.
- good highs (but not overly tinny or harsh)
- bass is usually not too prominent on open back I know, but would like some decent bass out of them
- importantly, it mustn't feel as though someone is hovering their hand close to the back of the headphones giving that "covered"/tight mid sound (if that makes sense) something like the AKG 712pro (based on sound demos I've heard so far). I'm guessing something with strong mids would cause this idk.
- basically good overall highs, mids and lows balance (I'm comparing sound to m50x because that's the only reference I know of to base my preference on). Not comparable I know but it's what I got to work with.
That being said, I'd also like a recommendation on amplifiers and DACs. Basically which would work best with the list above, but combined shouldn't go above $200. Currently what I'm looking at is :- Schiit Magni 3+ amp
- Schiit Modi DAC
- DROP O2 Headphone amp
- JDS Labs Atom amp
I included these because they came up quite a few times in different reviews etc. This is probably a harder thing to recommend I know. I'm going from just reviews I've watched and things I've looked up trying to get a feel of what they might sound like. Ultimately it IS a personal preference so I'll be taking all opinions with a grain of salt. And since I'm going from closed to open back, I'm sure the upgrade in quality (even on a budget open back headset) would be a large improvement and is probably worth the upgrade for the next few years. Thank you for getting this far on the post, I appreciate the time you've taken to answer the simple (yet very hard) question I have. Your views are appreciated greatly. ImagesHeadphones: DT990 PRO (below)
Amps and DACS: JDS Labs ATOM AMP+ (below)