When I did some side-by-side testing of my TH-X00’s between my phone, decent PC sound card and m9xx, I could barely tell the difference. Maybe that’s a symptom of how easy they are to drive / V shape, or the type of music I listen to and (most likely) my own ability. Which is fine, as I budget and plan around that.
My DX7 Pro arrived today. I picked it because I’ve read it is fairly transparent, drive almost any headphone, no noticeable distortion and was within my budget.
Only issue is that with high impedance output, so it’ll be interesting to find out if I can pick up the damping factor with my TH-X00’s, or anecdotal comments of power affecting planars.
The intention was to go out and buy some tube plugins, which I figured would give 80% of value for 20% of the cost of actually tube rolling. I liked this thread for different software tools that I’m keen to experiment with DSP, EQ and other Plug-Ins
Then after a few months of experimenting and understanding what I like / don’t like, I can then go buy more focused equipment with more confidence
If there’s alternative approaches that are cost effective, happy to hear about them
— Regarding the subwoofer comment, since as a new user I can’t post any more replies —
My setup is the Kanto Tuks + Sub 8. Budget at the time was <$1500
I didn’t have a balanced DAC/amp, so studio monitors were out.
I was also constrained by the height for speakers (they need to fit under my monitor), and I liked how the Kanto’s was an all-in-one package so that I couldn’t stuff it up. i.e. I just need to tweak the hresholds
After owning them for 6 months and my audio journey progressing, I’d obviously be doing a different set up now. Thanks for those entry sub links. I’ll save those for future reference.