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In a follow-up to shotgunshane's excellent review, Mr. T. explains why the Custom Art Music Two remains a great choice.
“Overall, for the price, overall sound quality, and available features, the Music Two is a great quality product from Custom Art. Many high-end aficionados have now gone for the upscale Harmony 8 and (treble-boosted) 8 Pro flagship models, but the Music Two is still a very good option as a “midrange” model, though it’s actually priced well under most midrange price tags.”
shotgunshane's views on the ortofon e-Q8 VS the Final Audio VII are spot-on:
“The e-q8 has better bandwidth (extension at both ends), slightly fuller note weight and quite frankly the best distortion guitars I think I’ve heard on an iem. This may be THE iem to own for rock and metal.
The only area in sound the heaven VII beats the e-q8 is with that FAD magical reverb. Pianos are fantastic on the heaven and more lifelike due to reverb imo. The keys’ notes linger so beautifully and tastefully.
If I mostly listened to pianists, I’d have to look hard at the FAD line up. But I’m a rock-n-roll kind of guy and the e-q8 is excellent in guitar tone, timbre, grit and bite.”
He continues later:
“So... I liked the loaner set so much I ordered my own pair tonight from Dimitri. The e-q8 is easily the best single armature I’ve heard.”
Right on, shane. If you can drive them properly, the e-Q8 is one of the top two or three single-driver earphones on the planet.
His thoughts, among others, can be read in the ortofon eQ-8 headfi thread.
And here is my review of them at Headfonia.
Dimitri Trush and Nathan Wright's movie presentation of Earsonics Premium Signature of Velvet Crystal Clear Edition tunable 3 in 1 universal fit in-ear monitors.
Dimitri Trush invited me and my newly discovered extra chin to talk Earsonics Velvet, which I recently reviewed at Headfonia. If you're a DJ, you might be able to keep up with Dimitri's cuts.
Thank you Musica Acoustics.
Thanks to me finally knocking out a review of the Ultrasone IQ and IQ Pro, the time is right to call out reviews of the IQ, mine included, that both nailed it and failed it. The other review that I would like to point out was written by the almost-always-trustworthy Ljokerl of The Headphone List.
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The poor Japan Post man must have a hernia by now. I'm nearly on my second. The IzoPhones-30 are heavy, solid things that say tank more so than the 50mm Jupiter 3. They've got the same rough-and-tumble finish: blemishes here, clamping power there, industrial design run completely amuck.
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Egads, back in 2009, had I been in competition with today's headfiers, TouchMyApps would have sunk. One such awesome reviewer is thatonenoob, host of Poor Man Reviews of various headphones and related equipment.
His reviews are easy to follow and to the point. His photography is above average. Well done.
Be sure to check out his Final Audio Heaven VII, VIII, and Lab 1 shootout and tell me what you think.
Despite not driving low-Ω loads to perfection, the D1 is a great USB-powered DAC/headphone amp. Its output is nearly hissless, and it is powerful. And while it may not look as good in pictures as the D3, I prefer it. For 169$, it is a steal.
I've got more to say about it at Headfonia.
And it's a good read. Here's how Marcus sums things up:
“The D3 tonally surprised me. Granted it’s my first USB “stick” and there is a lot more to try out there in the market but I honestly wasn’t expecting much. I got a lot more than I expected to be fair. More than enough power for most on the go cans and high impedance headphones and a nice analog natural sound that really made the old classics and a lot of folk music sounding rather authentic and appealing. It is a great contrast to the more digital sounding FiiO E18 and more in league with the likes of the smoother Cypher Labs Piccolo AMP/DAC which is a big step up in price and quality for me.”
I think Marcus adds in a bit too many to me's, but he stays away from tossing around the term impedance, which, at this juncture, is a good idea. Overall, this is another excellent review of an excellent DAC.
Hardware Canucks's beautiful YouTube review is probably the most helpful, and then there is mine, at Headfonia, which hands down, is the best shot.
Oppo Digital's inexplicably leather-clad HA-2 is the handsomest pocketable headphone amp/DAC I ever have laid eyes, hands, and most of an afternoon on. It is slim. It is tooled to iPhone-perfection. It is easy to use. And it plays from pretty much any source, analogue (via a 3,5mm stereo jack), or computer-ish (USB A and B), without a hitch.
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Ars Technica promoted the following comment to this post about Sony's new audiophile microSDXC card which will hit Japanese-only shores soon enough.
“Okay, everyone here needs to take a step back. I am an actual analog circuit designer, so here is my take:
First of all, let me start by saying I’m sure, just like everyone else, that these devices have no practical effect on the audio produced by pretty much any practical system. That said, people seem to be confused about the nature of noise in a system.
As the story correctly notes, digital systems are inherently noise resistant, and often include error correction. There is no SD card or cable in the world that will help improve digital transmission if all the data is already being successfully transmitted. However, analog systems are susceptible to noise. In fact, a significant amount of analog design is dedicated to dealing with noise. In addition to random noise, which is introduced by thermal movement or other random processes in the devices, analog signals are also susceptible to interference, or other nearby signals which can corrupt the analog signal. Nearby electromagnetic fields can couple to analog traces on the board, degrading performance. A significant effort goes into carefully routing and shielding analog traces, as well as moving sources of interference further away.
High speed digital systems are a large source of interference. The fact that digital systems involve several wires switching at “full swing” at high frequency means that it produces a comparatively large electromagnetic field in the immediate vicinity. Again, a significant effort goes into keeping digital and analog components apart from each other in high quality audio systems. If your analog trace goes next to a memory running at hundreds of MHz, it will effectively increase the noise floor of your audio.
It is conceivably possible that Sony actually did design an SD card which generates less electromagnetic interference (EMI). This could conceivably lessen the amount of interference coupled into an audio signal somewhere. That said... it’s not going to make any difference in reality. If the SD card noise was having a practical effect on your audio then the whole systems was crap to begin with. So, as I think everyone in this thread can agree, this is snake oil.”
And there really is nothing left to say until Sony get into the business of making porper hi-end ethernet cables.
Tsukuba, Japan