Anyone own a crazy headphone/audio setup?

After going a good year or two without nice headphones (RIP my poor Ultimate Ears Triple.Fi 10's), a buddy of mine bought me a nice set of 1More Quad Drivers, and that has awoken the hi-fi craving giant within me once again. I'm now typing this with the Hifiman HE-400i's on my head, running into a Dragonfly Red DAC/amp, and am already contemplating some sort of Schiit stack to replace it. And I thought Christmas was expensive enough already!

Anyone listening to a car's worth of audio gear? Got a set of electrostatic cans you want to talk about? Have any advice for people (such as myself) who are just starting to get into the world of high end audio? Got any favorite pieces of music you use to run a new product through its paces? Think we're all nuts? We probably are!

I'm old, and a vinyl guy at heart so I'm regularly shocked at the terrible standard of audio many young people consider acceptable. Never mind the cost of a car, you can get very good hi-fi gear from your local junk store for a pittance from what I've seen. Apart from headphones maybe.

No, but let me tell you about LaserDisc, brah

I have Focal Elears and waiting for the Questyle CMA400i to be available in the USA to purchase.

My portable setup is Klipsch X6is on a Dragonfly Red Amp/DAC connected to my iphone.

I also use Audio Technica MSR7s with a Vmoda Boom Pro MIC for my gaming needs.

Even if you can find great audio equipment cheap, it still takes some time to figure out which brands are any good and how to set stuff up, where to place speakers, etc. Trying to cobble together a great audio setup from stuff you found cheap is even more of an art form than knowing what to buy and how to get it set up properly. It's just way easier to buy a pair of Beats and plug them into your cellphone and start listening to whatever.

That said, I have gotten a taste for better audio equipment over the past year and a half. I haven't purchased a great pair of headphones - still using a pair of Hyper X Cloud II's on PC, I know it's not the greatest but it works well enough - but I do have a pair of Klipsch R15M's plugged up to my computer and a subwoofer under my desk. Will it impress an audiophile? Nope! But it's sure as hell way better than the $100 Bose Companion speakers that I gave my brother (he rarely uses them and instead bought a $200 pair of Sennheiser headphones for his computer).

I also found an open box receiver about a year and a half ago and it's got a center and four bookshelf speakers and it goes to the same subwoofer that my computer speakers go to (I use an AV switcher to change what's going to the sub). Again, nothing that will impress an audiophile - some of them will probably read this and laugh - but before I had some dinky offbrand PC speakers plugged into my TV.

I was never a fan of TV speakers in the first place but I sort of grimace whenever I hear TV speakers now. It's not a pleasant experience!

EDIT: Music wise? Hm... when I was testing out the computer speakers, I used a lot of Polyphia and/or Opeth to test some stuff out.

I have a CRT I use for watching LaserDiscs (some retro gaming too) and the speakers are fantastic. It's a shame that built-in speaker quality took such a nosedive after switching to LCDs. They just don't have the room to put anything with punch inside.

I actually also just started walking down the audiophile path. A few years ago my wife(she's a Sound Designer) gave me a couple of AKG K612 Pro's which I consider really good (very broad soundstage), only downside was at that point I wasn't really into the whole dac/preamp thing, so they stayed at home because my phone couldn't drive enough power to them: flash forward to this winter where I needed a headet and suddenly found myself researching a lot. I've ended up with a pair of B&W P7's powered by a Black Dragonfly for HiFi on my commute and then Dragonfly + K612s at work. The next step would probably be somewhere around OPs setup, with a Red Dragonfly and a pair of planar magnetic headphones. It's great to have found a new hobby! So many new sounds found in old goodies!

I don't have $220 to spare, but if anyone does and is interested (and is in America), those normally $450 HE400i's are on Amazon for $220. That's quite a discount.

I have a magni / modi schitt stack paired with hifiman he400s's and audioengine a2 speakers. A good "budget" audiophile setup imo.

I have a pair of Audiotechnica ATH-W1000X'S ($700ish headphones) that I love to death. No amp currently as I really only used them with my PC with a soundcard with an amp onboard. My favorite pieces I've listened to on them were the soundtracks of Ori and the Blond forest and that metroid esque game that came out a while back with all the glitchiness in the world.

They were also pretty spectacular for ArmA 3 with the JSRS and DynaSound mods combined with razer's 3D sound emulation. One thing I'd like to get going is a better way to use them with an Xbox One X once I get back on my feet financially. When i had my S I just used the controller 3.5mm but the sound quality there leaves a lot to be desired.

I'd love to get back to having something capable of driving them to listen to some Animals as Leaders as well, my current phone isnt great at driving them and its all I have for the moment.

As someone who saved up for and bought a set of separates when my fellow teenage friends were buying boom boxes, I've always liked good quality audio. I've been using a pair of M-Audio studio monitors on my PC for a few years now and don't think I go back to anything else.

Ive a Creative x-fi hd usb going to a schitt magni going to fostex tr50 mk3 with hifiman pads but no othermods. To my ears sonds exquisite though it takes a lot to drive (or my hearing's shot). No soundstage like my old hd598s but a bit more refined overall.

They just had them on Buydig for $180 (which is an absolute fucking steal and what I got them for), but that $220 is still a great price and I would recommend them to anyone interested in planar magnetic headphones. Keep in mind they are open back (and VERY open at that, as in practically no room isolation at all), but they don't leak sound nearly as much as I anticipated, which is pleasantly surprising as this was my first set of real good open cans.

To anyone who doesn't know, planar's have better sub-bass than traditional dynamic drivers (the really low end bass that you sort of feel rather than hear) and are very responsive (fast reacting? Not sure what to actually call "the driver seems capable of switching between sounds with no delay or muddiness"), meaning everything is clear and clean and quite lifelike.

Just don't be fooled by a lot of the snake oil out there; this seems to be an industry full of diminishing returns, and while I wouldn't turn down a $10,000 amp or whatever if it were free, I plan on spending around $350 for the remaining pieces of my gear (DAC/amp) as everything I'm reading tells me we start getting into the realm of fuzzy promises on anything besides headphones above those prices.

Nice, I have M-Audio monitors too! What model? The sad part of getting some decent cans is how rarely I've actually turned the damn things on lately, but once I get a DAC/amp stack with a pre-out, it should be easy to switch between them (rather then unhooking the Dragonfly Red and changing sound devices as I do now).

Do you have the new Magni 3? Those TR50's are pretty hard to drive but it'll do 1.3W per channel at 50 ohms which should be enough to get you to a comfortable volume level. I'm leaning towards that as my amp as the HE400i's are pretty efficient for planars and it's only $99 for what every review I've seen/read is calling a stellar little amp.

Sennheiser HD 598 with a FiiO DAC/amp. Pretty good bang for your buck, that particular DAC/amp has a subtle bass boost switch you can flip that makes up for the 598's lack thereof.

Since people were asking about schiit stacks and the magni 3

@mirado: They're just a set of AV40s but they do the job perfectly. I've got a surround set-up in the living room mostly made up of Monitor Audio stuff, again really good quality but at a decent price.

I've been interested in stereo hi-fi since my teens and I'm an old man now. My most recent purchase was some Oppo planar headphones which are very nice, if a bit small. My PC has some Adam P22A monitors (with ribbons) hooked up to a Propellerhead Balance audio interface. It sounds ok.

But my main hi-fi is my joy - it has a Michell Gyrodec, silver wired Rega RB300 arm and Sumiko Blue Point Special cartridge as a turntable. I have a Teradak Chameleon DAC (non-oversampling, but with 16 parallel Philips TDA 5143 chips) for my digital inputs and have a Marantz CD 80 transport and USB from the PC for digital sources. Loudness is all down to an Audio Research SP-7 pre-amp (while I rebuild my home made class A preamp) and a home-made class A power amp. This all goes through some more home designed and built transmission-line speakers, conceptually similar to updated, strengthened IMF TLS80 monitors, that took me about 10 years to perfect.

I really like how it all sounds and it is quite capable of regular "trouser-flapping" sound pressure levels.

@diz: I really like that turntable.

If the Oppo's feel small you should look into Audeze or Mr. Speakers for bigger planars.

@mirado: Believe it was the Magni 2 actually (got it a few months ago but not at home and can't access amazon account to verify atm). For me a decent/loudish listening volume is a little less than 2/3rds of the way turned up, with the X-Fi at 100%. It works fine for me, I'm sure it would be deafening all the way up. Very nice amp for the price.

I'm happy with it for now and honestly haven't had much time to enjoy it properly but hopefully that will change. Does suck that if I want a real upgrade we're looking at spending a grand or more, not sure if it's worth it.

e: i also wonder if there's a point in getting the modi to complete the stack. Seems my X-Fi does the job as a DAC.

@hmoney001: Looks great on it's own, but the complete outfit looks a bit of a mess! I'm looking to rebuilding the case of my pre-amp, then changing the front of my power amp to match.

The deck was made in Borehamwood - just a few miles from where I now live. I bought it directly from the factory floor. Of course it is quite similar to the earlier 1970's Michell Transcriptor Hydraulic Reference turntables that made the company famous, and as featured in "A Clockwork Orange", et al:

@hmoney001: Z's the guy I've been listening to recently; I like his no bullshit, "this is what I hear" style of reviewing products, especially since he seems completely unconcerned with selling or praising anything. His school of thought (most non-headphone upgrades past a certain point results in hair-splitting differences that only a direct A/B test can reveal) seems the most reasonable way to avoid spending a fortune on audio gear.

I used a set of AV40's for a good while before one was dropped in a move, now I have BX5 D2's. The AV40s are fantastic though, and really all you need for a nice desktop setup, as they are a real cut above most normal computer speakers.

Generally just use a headset for gaming, current using A Sennheiser GAME ONE, which I got as a birthday present from the better half, I would highly recommend them.

I recently bought a pair of Sennheiser hd800 and have a chord mojo.... so yes I went all in. But so worth it. A good pair of headphones are under apprecia5ed in home media set ups, these ones are designed to sound like loud speakers (sound is coming from in front of you/ around you, not in your head) and boy they're amazing for games,movies and music.

But it wasn't cheap. In us dollar terms you're talking close to 2 grand [for both headphones and amp] for this set up

They give you a huge advantage in games. You can pin point every sound and exactly where it's coming from.

Word of warning for anyone considering these headphones they're super picky about what kind of amp/dac you use. You need to pair your amp carefully because they can sound incredibly harsh with the wrong gear but are mindblowing with the right amp. The chord mojo is an amazing match as it smooth out the harsh high end.

I have had headphones with impressive soundstage in the past. The HD595's and AKG K702 but it still felt like wearing headphones with some instruments sounding like they're coming from around you. With these you dont get the sensation of a crash cymbal coming from another room rather that nothing is confined to your head at all so it just fills like being in a room full of music.

@yesiamaduck: Dayyyyum, they are some pricey headphones, I'd bet the sound quality must be crystal.

Yup, the soundstage is amazing as well. Don't sound like headphones at all. I managed to get them via E-Infinity [grey box store which ships from Hong Kong to a UK/US distribution center]so got them for £789 instead of £1,200 but still a hefty investment. They also require a high end amp to get good sound out of them. Tried them with cheap headphone amps and they sounded awful (in demo's) hense the £600 headphone amp :'(

But in the end the investment was worth it, but I'm an audio/music enthusiast. The level of clarity across all frequencies is amazing, like genuinely jaw-dropping. It feels like you're listening to a performance on a stage or in the case of movies and games it sounds like you're in the middle of the scene. They're the only headphones I've tried that totally eliminated the feeling of wearing headphones, which is the main drawback of headphones IMHO, the feeling of music being in my head always dampens my enjoyment and these eliminate that.... that's why I ended up spending so much.

JVC HA-DX1000 headphones (European version of the JVC Victor HP-DX1000)

On a dedicated headphone amp (Sheer Audio HA006+) with a Marantz SACD player and a Project Debut III turntable . Sweet awesome sound for years now.

On my PC/console I use an Astro Mix Amp + German Maestro 8.300D headphones with Beyer DT770 pads. Durable and flexible.

Portable setup are Panasonic RP TCM125E K buds on a LG V20. Cheap, but very good in ear headphones on one of the better (if not the best) sounding smartphones.

Nothing as crazy of some of you people, but I've cycled through a bunch of pricy IEMs over the years (Shure E3c, E4c, Panasonic RP-HJE900). Currently using a 1More Triple Driver (incredible value) with an LG V30 for day-to-day usage.

For DACs, I wouldn't waste my time if yours is free of interference and has the outputs you need. Tubes will sound "different" but not necessarily better, and most reviews involving A/B comparisons of solid state DACs that I've seen boil down to "any good DAC is going to sound very similar to any other good DAC unless they are specifically aiming to do something different to the signal." Check out Z's review of the Modi Multibit and the A/B with some others:

He even provides direct feed samples of each, and the end result is a hearty "maybe the multibit has a bit more low end?" So I'd say stick with your soundcard unless really sensitive headphones (like some IEMs) are picking up some interference.

I'm thinking of grabbing a Modi Multibit and a Magni 3 just so I can move my Dragonfly Red to a full time laptop portable setup; right now I'm constantly switching it between my desktop and it's a bit of a pain.

I recently started dipping my toes into the dark, scary world of high end headphones. Right now I have a pair of Sennheiser HD650s hooked up to an EL Amp by JDS Labs and the X-Fi Titanium HD soundcard in my PC. I feel like this may be overkill for my headphones, but I have no idea. It's a set up that sounds amazing and looks very clean and tidy on my desk, so I'm very happy with it.

Welcome! HEHEHEHEHEHEHE

Isn't it incredible hoe good headphones can sound? Like pretty sure lots of people scoff at people who invest large sums on headphones because they have this pre-concieved notion of how headphones sound because unlike a high end soundsystem you can't just come across high end headphones by living your day to day life. I try to explain that I buy headphones for home listening they look at me like I'm crazy.

@yesiamaduck: When I first got everything set up, my friend and I sat in front of my pc for hours going through different genres and bands on Spotify; just blown away by what we were hearing. It feels like you are in the room where whoever you are listening to is playing, you’re enveloped in sound rather than having it directed into your ears like all my other headphones. It’s really hard to describe. Whether that is due to the open back design or the quality of the headphones, I don’t know. This is not a hole I would encourage many people to fall down(but my friend is looking to buy HD599s now). There is a lot of jargon to decipher, it can be hard to get a straight answer about a product due to the strong brand loyalty in the community, and the price can spiral out of control very easily. That being said, I’m really happy with the results of my research, so I can’t complain. Now I can hear and better appreciate what people spend months in the studio to achieve.

If you're spending that much it's best to find an audio store that lets you demo the headphone before buying them and after that you will buy all parts for your new computer which include all audio set-up.

https://gadgetwix.com/best-headphones-under-1000/