Better headphone experiance needed!

[LizardKing]

Not really sure how to attack this.
Currently ive got a pair of HD595 that are getting rather long in the tooth, pared up with low end on-board sound, so as you can imagine the sound leaves a lot to be desired, the 595s are ok if a little tatty now.

So the plan is either new sound card / usb dac / new headphones and soundcard, or the wildcard USB headphones?

i could go to £200 at a push so just wondering what would you do its predominately for listening to music.

Cheers

 

[LizardKing]

Not sure about 2nd hand headphones but like you say they are supposed to be amazing!

I'll look into the E10k, maybe the K3 as well, its exactly the kind of thing im looking for, headphones could wait a month or 2. i suspect the 595's will shine again with something decent driving them!

 

[LizardKing]

Why don't you send the 595 off for a complete repair with sennheiser ? I did that with an old pair of hd600 I had lying in a drawer for a few years. They replaced EVERYTHING except the main body at a fixed price.

It was basically a new headphone.

Thats not a bad shout actually, i do like the 595's. Not the heaviest in the bass dept but that works in its favour for me. imo - though looks like they no longer refurb the 595's!...

Hey man those HD595 are still quality like the Z5500 these are too good for current non lossless content they are NOT OLD at all apart from the headband i bet?


You nees to get off onboard sound asap though and open them up what you need is a top end Asus Xonar. I got the ST which is the first gen PCI version which has lower jitter. But i am stuck with it now and its all in all incredibly high quality this is an Audiophile setup 100%.
.

There awesome headphones and i used to use them with a x-fi Elite pro but a motherboard upgrade put that out of support! But they are falling to bits now, id happily get them again but do fancy a change. im now pondering on the HD600 / 650!...'s

get some akg and see if u fancy the big sound stage
amp wise every audiophile forum loves the jds atom.
dac get anything with good inputs or outputs which you want.

Im now leaning more towards the topping D10 then pairing that with a suitable amp.


Cheers all, it used to be so easy!

 

[LizardKing]

The budgets not set in stone, so if theres something worth getting im happy to get it, i just dont want let the spending get out of hand for what is essentially the odd bit of music

I did look into the D30 but then its getting close to the Schiit range which just rocked the boat more!

Its only for my PC so not to fussed on inputs.

 

[LizardKing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XU4PCrXzhc&t=576s

beware dont listen to that guy for too long as he will make you want to spend way more than you should on audio.

It was his review of the D10 that made me learn towards that! i like the fact its just a dac and nothing else. so that's now ordered

Now headphone amp, tubes, yay or ney? (this could take weeks!) - i gather the likes of the Nobsound whilst not exactly just decoration they dont really do a lot in the way of processing the sound. (i should probably just get the atom and save myself a lot of agro!)

Headphones can go on the back burner for now. the 712's are high on the list!

 

[LizardKing]

I really am tempted by the Schiit range (but not sure how much of that is marketing), there in a good place cost wise, not crazy expensive but not Chinese cheap either.

Got the D10 and a cheap sabaj pha3 valve amp and boy do they sound good, however its exaggerated the lack of bass from the 595's and gave a lot more on the high end scale so i got fatigued very quickly. I suspect analysing the audio rather than just listening may have had some impact on the as well. Playing with the EQ helped a bit but that's not always possible.

The K712's now ordered to try out, it was either these or i would have just ended up splashing out on the HD660s putting any plans to sticking to a budget way out the window.