Which headphones of Drop's currently available?
I have some rewards points to burn but there's no obviously good options on Drop right now for headphones Contenders Ultrasone - maybe? I don't own any Ultrasones, so curious. Looks like garbage travel headphone which could be useful also. Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro. - Maybe? I have the DT 880 Good price point, really uncomfortable headphones but could be interesting to try the upgraded version. E-MU - strong contender but $400 is a bad price point for what it is. Which of the above would you choose and why? Nothing else on Drop is relevant to my interests, because Already own 6xx 820 800 s Ether cx Garbage / Consumer grade Meze 99 - garbage bass canons, hard pass No gaming headphones obviously Sennheiser wireless - no to wireless/bluetooth Hifiman - I have 2 of drop hifimans and they make really bad cheap shit on Drop, hard pass on HE-R7DX Aeon - I own the closed, Drop refuses to address #padgate so no reason to buy open Beyerdynamic 177x - wireless, nope Too similar 8x / 560s...
Mar 28, 2024
If you're not going to go through the trouble to recable your headphones to balanced operation (or buy a pair that are) then just buy one amp, but typically you want headphones to cost more than your gear, not the other way around.
With audio, people have different definitions of breaking the bank so you may want to specify what's yours lol.
(I personally run a NAD C510+Schitt Mjolnir 2 at home, but I'm interested in picking up a pair of these for my work setup).
I have a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 on my desktop but I use it more for the recording properties than music listening because the detail retrieval is pretty low, my JDS Labs C5D sounds better than it by a long shot.
So are you talking in absolute terms and are 100% certain and positive that there is zero difference between a balanced DAC - balanced amp - balanced headphone cable compared to a single ended version of the same devices? Do you also believe power chords, USB/RCA/XLR and headphone cables (litz, OCC, copper, hybrid, pure silver) do not impact sound at all? Everyone going balanced in their home and buying after-market cables are wasting money?
I'm not trying to discredit you or anything like that, it's just an interesting topic to me!
I'm looking at getting either the Yulong D200 or Emotiva DC-1 to go along with the HA-200 pair.
For device interconnect going balanced is useful for noise rejection because it typically affords you around 6dB more SNR. For most non recording applications I'd agree it's not *needed* but I do it anyways because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside and a decent XLR cable costs less than "audiophile" single ended cables (I'm not a huge believer in exotic cables. If you want to know why, I will be all to willing to give that rant).
However for headphone cabling it's less about noise rejection than other factors (a small amount of noise applied against a very large signal is going to get washed out, or if you leave your cell phone on top of the cable, you're going to hear it regardless since that's one hell of a noise source) but more about maximizing amplifier potential. It's not the end all solution since you're paying for twice the circuitry that could have been dedicated to making a better single ended amp. But some headphones, like orthos, tend to like the power and extra slew rate that going for a balanced connection can afford.
But yes in terms of cable material, I agree with your statements 100%. I've had the misfortune of accidentally destroying a oscilloscope probe that costs more than a brand new Camry, and lo and behold, it's just copper on the inside, so material isn't really all that important especially when the termination/connection is where most of the capacitance comes to play.
As an electrical engineer who's worked in both telecom and power industries, I also agree that there are very few cables in the world worth paying over $100 for (assuming short lengths anyway). As long as it's mechanically sound, wired and terminated properly, the cable will do its job.