aardvark baguette

Yeah. I will probably audition some someday. Though alot of them come balanced, which I cant use. But there was a long stretch where K1000s seldom popped up, now it seems we dont go one week without a pair available. Cyclical I guess.

Someone at [H] posted a dealer login for discount. I don't know if it would help you further, but I will PM it to you if I can locate it.

I bought them based on all the raving reviews, and how they were magic bullet. I think pretty much every can has been such over at the loony bin. Other than Stax O2, K1000, HP2 or L3000, I'm pretty much done exploring phones I think.

I'm still debating just giving mine away. I may trade for some mofi discs or sumfin.

I think its accepted that to become a headcaser is to shed oneself of the burdens of society, including its money. Only then, grasp full enlightenment, will you.

sounds like your wallet needs to straighten up and fly right. Send it my way for punishment.

That koopa figure would look great on on my desk.

From all the speakers I've heard, including (most notably) my aftermarket car stereo, they predictably provided a more physically sense of being there, i.e. you could feel the music via bass impact. Perhaps the tone can get a little more accurate as well, considering, as reks noted, everything is not squished together. However, I still prefer headphones to said car stereo, despite loss of bass impact, because I believe I can hear further into the mix. One example is the dialog sections of Pink Floyd's The Wall. "Are all those your guitars"... etc. You can hear all the background stuff much clearer, because it is not competing for airspace the way it is in a speaker environment. I know that sounds counterintuitive given my last statement about speakers sounding like they have more space, but I guess I am saying I can pick up micro details much easier on 'phones. To hear them the same way on speakers, I would have to really crank them. I suppose the headphones playback those details at a similar volume to the more obvious/prominent material. Or it all just hits your ears at the same time, giving the illusion of similar volume. That may not be technically desirable, but it does make for at least the illusion of a more balanced spectrum, even if it means sacrificing some space to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AryKgk6HZnw&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlp5INAvV8U

Same here. With car audio being an exception, I've only really heard what I've bought personally. I hope to someday (in 2008) have a world class SACD player/transport/dac type setup, but until then, I really can't complain about my rig I guess I'm a dumb, blissfully ignorant high end noob

I'm tempted to try RIP on some of amazon's rather bloated sections.

Nice. Here's top hoping they're still alive when the day arrives.

My friend would qualify; ipod + ibuds, lossy mp3 downloads only. The cheap bastard hasn't bought a music CD in 3-4 years.

I would certainly hope so, given the price. Everyone is going to have a different mental fiscal figure of what constitutes high end. I would ask anyone who thinks a $7,000 DAC is not high end what they're opinion is. Whatever price point they mention, there will undoubtedly be someone who believes that is mid-fi. And so on...

Not to disagree with those more experienced than myself, but I think many of you are coming from a speaker background which is just plain 'above' the world of headphones. In my opinion, when only discussing things in a headphone-only environment (which I likely may have mistaken the OP for), 'mid fi' becomes 'hi fi' more or less by default. I mean that expectations are set a bit lower for them than speakers, in general. To me at least. Now obviously a $30,000 APL NWO is going to smash most things mentioned here, but that does not necessarily mean that others cannot be considered to be in the same group, imo. I don't mean to write off the suggestions others made, as I'm sure they'd be marvelous with headphones, I just have to begin to wonder when it no longer matters in the world of dynamic headphones. I guess for me personally, despite what others have said, spending several thousand dollars to power a pair of ~$300 headphones (give or take) could be considered high-end for said purpose. At least for a more casual set of people, say, someone outside the realm of these websites. Maybe its not necessary to include them as a sort of litmus test, but I don't know that we can forget completely how the outsider would view things. One thing I just remembered was seeing ads for the Appogee gear, including said converter IIRC, and Mark Knopfler vouched for it; its what he and his studio engineer used in Nashville for his solo material. That by no means ends the thread, but just something to consider. All imo, ymmv, etc.

I'm going to try and contain my fanboyism, but I would very strongly recommend the Bel Canto. The MSRP is $2500, but it should be widely available new for ~2000-2,100. Used and it can be had for $1,700. It also has an advantage not shared by some of the others in its price category, in that there are companies that actively modify it. I haven't heard a modded version so I won't speak to their worth, but the stock version sounds amazing. I had mine go unused in my home for several weeks, in an effort to evaluate the PICOs I bought. Now that my Pico is at work, I fired up the Bel Canto again last night, and...its like being reunited with an old friend. I run HD650s through it, and I strongly feel that it is a great pairing, in that it pushes the Senns ever so slightly to being less dark. The greatest strength of the Bel Canto is undoubtedly its neutrality. It has no hum of any sort, no graininess of any sort, no artificially euphonic sweet highs or cold stringent highs- just....crystal clear grain free highs. And the cleanest bass reproduction I have ever heard in my life. I dont know what feature is better, as they both contributed to the one piece of equipment that finally pushed my rig to the next level. As I've mentioned over at the other site, I am strongly considering a second Bel Canto for office playback. I am planning and saving for a high end SACD player now. Not as a replacement for the Bel Canto, but for both SACD playback and standard Redbook playback; at this point in my audio life, I really cant justify having all these CDs and not having a decent player However, the one thing about the Bel Canto I came to find out is that I will not be able to pipe digital DSD from the SACDs to the Bel Canto, only the downconverted data. So that limits me to high end SACD players as opposed to something like an Oppo Digital transport, to assure I can get a DAC of equal or better quality to the Bel Canto, otherwise, whats the point. But for computer playback, I honestly don't see where you can go wrong with the Dac3. Its probably the best audio purchase I've ever made.

seconded

Scientists don't play with their fuck-sticks.

With a little manwhoring, you could wait a bit and get this: http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlplay&1213902879 I'm looking at some of the Esoterics (among others) myself. Most notably the new X-05, since it has the same transport as the P05, and is all-in-one. I'd prefer the P05/D05 but I don't know how much patience I have.

Happy Birthday!

You can download the ALAC and burn an audio CD in iTunes. Or flac into Foobar and convert to wav. I think Foobar can burn CDs directly, but I've never tried it myself.

I'll respond with the only thing appropriate given the subject matter; goddamn.

Played in the car with a 10" JL Audio W7 sub =