General Headphone Audio

Angst · 23 Oct 2026 at 20:03

I still don't get it if I'm honest. There's a reason the headphone measuring rigs use outer ears and simulated canals etc.
The shape of our ears massively impacts how we hear. Trying to measure the frequency with normal mics without that won't generate useful data really, it won't correlate to what you hear when listening to the same thing. I also don't really get what extra the binaural 360 mics are capturing that's useful for understanding soundstage.
I could understand somewhat if you were just trying to create some sort of visualisation from a standard frequency response plot. It's a very subjective thing and I'm not sure how well it would translate but I would understand the idea at least.

Kainz · 24 Oct 2026 at 10:26

lol I grabbed the K13 R2R for £145 which is coming today. I was tempted by the CR60 on the Clearance section but I'll wait to see what that FiiO DP11 looks like in the reviews firstly.

Angst · 24 Oct 2026 at 12:11

Kainz said:
lol I grabbed the K13 R2R for £145 which is coming today. I was tempted by the CR60 on the Clearance section but I'll wait to see what that FiiO DP11 looks like in the reviews firstly.

Pretty unbeatable for that price really, think I will be keeping the one I bought.

Timber · 24 Oct 2026 at 13:11

Angst said:
Pretty unbeatable for that price really, think I will be keeping the one I bought.

The K13 R2R is fantastic value at RRP, let alone at basically 50% off.

Does that mean you're keeping the K13 alongside the EF400, or still to decide?

I assume with the K15, K11 etc. you've got some units to shift once you've selected one.

Raymond Lin · 24 Oct 2026 at 13:40

Kainz said:
lol I grabbed the K13 R2R for £145 which is coming today. I was tempted by the CR60 on the Clearance section but I'll wait to see what that FiiO DP11 looks like in the reviews firstly.

I thought about the CR60, there is also the CD80 for £250 but I took the mantra, buy one, cry once and went for ET3. Just don’t want another tray CD player, the CD80 slot would be okay I guess.

Angst · 24 Oct 2026 at 13:43

Timber said:
The K13 R2R is fantastic value at RRP, let alone at basically 50% off.

Does that mean you're keeping the K13 alongside the EF400, or still to decide?

I assume with the K15, K11 etc. you've got some units to shift once you've selected one.

K15 is already sold, it was a lot of money to have issues with the one feature that I bought it for.
K11 sounds the same as the k13 I think so it's better value if you don't use the peq or Bluetooth etc and I may just keep it in a draw as a spare.
Ef400 I think I will be returning, it sounds slightly better to my ears for the reasons we've discussed but having it on my desk it's driving me mad with the hum from the transformer and other usability issues.

Kainz · 24 Oct 2026 at 14:58

My K13 arrived...quite damaged. It was sold as 'Missing some accessories'.

There is NO BOX, and it just arrived in an unpadded bag. There's scratches and scuffs everywhere. Absolutely appalling and my first negative experience. As soon as I was handed the parcel, I could feel the cold metallic edges of the amp and my worst fear came true when I just opened the bag to see the amp and accessories (power cable and remote) as is.

Angst · 24 Oct 2026 at 15:04

Kainz said:
My K13 arrived...quite damaged. It was sold as 'Missing some accessories'.

There is NO BOX, and it just arrived in an unpadded bag. There's scratches and scuffs everywhere

That's shocking, both of mine turned up as described without any issues.

Raymond Lin · 24 Oct 2026 at 15:23

That’s bashed ! Return it.

I hope mine isn’t like that, the cd player I got had a damaged flap on the box and that was it.

My Shanglin is due today around 5pm, to my office, so have redirected for Monday now.

Timber · 24 Oct 2026 at 15:43

Angst said:
K15 is already sold, it was a lot of money to have issues with the one feature that I bought it for.
K11 sounds the same as the k13 I think so it's better value if you don't use the peq or Bluetooth etc and I may just keep it in a draw as a spare.
Ef400 I think I will be returning, it sounds slightly better to my ears for the reasons we've discussed but having it on my desk it's driving me mad with the hum from the transformer and other usability issues.

Ah OK. I only ever had the K11 (non-R2R), but the amp did feel a bit weak on it. Could be thinner sounding at times. But apart from that the other thing I do really like about the K13 is the three outputs, including XLR. Makes it very versatile when connecting to other amps. EF400 does sound like it had some annoyances, which is a shame.

Angst · 24 Oct 2026 at 16:03

Timber said:
Ah OK. I only ever had the K11 (non-R2R), but the amp did feel a bit weak on it. Could be thinner sounding at times. But apart from that the other thing I do really like about the K13 is the three outputs, including XLR. Makes it very versatile when connecting to other amps. EF400 does sound like it had some annoyances, which is a shame.

The first k11 r2r that I had at launch I had issues with the amp with it being worse through the 6.35 over the 4.4mm which was still worse than using an external amp. The issues I had I've seen described exactly by multiple other people in reviews and on forums. I've not really noticed the same from the one I've got at the moment so I'm not sure if its an issue with poor quality control maybe or if they fixed it with a hardware revision quietly at some point. I have only used it with the hd650s on the 4.4 port so far though whereas before I was using super low impedance planars which could potentially cause it to behave differently.

The three outputs are basically the reason I will keep the k13 aswell and not just use the k11, I've got the stereo amp connected via XLR and if I decide to get a tube amp I can connect that to the RCA.

maj · 24 Oct 2026 at 18:04

Half price or not, the condition of that K13 is appalling. Hopefully they will accept a refund and return free of charge as an apology. Was tempted by the K13 deal myself but might hold off now.

Kainz · 24 Oct 2026 at 19:17

So thinking about this more, I realised Advanced MP3 may have pulled a fast one on me.

A day after I placed the K13 order, I received an email stating "Item is shipping". Then another one rolled in later stating it was out of stock. "Thank you for your order #xxxx. We’re sorry, but one item is out of stock at the moment: FIIO K13 Compact Desktop R2R architecture DAC and Headphone Amplifier - SILVER (Missing some accessories). We’re waiting for the supplier to give us a delivery date, and we’ll let you know as soon as we have one. We’ll send it as asap"

The email made no sense so I followed up asking what the issue was on a single clearance item. They responded nicely by saying it due to their new portal and it will be shipped out asap.

I think they ran out of the K13's that had 'missing accessories' and switched it for an item with 'cosmetic stractches'. Either way they could have used a sodding box! Upon examination, the right side of the unit where the USB port is (in the pics) clearly shows deformation as there is a minute gap visible in between the alu sides and the plastic base.

mrk · 24 Oct 2026 at 19:43

It would have been nice of them to state the condition on such stocki, I suppose that's why the prices were so low though

Angst · 24 Oct 2026 at 20:20

mrk said:
It would have been nice of them to state the condition on such stocki, I suppose that's why the prices were so low though

They do state it on the listings, one is listed with a loose optical port currently as an example.
Clearly something's gone wrong with their order and theyve not been shipped the unit they ordered. And it's been shipped terribly packaged ontop of that. Pretty **** really, I've used that site quite a bit and never had issues.

Raymond Lin · 24 Oct 2026 at 20:29

They list the conditions.

Shanling ET3 CD Transport - BLACK (Manufacturer refurbished)

A CNC-machined top-loading CD transport with upsampling, I2S, USB and every digital output, plus Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and MQA-CD. Free next day UK delivery.

www.advancedmp3players.co.uk

So this ET3, it is a refurb one but missing the manual.

Raymond Lin · 24 Oct 2026 at 20:39

Oh, the CR60 is sold, only the CD80 left.

Things change I've changed · 24 Oct 2026 at 21:36

Kainz said:
My K13 arrived...quite damaged. It was sold as 'Missing some accessories'.

There is NO BOX, and it just arrived in an unpadded bag. There's scratches and scuffs everywhere. Absolutely appalling and my first negative experience. As soon as I was handed the parcel, I could feel the cold metallic edges of the amp and my worst fear came true when I just opened the bag to see the amp and accessories (power cable and remote) as is.

That is crazy, who in their right mind would send it out like that unboxed just in a plastic bag!?

mrk · 25 Oct 2026 at 00:09

Spotify's release radar popped this song up tonight, really excellent production:

Edit* And this one too, male vocal with the kind of texture/timbre typically found with female vocalists:

Rroff · 25 Oct 2026 at 03:53

Kainz said:
So thinking about this more, I realised Advanced MP3 may have pulled a fast one on me.

I'm sure they aren't a bad company but I nearly bought my (new) QX13 from them but for some reason my instincts just didn't sit well for want of a better way to describe it and I went with another company instead.