CutiePieHole

26m

Im in bed at 4pm

Tuneout

25m

this song f***s me up. its so unbelievably good, it hasnt left my head for days

Bruuiisees

23m

I like this one

And this one

Orangutan

30m

??

The beautiful Chinese have spent the last decade splintering into dozens of different audio labs all undercutting each other to make the most affordable good audio products

Without them, great audio would still be reserved for rich old men paying european giants and american boutiques thousands of dollars for snake oil

Now you can get genuinely good sounding IEMs for like $30, and great sounding IEMs for like $150

Same s*** for all the various audio gear. A portable tube amp like this would've been like $1000 a decade ago and now it's 1/10th of that

Tuneout

27m

this is really interesting damn
does using it on your phone like that really make a difference?

i always imagined you using those huge headphone jacks and stuff for it to make a difference instead of an aux

Bruuiisees

26m

Probably? So you didn't test it?

If someone bites that you're screwed

Orangutan

20m

Yeah tubes make a difference for sure. They add even order harmonics to the music, which adds a pleasant "fuzz" to the edges of sounds, which the human ear often perceives as more "3D" and "real"

But as far as using dongle dac/amps go, a lot of that s*** is snake oil. There are exceptions to every rule, but as long as your dac and amp are competent and your headphones/iems are getting enough power, it will sound indistinguishable from any other dac/amp

The only reason to use a dedicated dongle is if you're using a headphone that needs a lot of power, high current delivery, or good voltage swing. For most in-ears, the $9 apple dongle will sound as good as anything else. Kind of an open secret in the hobby the the Apple dongle is the best deal in audio. If you want to use most over-ear headphones or IEMs that need crazy current delivery (like planars or exotic multi-driver setups), then you def want to get a dedicated DAC/Amp though

Tuneout

19m

its ironic and funny the apple dongle is the best deal i love that

Orangutan

15m

Yea that's one thing I appreciate about the younger generation in the audio hobby, which is shockingly large (it always came off as an old man interest to me). They don't go for all the over-romanticization or snake oil that gave audiophiles a bad rap in the past. Everything is starting to become about real price-to-performance ratio. Nobody my age is buying $500 cables or vibration absorbing stones.

Orangutan

15m

Yea that's one thing I appreciate about the younger generation in the audio hobby, which is shockingly large (it always came off as an old man interest to me). They don't go for all the over-romanticization or snake oil that gave audiophiles a bad rap in the past. Everything is starting to become about real price-to-performance ratio. Nobody my age is buying $500 cables or vibration absorbing stones.

Bruuiisees

15m

Vibration absorbing stones sounds freaking sick

Orangutan

15m

Yea that's one thing I appreciate about the younger generation in the audio hobby, which is shockingly large (it always came off as an old man interest to me). They don't go for all the over-romanticization or snake oil that gave audiophiles a bad rap in the past. Everything is starting to become about real price-to-performance ratio. Nobody my age is buying $500 cables or vibration absorbing stones.

CutiePieHole

10m

Lionel richie died?

Stankie

12m

Awful page

rvi

10m

did he fr

Tuneout

19m

tang got me wanting to hear the tubes hes indoctrinating me

Orangutan

9m

· edited

tubes are a blast, and you don't have to go balls to wall like I did. I'm just a collector at heart, so finding and trying the rare ones is fun to me. Especially since the vast majority of good ones aren't produced anymore, so it's like finding an old bottle of wine made with extinct grapes.

Some people love tube sound, some people hate it, but I think everyone should give it a try. The Schiit Vali 3 is a good way to dip your toe in the water, simply because it's relatively affordable, there's all sorts of good, cheap tubes for it that audibly change the sound, plus it's a hybrid, which means you're not going balls deep on the tube sound, just adding a little bit of flavor, and you don't have to worry about nerd s*** like making sure the output impedance isn't gonna f*** up your headphones (hybrids usually have super low output impedance, while full tube amps either have insane output impedance, or you gotta pay a lot of money for a transformer coupled amp to make it compatible with more headphones)

tl/dr

Schiit Vali 3 to dip your toes in the water

Buy a GE 5670 5 Star, WE396A, for different flavors

If you love that, maybe go for a Bottlehead Crack kit + a pair of HD650 headphones, that's the legendary combo that's stood the test of time

or

Buy the Muse HiFi M3 Ultra (pic I posted today) if you just barely wanna dip your toes in, but be aware that it's very light tube flavoring, and you'll have to take impedance matching into account because it has a pretty gnarly output impedance

Sorry for essay I just don't want you to waste money

rvi

12m

so whats another thing you appreciate about the younger generation in the audio hobby?

Bruuiisees

7m

Can I just heat up a lightbulb and put that on top of my phone and see if that works

Orangutan

5m

Don't think so

The sound has to be actually amplified by the s*** inside the bulb instead of a solid state circuit for it to make any difference

But feel free to give it a try and report back

Bruuiisees

5m

My home is on fire what have I done

Orangutan

4m

Oh dear