What is your dream headphone setup?

@asymcon That’d put you in the same camp I’m in … at the moment. Who knows how long that state of affairs will last, but for now I don’t see “anywhere to go”, with one exception, short of something entirely different.

Anyway, while I posted it here, it’s probably easier to recount it directly:

I use Roon as my primary source. That feeds a network connected streamer that I designed and built myself (and one day I might get around to a commercial venture around it), tentatively called the “Music Conduit”. That talks to a Chord DAVE using either USB or AES/EBU XLR connections. DAVE feeds a Woo Audio WA234 Mk2 via a pair of AudioQuest Wind XLRs. And then that runs using a self-built (and somewhat unusual) headphone cable to one of several headphones depending on my mood/material.

Tubes in the Woo are, currently:

  • Western Electric WE 300B (NOS) (power tubes)
  • Takatsuki 274B (rectifiers)
  • RCA 13EM7 (signal/drivers)

I do need to expand my choices of 2A3 and 45 series tubes at some point.

And the headphones I have in rotation are:

What might change from here to keep it my “dream” system?

I plan to add a Chord M-Scaler as soon as they release a standalone unit. The Blu Mk2 unit makes a worthwhile difference when paired with DAVE, but I don’t really want the CD-transport part of it (I’ll never use it … I’m a “rip/store/play” off the server type … and it’s just unnecessary expense and something else to fail).

Additional headphones might come into play … likely candidates are the Sennheiser HD820, a Fostex 900 Mk2 variant (when they stop releasing new colors), and probably a HiFi-Man flagship (if they quit with the “CCC” pricing and/or improve the physical build).

Beyond that I’m tempted to add an electrostatic capability. That’d probably be either a Headamp Blue Hawaii SE or a Woo 3ES (would have to hear that first, though). And then probably the updated SR-009S.

4 Likes