Actually, driver size is another something that is debatable. Anyway, don't worry about it. Most headphones use 40mm driver, some of them use 50mm driver but doesn't neccessarily sound better than those that use 40mm. If you have a chance, try auditioning the Sony MDR-V700DJ (50mm driver, and cost about RM800 I think), then compare it to the Senneheiser 555/580 (40mm driver, RM500-900)

I didnt hear any difference when amping and not amping the xd200, I belive all equipments will drive them fine.

I let mine run for pretty long, a few days at least. Seriously, the phone sux. It's as horrible as the Koss UR20.

wtf? wah lau eh...RM360+ i oso want lar! wow...what a steal man

I didn't know the ksc55 is also bass heavy, I thought it's a little softer than the portapros//ksc75. Bear in mind it's just my speculation I've never heard of the ksc55 let alone the ksc75 haha

ei jimmy, added liao. no comments on the xd400, never heard of it. Wanted to get it at the first place but the store made an inventory error on their website and when I went there they only had xd200 .

They never carrier the xd400 after that, only the xd300.

yes, but sometimes the shipping to Koss already cost more than a brand new phone.

cheapest way to get them is from the net

if u have some lobang, u can get it from singapore.....cheaper than msia but still more expensive than if u get the from the states/ebay i believe.

actually I was saying that the er6 is crappy. it was said that the er6i sounds different and I have never heard of it.

you don't need to waste time "educating" these people, just say it is high-end and let them be happy with it. Personally, I'd just agree or keep quiet about it. I'm not even sure the RM400+ ety er6 can be called entry level high-end IEM, let alone a RM80 canalphone.

This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Nov 21 2005, 09:58 PM

lots of high-end dynamic headphones out there can be had for around RM2000. anything higher, you'd be paying for the cosmetics, and much would go into premium and goodwill. But then again, the "real" price is not RM2000, since you still need a decent amp to drive them.

IEMs are totally different, the er6 probably sounded like a RM200 headphone, while the UE10pro "probably" sounds like a RM1k+ headphone....but being priced RM4000. They just have a lower price:performance ratio, which is why I wouldn'y say the er6 can be called entry level at all.

and yeah, it's also very much due to the experience in these things

do you really need wireless? they sound like "radio" and for the same amount of money, you could get something much better from the wired ones.

hehe no worries. I have wires routed under my table to my amp >.<, wireless headphone is the alst thing you'd wanna go for.

RM300, probbably the Grado SR60. if you could stretch your budget to around RM400-500, get the Sennheiser HD555. That's the phone that I truely believe pwns everything under RM500, at least it pwns all the phones <RM500 that I've ever auditioned. you can read more about it here:

http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopic=215501

the phone also benefits from a headphone amp, but if you dun have the budget for the amp, you can always invest in it later

yup, I still have it but i'd be gone soon. Yeah sure man! it takes 25 hours to reach me from msia (including 5 hours transit) hehehe

Actually I bought it for more, the RM400-500 pricing are what people get in UK, you might be able to get something like that in Singapore though


Yes, it'd need an amp. I've compared it with the "usual" configuration people use when driving a headphone without an amp, that is I connected it directly to my sound card's line out. Without the amp, the sound is muffled, compressed(small sound stage), boomy, and less clarity. Amping it made lots of differences, the sound opens up right away(no kidding) you wont need golden ears to notice that (but depending on amp though). The bass is now alot less boomy, tighter and softer in volume (this is what I called quality bass, but the volume may be a concern to some), highs are crisp but by no means harsh like the grados.

You can DIY one, or check out head-fi's amplifier section and look for something that you like and go from there I'm using a Ray Samuels SR-71 now, whcih is already taken and I'm sending it to the buyer in a week or two. I'm using my own amp at the moment, which I find more dynamic than the the sr-71 even without precision parts.


Initial thought of the sr60 was it sounded damn nice, much much better than my px100, but that's it, that's as much as I'd give credit it. It's definitely one of the best phone at its price range, still, I prefer my sony mdr-cd480 more

The grados, imho, is a specialty product, they emphasize in certain aspects of the music and therefore ,to me, they can't be used as a throw-on phone since it doesn't do everything well. The 555, and my sony, covers just about everything to an adequate level that I'd call "good". In short, overall, they are better than the grados for general use, and this is why I use them all the time.

the Ms2i has much more sound stage than the sr60, the 555 best the Ms2i in sound stage no time. The grados have the smallest sound stage of all the well known headphone brands

Probably I'd say the 555 is an entry level high end phone when properly amped. It also has a better price to performance ratio than the 650, which is why I really love the phone. But im gonna say bye bye to it in a day or two hehe.

yup, headphone's actually the cheapest component in the system. just like car's engine

a single stage amplifier with some good chips would open up the sound, basically, a cmoy with good opamps in it. Categg is in the process of building his own cmoy, you might wanna tumpang him to build you one, or wait for my kits to be available. They'd be cheap, just a cmoy anyway

although it opens up the sound, you can still notice that the details are not "coming out", it's like a teaser, you know it's there, u can hear it, and it gives you the feeling that....it's just not coming out. It's the same feeling I get when I just got my 650, the phones sounds horrible during the first 100hours.

You're not falling to the dark side hehe, just realising that there are better things you can spend your money in. One thing to note is that, mid-fi phones seldom benefit from amps, or should I say that the benefits are so marginal that an amp is not really needed. When you move up in class, especially the higher ends one, just about every one of them would require an amp, that makes the total cost much more than what you thought it'd be. if you wanna keep things low, go with mid-fi phones, if you wanna move up, prepare to fork out tons of bucks. if you have about 2-3k to spend for the system, that'd allow you to get some very decent setup, much more decent than what you could get from speaker with that amount of money and I'm sure you'd be happy with it.

I've never heard of the 895 so I can't comment on that.

if you read a few more pages back, you could get an idea where people bought them. or maybe you could do ryan a favor and buy off his sr60 so he could get a hd555

haha actually the sr60 is not that bad, the clamp aint that hard but for people who doesnt like surpraaural phone, it'd be PITA.

yeah the sr60 has the least bass of all the grados. Imho, only the phones starting from 225 onwards have sweet bass; sr80's bass is just a teaser. no doubt, if one has the bucks, hd555 is definitely the one to go. I did another comparison with the 650 yesterday; well, the 650 does have better instrument seperation, more solid tones and a little better here and there, but the fact that hd555 is the best phone I've ever heard for RM500+/- still holds true.

I really really wanted to give the 895 a try, I had mike hold a unit for me for about a month and gawd damn my so called "friend" who's suppose to bring it back for me didn't even contact me .

One caveat though, if you'd tried the Senns without an amp, do not believe in what you heard. Seriously they sound pretty crappy without an amp, and I'm not exaggerating. I think I've said this many times already (i know I did but maybe in msn or...whatever ), I ran the 555 from line out of my emu0404, they seriously sound very horrible....just like running them from my extigy...compressed, muffled, less detail, well you know...just add up all the bad things that u could imagine when amped, holy crap, they open up ALOT.

I apologize if people find me repeating things again and again, I can't help it, I cannot really recall the things that I said coz I've been repeating it to many ppl

oh 1 more thing, the 555 is not ultimate, neither is the 650. in fact, im not ultimately satisfied with them, and is still looking for something that'd truely replace them. so don't get too excited about it buy one, try it, when you realised their potential (headphones), you'd start dumping your multimedia speakers/entry level hifi and move to the dark side. RM500+ for a headphone isn't all that expensive really considering the sound quality that you'd get from the headphone and what you could get from a 500 bucks speaker.

i'll be auditioning it soon, but according to the fellow who owns it, he still prefers his hd600 + cardas + earmax pro and said that the 701 doesnt best the 650 at all. When I think about it, all of the sub 300 phones seem to stay at the same "level" of quality, only differentiated by their specialty/sound signature, so very likely that I wont be getting the k701. but, very likely that I'm getting this for christmas present, maybe new year present hehe....wonder if I should wait for a couple of review first:


I oso dun mind if they ship the girl along with the phone

grado can have beautiful appearance too:

you could get about 80+% sound quality out of a grado unamped, but hd650 unamped? gotta repeat this.....you aint hearing what the phone can really do. I won't bother explaining the reasons for the hiss though. I believe the sr60 is the best phone you've ever heard. It certainly is good, but not THAT good. saying that the sr-60 is "prefect"...hmm...if u've heard the higher end grados, they could be "godsend" to you

nah, ur not a basshead, it is truely weak in bass, eveybody in head-fi knows that