The Audiophiles' Lounge

Cheers for the info guys. I ended up sticking with Sennheiser and bought the IE40 pros, a 'good enough' all rounder for not a lot of money. They arrived by UPS earlier, similar size to the IE8's, comfortable with decent sound. Although the cable is definitely not as nice and to me the soundstage and bass is just not as good. They'll l do the job for a year or two..

Gave myself something to look forward to at the end of the year. Ordered a 789 THX from massdrop. It's arriving in November.

fafy wrote: »

Nice one, i came across that model, when looking for a decent headphone amp, Looks good, but assumed there would be exise duty & vat, and extra shipoing, which could add another 50% or so to that price, as its a US import ? They did have an EU shop before, but not seeing it now.

Not sure, but if it gets picked up by customs it'll be likely be a charge of about €80 on the amp and €30 on the DAC, they'll both be shipped separately.

I've ordered a bunch of stuff from China and it's never been picked up by Customs, so fingers crossed.

cnocbui wrote: »

If it ships with a tracking number from the US, you will get slugged for the VAT. The Chinese bulk ship stuff to Europe and probably under declare the value, then they post from within the EU, often from the Netherlands, hence no VAT. Occasionally they will direct ship and lie about the value and nature of the goods.

Something I bought on eBay from the US got nabbed and sat in customs for nearly 2 weeks and eventually I had to send customs a screenshot of the Paypal and ebay item page because they didn't believe the valuation.

If Anpost deliver and collect the tax, they will likely also charge a €10 fee, so it will be even more.

My last experience was, the items (2 vinyls) arrived all fine, then a few days later, got an invoice from Fedex, the goods were valued at $65, it was €45 in Excise duty and vat, Which included an “admin charge of €10” and shipping was $ 45 -- never again.
You pay Excise and vat, on The goods + shipping combined value.

Deleted User wrote: »

Would love to get a shot of those. I have the HE4XX's but i have the Sundara's on a wishlist along with a set of 1990 Pro's.

What do you think of the 4XX's?

Gonzovision wrote: »

Aryas finally arrived, bit of an ordeal to be honest, but that's a different story.

Quick initial impressions -

Build quality, much better than I was expecting. I think I'd read so much about poor Hifiman build quality I was expecting flimsy plastic, toy headphones. Pleasantly surprised.

Comfort, a step up from anything I own, I really like the large egg shaped cups, clamping pressure is fine, can wear them all day without any issues.

Sound, never experienced anything like the clarity and instrument separation. For me it's jaw dropping. Overall they sound very natural, really good bass extension, it just keeps going and has a lovely subtle rumble.

Was slightly concerned about treble, hearing people found them overly bright, but definitely no issues there, they sound very natural and not fatiguing in the slightest.

Absolutely delighted with them

Nice, came across them on my search, great reviews all around, but outside my budget !

Just bought an almost new, Quad Vena 2 for £515, will use this as my main headphone amp with my new Beyerdynamic Amiron cans, not the ultimate choice, but its a very flexible solution for me, and has a phono preamp + 2 other analogue inputs, and a decent DAC & Integrated amp combined. Has bluetooth as well for the odd occasion i might use that feature.

Gonzovision wrote: »

I haven't tried them but the Amirons look quality.
Hadn't come across the Quad Vena 2 before but looks like it has a perfect range of inputs and outputs, let me know what it's like. What were you using as an amp previously?

I'm currently using a Schiit Heresy which is fine, but I'm not getting the best out of the Aryas with it, they are bloody hard to drive.

I tried them with the little Btr5 and had to set the volume to 60 on high gain to get decent volume, but the sq fell off a cliff.

Would like to have the ability to use them in living room or upstairs so considering a new headphone amp for the desktop setup and moving the Heresy.

Only one I've really looked at is the Topping A90 to pair with my E30 and go balanced, but have spent enough for now

Amirons are for home use only, and that's exactly what I wanted them for. I got the "Impacto" Universal which is basically a mini dac, if I am not listening in main listening space, and they can be plugged into mobiles and laptops. The volume is fine at max, but is not for serious listening.

I have an old but excellent Sony amp for about 30 years, its an ES range amp, but it may not last the next 10 ! The phono pre-amp went a few years ago, so got a Cambridge Audio preamp box. It's still going, and have been using it for playing vinyl and cd's.

Only started using the Vena 2 today. So I have only used it so far, with a MacBook, outputting Amazon HD, into the Quad, and used Amiron headphones with it, very pleased, it has some serious power to drive them, way ahead of the Impacto, but Impacto has its uses when you are out the back, or in another room, or away on holidays etc. Another reason I went with the Vena 2, is it is a one box solution. Looked at Schiit, but you can't get them new right now, and even a two box Dac/Head amp won't tick the boxes for me, as Vena 2 does way more.

The Vena 2 has a great selection of inputs, and chose it as it has both analogue and digital. It's a mid size, but is deceptively heavy. It also has a phono preamp, and Blue Tooth, which I also tested today, but I prefer wired connections, find them much better. It has a remote for volume and source selection, and on/off. The Vena 2 also has a much better headphone output setup than the original Vena.

There is a newish Vena 2 PLAY as well, has a few extra bits but its about 800 Sterling.

Will hook it up to the Sony amp later this week, and see how she goes, with Vinyl.

Being looking at investing in a new pair of headphones and I can't decide between the Sennheiser Momentum 3 or the B & W PX7. A friend of mine recently picked up a pair of the Sony XM4s and is raving about them, but he seems more taken with their noise cancelling ability, which doesn't really matter so much too me. Sound quality is king really.

I was going to pull the trigger with the B & W, but then I started reading about what people had to say about the Momentum 3s and, as usual, I'm now confused. Anyone have experience with either or even both?

I have the Momentum 3s and they're really nice. ANC isn't always on, theres a switch on the side of them to turn it on and off. Really good sound, really slick operation as well, syncs really nicely with my iPhone. Just open the headphones and they power on and connect straight away to the iPhone, same way my Airpods do.

I'm told the ANC isn't as good as the Sony or BOSE but the sound is more important to me and they excel there. I would like to give the Sonys a try though given they are almost universally lauded as the best of this type of headphone.

Arghus wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

I'm not really that concerned about whether something is wireless or has ANC it's really a question of what's the best in terms of sound quality, and is portable, in and around that 350 or 400 price range.

If you're eyeing up the XM3's then you should consider the XM4's. They're more or less the same with the exception of the audio processor and bluetooth. The MX4's allow for enough bandwidth over their bluetooth to support higher than CD quality where as with regular Bluetooth you'd be losing detail.

Of course it depends on the source material, if you're listening to lossless or not. mx3's should easily be good enough for mp3 at 320kbps and lower encoded lossless music under ~800kbps. The xm4's allow for up to 2mbps which would cover off most

That being said, there's probably better options out there for less

Gonzovision wrote: »

I wouldn't rule out AKG 371, can be got for £104 on Amazon at the moment. Excellent portable closed backs. Very close to Harman target.

I got them for the office myself and they're great. I know the initial batch had build quality issues, but that's long been sorted.

Check out some opinions on them on headfi

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/akg-k361-k371.916764/page-32

It had been so long that I had forgotten that they were the ones you had recommended. I was just coming back to say that I went with the AKG 371s in the end, completely oblivious to the fact that those were the one's you were talking about!

They seemed to be the closest - after much research - to what I was looking for. Good quality, portable headphones offering good sound quality, my primary concern.

I was willing to spend 300-350 to get the best option I could, but there seems to be a vogue now for noise cancelling, bluetooth headphones at that price point - it was really hard to find a portable, sound quality first, pair that didn't include the bells and whistles that sacrificed the ultimate sound quality. Everything seemed to be much cheaper or far more expensive and impractical.

It's some craic reading/watching through endless reviews - none of which ever seem to be in agreement!

Gonzovision wrote: »

Where did you find them lacking out of the box? I imagine they lack a bit of detail in the highs alright, but that has never bothered me as have other headphones when I'm looking for detail.

Cool, I don't tend to eq much at all. The only one I've used is Oratorys settings for my AKG K712s in Roon, takes the sharpness out of the highs and adds a small bump to the bass.

That wasn't even manual, it provided 44khz wav which you upload to Roons convolution filter.

Any recommendations in this department?