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
So I've tested this both on my E-Mu Teak and TH-X00 Mahogany vs straight off Google Pixel. I have to say I like different things about both BUT for the most party I almost liked it better just straight off the Pixel. It's hard to explain but layering and depth is definitely better using the M3, but I find it accentuate certain frequency too much it start to sound tiny bit unnatural also losing some of the small details. It's like when you crank up contrast in a photo it start to look more "impactful" but at the same time flatten out some of the subtle details. I just feel all the frequencies sounded more balanced and natural off the Pixel (trade off is Pixel is bad with soundstage and layering so it sounded more flat).
But yes I do agree there is less bass off M3 so it could also be preference where I might've liked more bass. Though I'm not sure if it's contribute to the headphone too since E-Mu Teak and TH-X00 Mahogany are both very easy to drive headphone, so maybe there would be a bigger difference on harder to drive headphone.
I've previously tried E10K, Fulla 1, UDAC3 and now the M3 (LOL all the budget DAC/AMP in similar price range). Most of the time it just sounds "different" as oppose to a direct upgrade. Again maybe it's because my headphones are easy to drive (also owned the Denon AH-D2000 prior to all this). I haven't get to try the O2/ODAC or Schiit Stack or Grace M9XX you know the "big boy" league of DAC/AMP yet so maybe at that point it would make a huge difference......????
For now I'm leaning on returning the M3 and just go back to listening straight off my phone since it's the cheapest option, also to be honest there wasn't too many issue with that I just wanted to see if I could make it sound better and end up spending money and going in circles.
I'm not expert in this but this is just my personal experience and hopefully it help others on their purchase. :)
Would you happen to try your TH-X00 on the ARC dac/amp yet? How is the paring?
Again maybe because TH-X00 is easy to drive but I've struggle to find a good dac/amp around the $100 to sound better than straight off my Google Pixel phone LOL. I even tried iFi Nano iDSD Black Label (suppose to be in the same league as O2/ODAC) but I find it trade certain attributes with other attributes so it's not a direct upgrade.
I think even O2/ODAC might be overkill for work setup but I guess for the most part that seems like a safe "you can't go wrong" choice it seems lol.
Let me know how it goes when you get the HD58X.