Sennheiser PC37X randomly goes bad after disconnecting the cable ?
Greetings, Yesterday I was using my headset like normal with my macbook, just listening to music and on a call with people like usual, and the headset was perfectly fine. The stock wire that came with the headset is extremely long and yesterday it annoyed me very much that it kept getting tangled with itself, so I decided to see if the cable is replaceable. I pulled out the cable from the headset and saw the adapter, and looked online for a replacement. Upon plugging it back in, the audio sounded extremely muffled and washed out. Im not sure what I did wrong to make it mess up like that as I've always taken good care of it, ive had it for about 2 years and its always just been chilling on my desk, but anywho I thought the cable just went bad and ordered a replacement. The replacement came, and the issue is still persistant, so I am not sure what the issue is I've tried multiple different headsets and the issue is not with the port, and I also tried it with my windows laptop and...
Apr 23, 2024
While I'm not a True Believer™ audiophile, I do enjoy great sound (and get a smug satisfaction from getting close without breaking the bank). To that end I have been a pretty consistent fan of Creative Sound-Blaster headphone amps: E5, G5 and X7 all get regular use. Lo-and-behold, this morning I get an e-mail from to announce the start of US sales for the Super X-Fi headphone amp. It was chock full of glowing reviews and a claim of 99% customer satisfaction from the Singapore launch. Creative claims that they have cracked some mythic wall between our expensive headphones and natural surround sound, the word "magic" appears seventeen times on us.sxfi.com between quoted review and Creative's own copy. ("Holy Grail" appears six) . Their approach, according to them, involves personally calibrating your device to your ears using an app and letting the device create a custom sound map, according to them AI plays a major role. The end state seems to be a transparent experience that makes your headphones disappear and allow for a truly immersive experience.
https://www.sxfi.com/
CNET's reviews of the technology are very positive and I won't restate their words:
https://www.cnet.com/news/creatives-new-super-x-fi-audio-tech-is-frigging-mind-blowing/
https://www.cnet.com/reviews/creative-sxfi-amp-preview/
https://www.cnet.com/news/creatives-super-x-fi-amp-heads-to-the-us/
My one reservation (right now) is that Creative's calibration app relies on a list of "certified" headphones, and their business model seems to revolve around manufacturers paying for such an accolade. I'm not a huge fan of controlled ecosystems, and it would bother the hell out of me if a Beats branded PoS got better support than my Oppo PM-3s, but I have a feeling that I'm overstating a problem that may not exist.
Thoughts?