[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by mecheng77

And the most important is speaker placement. I follow rule of 1/3, Dolby and do corrections with arc. Just using everyday materials helps with room treatment: rugs and bookshelf. No matter what you need room correction: Arc anthem works great. I do the manual sweeps for my speaker placement

This goes without saying and if you're going to spend the time and effort to really focus on acoustics, speaker placement is a default.

While electronic room correction is definitely helpful, this should not be the primary method of fixing acoustical issues. A good room should be the foundation and then you build up from there.

I get many people don't have the ability/luxury to have a dedicated room or the ability to do things to their existing listening environment. With that in mind, one should set their budget and equipment choices accordingly. Spending money on a pair of $25k speakers is useless if you have a crap sounding room with crappy speaker placement. And why I associate crap sounding rooms and poor speaker placement is that they both usually go hand in hand. I've been in this hobby for decades and I've seen all sorts of pictures of terrible rooms with terrible speaker placements. So for many I've seen that have spent 5 figures on their speakers would have saved themselves thousands if they bought a speaker for a couple of thousand a pair. Because the net effect would have been the same. Many times it's all about online bragging right and cred.

In my dedicated room, I do use a couple of room correction devices: Velodyne and Meridian. But the net effect of these devices is to fine tune and dial in the last bit as my room has been acoustically treated and designed out to not be a square.

[justinnum1]

You guys using Roon?

[dreamingat30fps]

I'm just glad I have ears to match my wallet.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by Dog Face Pony Soldier

a true Hi-Fi specialist, ... They're in that position because they love music and hifi gear; and they literally listen to stuff all day everyday.

+1000 this. Granted their ears aren't our ears BUT systems have synergy no matter your ears and these guys can find it for you so you don't have to try 100 pieces of gear to find what works for your budget and need. A great example of synergy is the ZMF atticus and pretty much most non-OTL amps: not good; Yet there are a few that work really well! Who knows why

Anyway, beyond that, I'm a headphones only guy, and mostly closed back, and it seems like tastes breakdown into few (yes, very generalized) categories: trebleheads, neutralheads, midheads, bassheads.

It's important to know who I'm talking to because I've learned, for example, if someone says they love Grados or Aeon Flows, they have the opposite of my taste. If they like ZMFs, Fostex, or Sony Z1Rs then they're close to me.

So I try to find those specialists who like the HPs I like, then trace back from there into amps and DACs.

[zx10guy]

A good Hi Fi shop will loan out prospective gear you're looking to purchase for you to use in your home with your existing equipment. I've dealt with a few shops that have this policy. This is one of the extras you get when you purchase from a specialty shop and not a chain store. But it's lost on the mass market crowd. In addition, these places usually have upgrade policies for electronics and speakers. Speakers tend to have a more generous period. When you have history with a particular shop, you'll also find that they'll give you decent price breaks which bring them in the ball park of mass market stores.

On the headphone front, I've been kicking around a few models. I used to have some higher end Sony ear buds which had exotic jewel coatings on the diaphragm material. Unfortunately, the quality didn't extend to the drivers which would blow with not too much input signal. I moved on to some B&O ear buds which have lasted till this day some 2 or so decades. But I always felt there was something off where there was a hole in the mid bass to mids. I also tried some AKG K280s and eventually moved on to a set of Grado SR100s.

I currently use for serious ear bud listening a set of Sennheiser SE535s and a set of Oppo PM-3s. I also got some headphone amps to drive them. I have a Ray Samuels Predator which I some times use with the SE535s and a Lightning for the PM-3s. Because the Lightning is a fully balanced headphone amp, I spent the money to convert the audio cable going to the PM-3s to a fully balanced cable. The only thing I'm missing is to get a portable music player with balanced outs. I'm currently looking at options.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

A good Hi Fi shop will loan out prospective gear you're looking to purchase for you to use in your home....

Yeah, for headphones, headphones.com will let you return up to 1 year later! And crutchfield has 60 day returns, Drop has 30 day returns (usually), and most reputable online dealers do as well (e.g., Schiit has 2-4 weeks, but you pay 5%). Handmade stuff like ZMFs ... well I think Zach has a fairly steep restocking fee such that you'd be better off reselling them which is very easy to do. (i should point out Zach is fantastic with customer service as in like the best you've ever had, and a lifetime guarantee)

Anyway, on IEMs, if you have tried campfire, those are about the best to my ear; Polaris if you like a V-shaped dance club scene, which I do, and which works great for me for my IEM uses. Up from there are the Ara, the IEM gold standard Andromedas (too neutral for me), and the Solaris which are fantastic.

For DAPs, never seemed worth it for me since I always have a phone with both tidal and a memory card so I just bitstream into whatever portable dac/amp I'm using. Has the downside of being a few components, but the upside of super flexible because a portable dac/amp can be used with laptops or elsewhere and by using the phone I'm actually saving a device anyway (the DAP would be another device to charge and keep track of), but that's just for my uses of course. iFi xDSD is nice since it has bluetooth just in case you ever need it, and I've tried monolith sticks versus audioquest dragonfly and I can't tell the difference (both worse than the xDSD though, so $80 wins on the monolith for an external portable dac/amp for my phone)

[saeyedoc]

For headphones for those with any hearing issues, the Beyerdynamic Aventho Wireless and it's bigger brother work really well. You test your hearing with the included app and it uploads the info into the chip on the headphone to compensate for your hearing. They sound great.
I agree about room effects, I use an Anthem receiver and the room correction is very easy to use and makes a huge difference.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

Yeah, for headphones, headphones.com will let you return up to 1 year later! And crutchfield has 60 day returns, Drop has 30 day returns (usually), and most reputable online dealers do as well (e.g., Schiit has 2-4 weeks, but you pay 5%). Handmade stuff like ZMFs ... well I think Zach has a fairly steep restocking fee such that you'd be better off reselling them which is very easy to do. (i should point out Zach is fantastic with customer service as in like the best you've ever had, and a lifetime guarantee)

Anyway, on IEMs, if you have tried campfire, those are about the best to my ear; Polaris if you like a V-shaped dance club scene, which I do, and which works great for me for my IEM uses. Up from there are the Ara, the IEM gold standard Andromedas (too neutral for me), and the Solaris which are fantastic.

For DAPs, never seemed worth it for me since I always have a phone with both tidal and a memory card so I just bitstream into whatever portable dac/amp I'm using. Has the downside of being a few components, but the upside of super flexible because a portable dac/amp can be used with laptops or elsewhere and by using the phone I'm actually saving a device anyway (the DAP would be another device to charge and keep track of), but that's just for my uses of course. iFi xDSD is nice since it has bluetooth just in case you ever need it, and I've tried monolith sticks versus audioquest dragonfly and I can't tell the difference (both worse than the xDSD though, so $80 wins on the monolith for an external portable dac/amp for my phone)

It's too bad the guys over at Headphones.com got out of making their headphone amps. They had a bunch of different ones that spanned from budget to reference.

I haven't tried any other IEMs other than the Shures I have. At this point, I don't see myself getting anything new as I got the PM3s when Oppo announced they were getting out of the hardware business. So not recent but not that long ago either. The one set of headphones I would have liked to experience are the Stax's. I've heard electrostatic speakers such as the Apogee Stages and was blown away. Can't imagine what it's like to have electrostatics as headphones.

Thanks for the points and suggestion on a DAP. I've been looking at the FiiO M11 as a possible purchase.

[jsf721]

Did the whole house audio and audiophile In my last house. New house 100 percent Sonos. Love it and I’m still get subscriptions decided on but running Apple Music and it simple and excellent.

Would do again.

[GrussGott]

Lots of great competition out there these days and it really comes down to what you like - they all have their strengths and weaknesses, and then of course, once you pass the mid-fi level the whole chain starts to be important (of course synergy is always important and can make mid-fi stuff better than hi-fi!)

I went a ways up (or down?) the hi-fi slope and settled on mid-fi ZMFs with a schiit modius & cavalli tube hybrid. I do have Senns that I pull out occasionally (and some others) but, for me, the higher end stuff wasn't worth it.

It started to become like unsprung weight on a car that only sees the track once a year: even on track day, it's usually just that one lap where you really felt the difference.