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So after a bif of researching reading tens of reviews on head-fi.org I've decided to get a pair of HD 25-1 II. I wanted hi quality with closed design so this seemed to be a good choice, as people did say that they were capable of being portable. (not in US, but would seem alright in Korea.)
So I was planning to buy them today, and I went online to possibly find a good deal or just find the general price range. It costs $200 at amazon and other various sites, so I expected at the currency exchange rate and shipping, around 350000 wons, or slightly less than 300 dollars.
Instead, it's 500000. My dream to have this wonderful gadget is ruined until I return now and I won't be able to wear them on the streets!!!
To make this blod less of a rant, I do have a genuine question. It seems at this price level headphones generally benefit from amps. I don't know how the mechanism works but from what I have read getting one will be a sound investment.
Does anyone have a recommendation on which one to get? I'll probably using an ipod nano or mini.
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I've looked into headphone amps a bit and came out pretty discouraged. Most decent amps that I could find were hundreds of dollars, but portable ones can sometimes be found for cheaper which is probably what you want. And an amp would certainly benefit you if you were planning on running your headphones off an ipod, but you have to take into account the quality of your music. Is it even going to be worth spending hundreds of dollars on nice headphones with your current quality of music on your ipod?
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edit: misunderstood what you were asking for
sorry have no idea
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1584 Posts
Those headphones will only make you hear how bad the sound quality of iPods really is lol.
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er, i wouldn't be spending too much money on headphones to use with an ipod. the cardinal rule of audiophilia is that sound is as bad as its weakest link, even high bitrate mp3s will bottleneck it. also, why bother with an amp? all it does is limit portability. unless you have volume problems i'd just skip it.
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The ipod is actually not bad.
http://www.stereophile.com/mediaservers/934/index5.html
"Excellent, cost-effective audio engineering from an unexpected source"
If you don't mind playing uncompressed stuff ipod would be fine.
Also not sure you need an amp with the HD 25-1. It has relatively low impedance.
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I'm using these headphones, but then again they go together with a nice sound card. I would never buy 200$+ headphones unless you plan to do serious sound recording.
Anything that you're doing on the computer and listening to on the go can do fine with 50-80$ headphones.
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On August 10 2009 10:23 benjammin wrote:
er, i wouldn't be spending too much money on headphones to use with an ipod. the cardinal rule of audiophilia is that sound is as bad as its weakest link, even high bitrate mp3s will bottleneck it. also, why bother with an amp? all it does is limit portability. unless you have volume problems i'd just skip it.
Well my music is mostly lossless, so that's not the problem here; however, I'm quite unfamiliar with how audio mechanism work, but I'm guessing amp is there to give more power so you don't need iPod volume at 2/3-max level.
How small is a portable amp?
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If you want the most bang for your buck, you should go with headphones/earphones in the $100 range and not worry about amps. The high end equipment is usually not worth the money value-wise. I have a pair of Shure E530 ($250) which I barely use compared to my Yuin PK2 ($60). The money really adds up and often times an amp can cost more than the headphones themselves.
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Really, i don't think investing in a high end portable system is a good idea.
It's expensive (and arguably impossibe) to get high fidelity while keeping it in reasonably portable.
I would recommend that you get an IEM (in ear monitor) and no amp.
Something like Shure E3C, or E500 will isolate (important in a loud subway etc)and provide you decent enough sound.
If you are shooting for real audiophilia, better bet is to build up your home (possibly computer-based) system.
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Meizu MiniPlayer, a kickass braided cable and a Ray Samuels Audio Tomahawk
With Ultimate Ears triple.fi 10
The portamp was a definite black/white improvement with my old pair of Etymotics ER4, which is sitting unused now. I used to prefer the t.f10 amped, but nowadays I use them unamped @ 1/5 volume, good for riding the bus and working in the office. I don't know why I dislike the amp these days.
Can't really see why anyone would want to walk around with closed cans on their ears, when there's countless IEM models to go around.
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On August 10 2009 14:14 alpskomleko wrote:Meizu MiniPlayer, a kickass braided cable and a Ray Samuels Audio Tomahawk With Ultimate Ears triple.fi 10 The portamp was a definite black/white improvement with my old pair of Etymotics ER4, which is sitting unused now. I used to prefer the t.f10 amped, but nowadays I use them unamped @ 1/5 volume, good for riding the bus and working in the office. I don't know why I dislike the amp these days. Can't really see why anyone would want to walk around with closed cans on their ears, when there's countless IEM models to go around.
that is a lot of money and not really wisely spent imo
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I agree that actual cans are pretty bad for portable use. Open cans basically defeat the purpose of portable sound quality by letting you hear background noise. OTOH, closed cans are pretty good except for the fact that they mess with your hair (which makes them mostly unusable in public, and therefore not portable).
So yeah, good IEMs + decent and not-too-expensive amp is probably the way to go.
OH Yeah I completely forgot: You might like the FiiO E5 amp, which is surprisingly decent considering the size and price tag. It's just about as big as a shuffle.
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On August 10 2009 12:21 udgnim wrote:
visit head-fi.org forums
=/ I wish they had an FAQ for each sections (headphones, amp, portable amps, etc) because to a acoustics newb like me, they're talking about B level games while I'm still at D.
On August 10 2009 14:10 v1rtu0so wrote:
Really, i don't think investing in a high end portable system is a good idea.
It's expensive (and arguably impossibe) to get high fidelity while keeping it in reasonably portable.
I would recommend that you get an IEM (in ear monitor) and no amp.
Something like Shure E3C, or E500 will isolate (important in a loud subway etc)and provide you decent enough sound.
If you are shooting for real audiophilia, better bet is to build up your home (possibly computer-based) system.
How is an IEM different from other in-ear headphones? From wikipedia, it says it's a system that manages "a mix of microphones and other instruments on stage".
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If you're feeling the urge to do it yourself, build a CMOY amp as a temporary amp and use the saved money for headphones. Quality amps are usually >$150 anyway.
Check out the Audio-Technica ES7 also. I'm looking to buy one myself although there are so many other options it's hard to decide...
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i didn't mean to distinguish between IEM and in-ear
its pretty much the same thing for this purpose
i think wikipedia is referring to IEM for concerts etc..which would be where in ears were used first
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On August 10 2009 16:16 Hiphopapotamus wrote:If you're feeling the urge to do it yourself, build a CMOY amp as a temporary amp and use the saved money for headphones. Quality amps are usually >$150 anyway.
It would probably cost more to build a CMOY than it would to buy a FiiO E5, and I'm pretty sure the E5 is more convenient to carry. It's like $20.
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