I would look into reading about both as they do very different things. Aeolus are my favorite between the two. But if I wanted to listen to electronic music the Eikons would be King! I think they would work great with Rap and R&B too.
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What’s the go-to must-have open headphone under $1500?
Tell me the answer. Now.
Sennheiser HD800S or ZMF Aeolus. Have both. Two Aeolus in fact. Listening to the Zebrawoods right now. HD800S is the daily driver.
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Have the HD800S on loan at the moment. Great sometimes, and not my thing for a lot too. So not sure. Have you tried with different pads? Dekoni Hybrids?
And had Aeolus while ago. They were nice enough.
What didn’t you love about the Aeolus? What amp? I demo’ed the Focal Clear for several weeks before getting the Aeolus and thoroughly enjoyed them. More incisive and sharper detail retrieval from what I remember. Personally I found them a bit fatiguing after several hours of listening. Definitely less warm than the Aeolus, but still very fun (in a totally different way).
Hi,
I use Pc -Audirvana-Denafrips Pontus - amp Magni.
Do I need something like Raspberry Pi for better sound?
Thanks
Hmmmmm?
Per my recent research, Pi audio systems use Burr-Brown, TI, and other conventional DAC and amp chips. These are then patched together with a Pi for control, but are not fundamentally different than a purpose-built DAC or amp. Some of them are oddly cobbled together while others are thoughtfully designed, so YMMV.
It really comes to what you mean for better sound.
I’m sorry but Raspberry is an headless micro computer that can be adapted to music listening (I’m using it right now with a Bifrost and an Asgard) but isn’t a music transport (IMO) in comparison to what you get from Audirvana.
Consider that if you use the standard power supply with a Raspberry Pi you’ll have a lot more electrical noise problems than with your computer.
Audirvana with Sys Optimizer turned on isn’t bad at all.
Just my opinion.
That’s my point .Is Pc so bad source for playing music?
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Depends on what the raspberry pi is for. If you’re going to get like a pi2aes and use spdif out, it might. i am not a wizard around all the zeroes and ones and usb and optical and stuff yet. but you can use a raspberry pi for a whole bunch of things and it would help to know what you have in mind. the replies indicate as much i think.
but if i had something fancy like a denafrips pontus, i’d upgrade the magni first.
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PC’s not a dedicated transport for digital music but a software as Audirvana can help a lot.
The Raspberry as headless pc can work well as much as you don’t stress it with a program as Volumio which has too many features and few useful things.
Moode or Rune Audio can work well on a Raspberry since are simple software that do one thing: feed digital music.
A Raspberry can be an inexpensive add to a digital chain.
But you pc with Audirvana (Sys optimiser on) can do the job as well.
Think more about synergy and focus on the points you feel are weak.
I think I’m now on the search for a open back Z1R 
Something big strong bass, and bit laid back treble.
Focal Clear! Go on, give it another go.
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Buying the Verite again. Didn’t work out.
Buying the Z1R again. Did work out.
Running a 50% success rate here on repurchase haha.
I can’t do the Focal line. Stiff body and headband structure, instant headache for my big noggin
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why didn’t it work out , if I may ask
You’ve got me curious about Audirvana and some kind of music service. I’m curious about a MAC Air M1 with enough storage to keep music downloaded working with Audirvana and Tidal. I know Tidal offers military discount which makes the monthly really appealing. One of the few if not only that offers military discount
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Yes, military, students and teachers discounts.
I asked about it via email to Qobuz once and they replied me quite rudely.
About computers and music I believe it all lays in how much you don’t use the computer as general purpose machine while you listen to music.
It influences the sound a lot to my ears and that’s why I use SysOptimizer in Audirvana.
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I don’t have a computer at home right now. I use my work laptop and cellphone. My iphone 12 pro has 256 gb of storage and my ipad pro 2019 has 512 gb of storage. Originally I wanted one of those two to be the source of music. The iphone is what I connect to the bifrost 2 and mjolnir when I want to listen to music or stream tv via fiber. I support mostly linux at work and manage mostly through windows, so I can get around most operating systems. Where I’m going with this, my work is changing, purchased by a larger company, so the freedom we had is moving towards a corporate monster. Before, we own our phones and company pays the bill. Moving forward, company owns the phone and puts security software on the phone. So, I see in the future more limitations of the phone. I use my work laptop as my own but with big corporate taking over, I see that changing. You get where I’m going with this. Moving away from using work resources and purchasing my own laptop to divide those two worlds. The phone will go back to being just a phone. A Mac would just streamline things between the ipad and lightly the iphone. The mac would be recreation and financial management, wouldn’t be used for work, so it would stay pretty lightly used.
(side note, strike against Qobuz as go figure, I support taking care of military, police, fire and essential workers being a veteran of a foreign war)
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I found that a Mac Mini of 2014-2015 vintage works great as my home audio base. I’m also in the iPhone/iPads club, and I run ROON on the mini. It also feeds my Bifrost2. I use a Blue Snowball as the ears of Siri on the Mini. Much to my dismay, I’ve never had a Mac laptop. Right now my wife has a nice new MSI, I have an old Sager, and I just stuck openSUSE on her old (was Win 7) Atom powered eeePC netbook. Yes, I’m OS-agnostic, but it’s fun to rudely say to someone having trouble with a MAC/PC that this wouldn’t happen if they’d use the other PC/MAC. If they’ve got both, then I bring up the Penguin.
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