Got my first wage today
I hope u remember me from the last iem post
Suggest me some good DAC+iem for a tight budget. It should be worth every single penny. I must be able to experience the glory of hires flacs and dad.
Suggest shit so good that I should never go back to shitty bluetooth audio.
Optimise the product selection such that the audio profile from the output must be true to its source.
>>316
Imagine listening to Random Access Memories on the right setup and getting to appreciate the high digital audio production standards that daft punk's known for this album!
>>316
oh wow that was fast, okay so for starters what what your previous gear? also maximum budget you can allot for your setup, and of course your whats your system of choice?
>>319
>what what your previous gear?
literally nothing, most I had was a sony mdr zx110a and a smartphone/computer filled with audio files. I used to use wavelet on Android to balance the too overpowered shitty bass on these headphones and tune it to the most neutral profile or the harman target. Even this simple step improved the experience by leaps and bounds.
>maximum budget you can allot for your setup
around 7k as a beginner... for both iem+dac
>>319
I don't care much about it, my phone would be the most common I'd say than my computer. It has a 3.5mm jack too.
>>318
In hand 6
fuck ctc thats always inflated
In hand 30 would be perfect
>>320
>sony mdr zx110a
holy kek I pretty much had a similar journey except I was a tad too autistic about sonic fidelity that I took it up on myself to read and learn about audio tech and how it even works to come up with purchase descisios what would fit my needs, ff to 8 years and several pages long articles and discussion forums and I think I have what can be called the "endgame" setup tho the definition of this term can vary from person to person
but the gist of it is invest in as much good source and drivers that you can afford and stick to that so you can spend time engaging with the most crucial aspect of this hobby; actually listening to and enjoying your music
>IEM's
stick to single DD (dinamic driver) pos for now as they are highly reliable and can produce more than enough (((techs))) and resolution across the FR (frequency response) graph
Make sure you choose a non-metal case IEM since metal shells can introduce condensation issues, something I personally had to deal with the Moondrop Chu's (the black box in the middle) and that shit sucks because they were susceptible to channel imbalance and worst case scenario the filters just kick the bucket, so to avoid that bullshit stick to plastic or resin shells
>Source
or the DAC+AMP in this case since you want a plug n play setup go for a portable one as they can literally drive any IEM on the market infact the tech has evolved so much most discreet dacs are an overkill but I guess that wouldn't hurt in any manner
There are portable USC C dongles for phones and slightly fatter ones for PC's I personally store all my flacs and DSD's on my thonkpad with debian+deadbeef with direct hardware transfer so the signal stays bit-perfect throughout the chain
>recommendations
The OG Kiwi Ears cadenza's are unfortunately discontinued were replaced by its successor Cadenza 2, haven't tried these but looking at the graphs they lean more towards "neutral" profile than the former but I reckon they should still retain the unique texture that the OG's had. I bought them on sale for around ~₹3500 and the newer variant are priced around ~₹5000
The Tangzu Waner SE are also good options but unlike Cadenza's the Wan'er Studio Editions as the name suggests carry a non-colored frequency response so its as neutral or (((flat))) as it gets in this price segment (~₹2000)
Chu and Chu II are metalpos so I wouldn't suggest trying them as your first IEMs
Like I said I keep my music on my PC that is connected to my Kiwi Ears Allegro and have both 3.5mm unbalanced and 4.4mm balanced output, I primarily use the 3.5 and it sounds just perfect with no hiss or audio noise floor, can decode both PCM and DSD upto 32bit/384kHz and DSD256 respectively
just make sure your music player supports DoP for DSF/DFF files so the DAC gets fed with untouched DSD data
