Over the Frail Dream

I know some of you guys gotta have the audiophile autism too, what setup are you all rocking?

• Hifiman Arya stealth magnet V2 - my special boys for when I actually want to focus on the music
• Sennheiser hd600s - for general purpose audio
• Steelseries Arctis Nova pro wireless - for when im bedrotting

I've got a Zen dac v2 with a Magni amp, but my Magni broke so im about to just buy the topping DX5 II and call it a day. The Magni didnt do a good job of driving my Aryas anyways.

i just use the hd600s as of a few months ago. definitely like em better than the closed-back audio-technica headphones i used to use, particularly because I like being able to hear my keytaps while playing etterna

for listening anywhere besides my desktop i just use airpods. there's probably just as good options for cheaper from other brands but they work well enough for me and the noise cancelling's nice on them, especially whenever i'm listening to music on public transport or walking outside. good battery life too

i was considering a turbo autism schiit stack+some fancy planar headphones before but i cant justify to myself spending $1k+ on an audio setup

Airpods are actually surprisingly very good for an apple product.
I definitely feel you on not wanting to spend that much money, but it is inevitable if you ever upgrade stuff. If you get stuff too much better than your sennheisers you'll prolly need an amp. Best place to start is just getting a good bang for your buck dac, thattl boost your audio quality a ton from what you already get with just the sennheisers with your on board dac alone.

I've got a pair of Sennheiser HD560S and a FiiO K5 Pro ESS DAC and AMP (i was too lazy to buy a dac and amp separately)
the headphones are awesome but the build quality is really bad (it's all cheap plastic), one of the sides got cracked and had to do some cheap fix in order to keep using them, can't really complain besides that since i bought them for new on ebay at like half price.
also i don't know much about headphones but they are the most comfortable and better sounding ones i've ever tried besides in-ear which i should get into more too.

i JUST ordered a pair of truthear hexas as a sort of christmas gift for myself so i'll be rockin those in a while, summer arrived too hard here and i cant stand the over-ear headset that i got solely for the mic anymore...

outside of my computer (so, usually while commuting to/from work where i actually listen to music the most nowadays) i have the moondrop moca. active noise cancellation on those are pretty damn good and a must-have for the public transport here

i'm a firm chi-fi believer even if those are entry/mid-level gear

Dash- wrote: *

Sat Dec 27, 2025 11:13 pm

outside of my computer (so, usually while commuting to/from work where i actually listen to music the most nowadays) i have the moondrop moca. active noise cancellation on those are pretty damn good and a must-have for the public transport here

Active noise cancellation is actually some witchcraft. My arctis nova pro has it and when its turned all the way up i cant even really hear myself talk. Pretty sure the world could be ending 5 feet away from me and i wouldnt even notice.

Ptet wrote: *

Sat Dec 27, 2025 9:14 pm

Airpods are actually surprisingly very good for an apple product.
I definitely feel you on not wanting to spend that much money, but it is inevitable if you ever upgrade stuff. If you get stuff too much better than your sennheisers you'll prolly need an amp. Best place to start is just getting a good bang for your buck dac, thattl boost your audio quality a ton from what you already get with just the sennheisers with your on board dac alone.

yeah i remember when i got the hd600s i was considering getting a dac but i wasnt sure if it'd actually make a difference w/ the hd600s since from what i could gather dacs are mostly for either a. turbo tryhard planar headphones or b. if youre on a shitbox with a bad onboard dac. i'll maybe look into it, what would you rec? just the modi or something else?

Dash- wrote: *

Sat Dec 27, 2025 11:13 pm

i JUST ordered a pair of truthear hexas as a sort of christmas gift for myself so i'll be rockin those in a while, summer arrived too hard here and i cant stand the over-ear headset that i got solely for the mic anymore...

outside of my computer (so, usually while commuting to/from work where i actually listen to music the most nowadays) i have the moondrop moca. active noise cancellation on those are pretty damn good and a must-have for the public transport here

i'm a firm chi-fi believer even if those are entry/mid-level gear

i remember getting the moondrop arias a few years ago and was very underwhelmed but i also have a feeling the plugs i used weren't the right size (too small, weren't quite plugging enough i think). either way the experience made me realize how much the convenience of wireless matters for iems. not just because having a wire dangling off you's annoying but having to learn how to properly coil the wire and go through that process was an additional pain whenever i had to put them away. also those didn't have noise cancelling at all which made the experience even worse lol

and yeah headsets generally suck. better to just get a separate mic if you can. also reminded me of this old infographic thats funny though ive never actually tried this:

Windoze wrote: *

Thu Jan 01, 2026 8:36 pm

yeah i remember when i got the hd600s i was considering getting a dac but i wasnt sure if it'd actually make a difference w/ the hd600s since from what i could gather dacs are mostly for either a. turbo tryhard planar headphones or b. if youre on a shitbox with a bad onboard dac. i'll maybe look into it, what would you rec? just the modi or something else?

For something pretty cheap theres the Fosi Audio DS2 DAC/Amp that has 4.4mm balanced out for only $60. This one is really nice because ittl let your phone actually drive higher ohm shit like the hd600s at the cost of halving your battery life. It also lets you get a taste for balanced audio without breaking the bank. Of course youll also need to buy a balanced cable for your hd600s, but you can get pretty good ones for only ~$30 contrary to what the placebo victims and scammers say.
It is worth mentioning that theres some witchcraft with balanced cables delivering more power so I'm not actually sure if this thing provides enough power without a balanced cable to let your phone drive the hd600s well, but balanced is based so you should just be getting one anyways.

If you want to tryhard a bit more, the modi and the rest of the shiitstack is amazing for the price. Though, from what I've heard the Topping DX5 II is even better, supports balanced output, and is only going to run you 30 more bucks than a shiitstack. I bought this recently and it should arrive tomorrow, so I'll let you know my first impressions soon. In your case though the hd600s dont usually need a strong (or any) amplifier, so niether the entire shiitstack or the topping DX5 II are really needed, but if you wanted to future-proof your setup they are currently the best bang for your buck.

Theres also my older model of Zen DAC they dont make anymore, its primarily a DAC but does weak preampy stuff which is nice for stuff like the hd600s which usually dont require an amp but tend to sound a tad better with a little amplification. It also does balanced output. If all goes to plan I wont have much use for it when I get my new DAC/amp so buying it from me is an option as well.

I've been rolling with HD650s and a fiio e10k for about 5 and a half years now, and whenever I play rhythm games at round 1 (or when I was out and about on campus) I use ie100s.

The headphones are great although I'm beginning to want to try something else to try out a different sound profile, and the e10k has been giving me some odd cracking sounds from time to time but it's really so rare that I don't really care enough to change it.

The ie100s are also fine but they definitely don't offer as much clarity as the HD650s do. Not like it matters that much considering that I'm usually playing IIDX or other something else that actively detracts from the listening experience.

Once I get my own space figured out I want to create a dedicated listening space for my physical media, since I'm really just collecting right now with no true means of listening to them due to space constraints.