headphones, amp, and player

seabeerob213

Bought a couple FIIO products as they were clearance + black Friday cheap. The X3 digital music player and Mont Blanc (E12) portable amp. Paired with my At M50s not a bad budget rig, but I know there is a huge rabbit hole to explore going this route. For the electronics and cans together, I'm about $280.00 into it, so not bad, they sound much better than my tablet or laptop alone, im hearing a lot more of my music, but feel there is something lacking still, but as they warm up and burn in I'm sure they will sound better. All my files are WMA lossless CD rips, I run it from the line out of the player into the amp, amp on 0 gain, volume on amp about 60% no EQ or bass boost. The player has 3 mini jacks, headphone, line out, and digi coax, with a headphone to digi coax adapter included. It seems the highs aren't as well announced on this rig as I'm used to, but then again, my normal rig is rti/as on a yammy. Will post any updates, but for what I have spent into this, I'm very pleased.

seabeerob213

Anyone use anything other than the ATs before, any input on any of this

seabeerob213

The player can also be used as a USB DAC

seabeerob213

Still can't figure out how to use thus as a DAC, and can't update because I don't have intertubes connected to the laptop, only my tablet, as its my friend's wifi. Couldn't get it to read my 64 gig class 10 SDXC sandisk either, but a reformat fixed this. Pretty happy with it overall, line out is great when using with the amp or the def tech cylinder, as the headphone out with the amp and amp in the speaker sounds bad, and won't get loud. Haven't had the opportunity to try the coax out. Biggest complaint is that I can play a whole artist at once, or make playlists, its play all, play one song, or play one album. Will be submitting feedback to the company, as their owner is an active member over at head-fi.

seabeerob213

Well, soon to add Velodyne V-Trues to this, 100 clams with shipping to FPO on Newegg, couldn't pass it up. Good chance to expand my foray into the headphone world, with a well reviewed entry level set of cans. Love my M50s though, don't get me wrong.

eeagle

Good luck on the Velodyne V-Trues; I'll will be interested to see how well you like them.

Head-fi reviews looks negative. "Bass-head" and dark were the words used to describe them. Did not see the word linear used anywhere....suspect they will have similar sound to Monster Beats products.

I have used Fiio products and was happy till I tried some other DAC/Amps like Audioengine D1, Aune T1, and Parasound ZDAC and suspect they would be trumped by the many other more expensive DAC/Amps out there...one is always happy till you hear something amazingly better. I would love to try a Woo Audio WA7 Fireflies the next ime a have spare 1K.

With respect to headphone choices, I have found the open heaphones provide the most realistic sound, with my favorite being Sennheiser HD600 or Philips Fidelio X1.

seabeerob213

I agree that other more expensive products from more reputable companies will be better, I got what was available to me here, and shopped sales for cans, I didn't even consider the trues till I saw someone else here buy and like them. I also paid 89 for them, which is a steal. I'm active duty bottom end of the pay scale, I don't have he resources others have, gotta get my hands on what I can and enjoy it till I can get better.

cnh

M50s are good closed back phones in that under $200 category. I still have mine and use them for movies and when I need isolation. Otherwise I throw on the AKG Q701s, and for what you can get those for now, I find them hard to beat. To me they have more LOW end and are more 3-D sounding than the HD600s which still have mellower vocals.

For tracking though, I find my Sony 7506s to be better than the M50s, you can hear more of what's not "right" although they're rough on the ears for long listening, there the M50s are a lot more laid back and enjoyable for music. The Sony's are just good for listening for flaws, for that they're as good as phones that cost 3-4 times more! But for music, not so much.

Enjoy!

My suggestion, try one of those cheap tube H-phone amps from Partsexpress and roll the tube if it's not to your liking. Yeah there are better H-phone amps, but these are super cheap and if you find a GOOD tube they'll sound almost as good as a lot of better amps people laud on this site, IMHO. Plus I'm "cheap" so I'm all about value and LOW PRICE!

Have fun!

cnh

seabeerob213

Thank you CNH, I gotta do something with my player or files, with the 32 GB card, I got flawless operations, the 64 gb gives some weird screechy feedback and often sounds like the playback speeds up !momentarily, really botrhers me.