BudgetAudiophile

On Rocknix's page, it is stated that the Eros Q, HiFi Walker H2, and Surfans F20 are all the same device produced by the same OEM, meaning they are all compatible with the same build of Rocknix. Are these devices any good quality? Has anybody used one of these before?

I wanted a device that supported Rocknix, so it was between the Eros Q (and friends) and used iPods for me, I like the clickwheel to scroll through music. I would prefer the Eros Q (and friends) since it comes with USB-C, microSD storage, etc. out of the box.

I'm looking to upgrade my Fiio K5 Pro with a Topping E50 paired with the Fosi Audio GR70. I've wanted to try a tube amp for a while now. Reception to the GR70 seems mixed. Some people love it while others report it sounds dull and is prone to interference. I'd love to hear about someone else's experience. Thank you!

I've just bought a Yamaha YP-D6 turntable. It's had a hard life, but seems to work ok. I'll replace the stylus before playing any of my collection. Problem is that it has a Shure RXT-4 cartridge which takes a N97HE stylus. A quick bit of research suggests I'll be paying well over $200 for even a cheap N97HE clone. This seems a bit risky when I don't even know if the cartridge is functionally "good".

I'm not looking for the best possible performance from a turntable - it's just to be able to play my collection for nostalgia etc.

I think I'm better off replacing the cartridge with something like and audio technica AT-VM95E.

Interested to hear any thoughts, including suggestions for other budget friendly cartridges.

Vintage Audio Addict is a great YT channel that I recommend for all Budget Audiophiles to subscribe to.

This video is a dissertation on the work of Peter Aczel. An engineer that lays it out in plain language how audio really works and why "Audiophiles" are wasting their money. I've known about Peter for quite some time and his perspective went a long way in shaping my own in regards to audio equipment.

Hello everyone.

I'm on a campaign to move my audio listening closer to nearly all offline. My current quest is to research which are the best options for offline music player on the PC.

I have a mix of FLAC and MP3 files, and desire to add more high end music files from physical media in the future. But the main need right now, is to learn what are the best free music players out there.

My current knowledge of PC music players worth a try are, WINamp, foobar2000, and VLC.

What would you recommend I check out?

I have a love/ hate relationship with early 90's to early 2000's audio equipment.

This is an Adcom GTP-350, which a decent mid-range stereo pre-amp from 1993. I bought it off of Ebay for $80 and free shipping. It came to me with no left channel and scratchy to non-working pots. So several applications of Deoxit and working the pots they all came back to life. However, the left channel would just now work, EXCEPT for the radio. The radio played normally through both channels. That told me this unit has fallen to the curse of dry/cold solder joints. So I took about 30 minutes and resoldered all the joints in the signal path of both channels.

Then... I ran into my own stupidity... Sometimes I'm just and idiot and using an extremely flawed testing method and a defective external part (USB-C to 1/8" Stereo adapter) I thought I hadn't fixed it. After messing around with it for another 30 minutes, I discovered my mistake... Then discovered the adapter I was using to play music from my phone was defected (if you guess it would not play through the left channel, even on known good equipment you get a cookie.) So I figured all that out finally, as I said, I'm an idiot sometimes, and it's working great.

The plan is to run it for a week or so and make sure nothing else happens. I am contemplating recapping it, but we'll see. If it passes, then it will go up to my living room so I can get my main stereo back to working. Right now I'm running a Marantz receiver I fixed and while I really like it, I like my main stereo even more.

Here is a photo of the work I did today. I started at the inputs (top center of the photo) and just worked my way down. To the left in the photo is the radio section and it's working fine, so I didn't touch it. Also, we don't listen to the radio, so if something does happen to that section I'll just isolate it from the signal path and just leave it.

I’m the one who posted about the KZ’s and my unique needs with sound signature. The music that I love sounds like shit because it’s all poorly recorded/mastered and requires extremely responsive drivers and great clarity. For example:

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxsWursW4kDS95RzsdWwz8-xofBPANx2ug

I’ve done a lot of research and it seems like the Kefine Delci’s might be a good match. I still have to hear them, obviously, but I have $100 to spend at Linsoul and was thinking about tacking on the 7hz Crinacle Red Zero to my order

Assuming I like the Delci, is there a significant enough gap in sound quality between the best <$30 IEM’s and the $45-60 options that there would be no reason to try any of the top <$30?

I own Quarks, Chu II, KZ Castor and Tripowin Kailua. I don’t like any of them for music. I understand that my preferred sound signature is what’s important but it’s kind of irrelevant if the IEM doesn’t sound good. Would I just be wasting money on the 7hz or do they crush the listed IEM’s?

Sorry, long post, but I just have a feeling that there’s a price point where you go from “great for the price” to genuinely good

I’m exploring budget IEM’s and got the Chu II and Castor Pro. I think the Chu’s are great for the money and the Castor Pro’s are almost great for the money but the bass is making my head swim. I feel like I’m experiencing a cabin pressure change on takeoff. I turned off the manual switches and EQ’d but good golly.

And it’s not even bad sounding bass. It’s just too much. Also, the instruments are hidden. Lots of bass and mid-bass, great vocals but the crack of a snare or complexity of a riff are just fine.

Anyway, I think I need to return them. Should I be looking for something that’s just considered balanced? I listen to bullshit that isn’t recorded particularly well and I have no idea what to buy. I was looking at the KZ PRX next.

And to be clear, I listen to bands like Thou, Mispyrming, Deathspell Omega, Marduk, Djevel, Alice In Chains, Immortal, Emma Ruth Rundle, Blut Aus Nord, mgła… if you’re familiar.

They were presumably made in West Germany, most likely some time in the 70s. The material is solid wood. The brand is NOT "Pöhler und Schilling" or "P+S" despite looking very similar. There are no other logos, text or stickers on these things.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

My cheaper headphones are all failing and I need to grab a few pair of whatever is the best value iem today, similar to how the quarks were when I bought them 3-4 years ago.

Is it still the Quarks? I saw something from 7hz that was really popular at $30 but I think it has a detachable cable. I’ll have those pins snapped off in a week.

I recently dropped the right earbud of my QCY HT05 ANC into the kitchen sink, ending a year and a half of daily use. I bought them as a short-term replacement for my AirPods Pro, €250 worth of Apple-branded plastic that lasted barely past the warranty.

The QCY HT05 ANC cost me €16.55, including shipping from China. I bought them for the price, and for the surprisingly good ANC.

Were the QCY as good as my AirPods? No, of course not. They sound so-so, fine for podcasts, but music sounds lifeless and dull and is only really bearable with ANC enabled all the time. The QCY app is also complete horseshit. But none of that matters when I can buy 15 QCY for the price of one pair of AirPods. They’re insane value for the money, and they changed what I expect to get for my cash when it comes to earbuds.

In another thread, I asked for recommendations for new earphones and, after some investigation, ordered the EarFun Air Pro 4. I found them on sale for €52.79 including shipping, just over three times what I paid for the QCY HT05 ANC. So are they worth it?

Packaging

The EarFun Air Pro 4 arrived in a cardboard box wrapped in plastic. The box felt heavy and well-made.

Inside: a user manual, a quick-start guide, a junk slip of paper with the EarFun logo, a USB-A to USB-C charging cable, five sets of tips, a single plastic-wrapped Q-tip (for cleaning apparently, wtf?), and the plastic-wrapped case with the earbuds inside. That’s a fair bit of junk and unnecessary plastic, but not excessive considering how much waste other Chinese manufacturers ship with their products.

The case feels nice and heavy. The magnets that hold the earbuds in place are snappy, and the whole thing feels sturdy. Way sturdier than the QCY case, which feels a bit flimsy, especially the lid, which is too light.

Fit

I was worried about the fit because I struggled to find good eartips for my 7Hz Zero 2. My ear canals are on the larger side, and the right one is slightly larger than the left. The included tips are excellent: the largest ones fit perfectly and create a seal. They sit comfortably, and I can imagine wearing these for multiple hours without a problem.

ANC and transparency mode

EarFun's ANC isn’t better than the QCY's. They’re about equal. If you forced me to pick a winner, I'd say the QCY is a smidgen better. Both are fine, honestly. Walking alongside a three-lane inner-city street, they block traffic noise well enough. They also cut down nearby conversations, exactly what I want ANC to do.

Transparency mode on the EarFun is quite good, probably comparable to the AirPods Pro 2 I used to own. With it turned on low, I can hold a conversation while listening to music in the background. The QCY transparency mode, on the other hand, is a joke and indistinguishable from normal mode. Again, the QCY only makes sense to me if ANC runs all the time.

Sound

The EarFun sounds really good. They're bass-heavy, but they also work well for death metal without any EQ tweaks. The app is decent and lets you configure EQ settings.

As mentioned, the QCY sounds clearly worse: less bass, dull highs, and no real stereo space. With the EarFun, the soundstage is obvious. I can tell where the producer put each instrument. They make music fun to listen to.

My takeaway

Quality-wise, the EarFun Air Pro 4s are the winner for me. They sound better, transparency mode actually works, and the app is fine. They feel on par with the AirPods Pro 2 I owned a couple of years ago, for a fraction of the price. I would buy them again, they feel like a nice upgrade from the QCY.

And still: if you can get the QCY HT05 ANC for ~€20, that's the winner on value for money.

Alt link https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?__goaway_challenge=js-refresh&__goaway_id=ac87a91e926b2eca0e4b5e5be0511ac1&__goaway_referer=https%3A%2F%2Finv.nadeko.net%2F&v=31-5nmJvsV4

I see almost no mention of this device on Lemmy. I’m seriously considering getting one, mainly for the rotating artwork - but I’m not sure if the novelty will wear off. Does anyone have one of these?

I have the Snowsky Echo Mini (two of them) so I know what I’m getting from the brand: good hardware, beta software but frequent updates. The software improved significantly with the Mini over a year+. Still not perfect but for the price I’m very happy.

What the title says, looking for recommendations around €50. I own a pair of QCY HT05 ANC, and the right bud fell in the sink and got water damage yesterday.

I was happy with the QCY‘s ANC and wore them a ton over two years, but the sound quality is nothing to write home about. Maybe there’s something better on the market by now?

I've bought a house from a builder and i can still make changes to the wiring of the house.

The livingroom will be 40m2 (430sqft) of open shape with an L extension (another 8 m2 or so). Kitchen will be at one end, sofa on the other.

I'm trying to plan the wiring and what kind of speakers i want to attatch.

Is it better to have the speakers on the ceiling or at the wall for an evenly distributed background music (mono?) in the room? What speakers would work great in this setting. How many speakers and where to put them?

Criteria: small form factor, good sound for a relatively low price. I'm willing to have one subwoofer somewhere in the room. Willing to spend 1000-2000€ for the system (including the subwoofer and the amp).

There is a separate room with tv and some big studio monitors. THis will be for radio/background music when hanging out etc.

Hi, I’m new in the “headphones” world and I usually bought the first cheap option with good reviews on youtube and never really informed myself. My current headphones (Anker Soundcore Q30) are almost dead and I want to make an informed choise about my next one. However I feel like there are a lot of things I know nothing about.

For example I read a lot of good things about Sennheiser but the first pari of headphones I saw in my price range (ACCENTUM) have 37mm drivers. My Soundcore Q30 have 40mm drivers and I always thought that “the bigger the better” for the driver. From what I heard, however, the ACCENTUM are consider higher quality than Soundcore Q30.

What I’d like to know is: what should I really look for to understand the quality of the headphones?

I’d mainly use them to listen to music (some Metal, Punk but sometimes Rap, Classical or movies and videogames OST) in my house or outside (so good ANC is always appreciated).

Love this thing, it immediatly turned on after charging.

Archos Jukebox 6000

6gb Storage with a laptop hdd

You can feel it and hear it when it starts spinning.

Sadly no flac and a pain to navigate..

Maybe i need a new musicplayer...

Thinking about the hybi r1

Hi everyone!

I already have a nice audio setup for my home office and my home theater, but I find myself carrying my big Soundcore Rave 3 speaker around for when I want loud music in a particular room (kitchen, garage, bedroom, etc.).

I don't know it this particular speaker is considered "good", but I personally like that it can easily fill up the room and has pretty good bass (listening to pretty much all kinds of music, but mainly electronic).

I would like to have this sound in 3-4+ additional rooms and am looking at options.

I thought about Sonos, but I find their speaker a bit on the expensive side for what they do.

Also, having a simple Bluetooth input available would be great for when I have guests over and they can just pair and be done with it.

I am comfortable with making the multi-room bit (probably with SBCs, amps and some Linux services) but would love to hear if anyone has found a good solution/setup for this use-case.

Budget-wise, I would like to stay well below 2k CAD ( 1250 EUR ?) but I'm open to any suggestion as I can see this as home improvement. I know at this price I could buy a bunch more of Rave3, but there would not be any multi-room features and I think it would look weird to have those speakers around...

Thanks!

Been thinking of picking up this DAP recently as I've been wanting to get back into seriously listening to music. I had a Creative Zen back in the day and loved the heck out of that thing.

Anyone have an M21 and have any thoughts they'd like to share?

Hi all,

Not sure this is the community to ask in, but I couldn't think of anywhere better.

I kind of hate switching headphones when I'm on my computer, so I wanted to find a wireless headset that sounded decent enough that I could use for music while working, but I have some very specific requirements:

• Open backs
• USB wireless (not Bluetooth)
• Decent audio quality
• Reasonably compact

Does such a product even exist? Ideally, it would also have swivelling earcups, so it can fit nice and flat in my backpack when I'm on the go.

I currently have a Philips SHP9500 paired with a cable that has a built in microphone. With this setup music sounds good, and my voice sounds good to other people, but it's neither wireless, nor compact.

Last year, I was walking into my parents' house while I had my B2D hanging around my neck. My parents' dog, in their excitement to see me, jumped up, hooked my IEM cable with their paw, and pulled the right IEM straight into the wood floor. Ultimately, it knocked off the faceplate, knocked loose the 2-pin port, and cracked the housing, losing three decent chunks of acryllic in the process.

I had been busy with writing my dissertation, moving, and looking for work since then, but last week I decided to get them fixed up. Unfortunately, since Moondrop has ended production of the Blessing 2, they couldn't replace the housing, so I had to repair it myself.

• First, I used a small dab of super glue to temporarily re-seat the faceplate and the 2-pin port. I used the tips of a few wooden toothpicks to plug the 2-pin holes and the hole in the back of the faceplate.
• I then used a 2-part JB Weld to attach the one decent size piece of acryllic I recovered back to the main body, gently sanding the slight protrusion from it not aligning perfectly with a nail file.
• Next, I used an epoxy putty, tinted with a black pealescent acryllic ink to make a nice slate grey that I think matches the vibe of the B2D and plugged the holes, smoothing and shaping them. I had to be very precise around the 2-pin port, as one of the missing pieces was right where the port is seated, so I used a small flatehead bit to perfectly square up the edge after the putty had become semi-firm.
• After adding the first layer of putty, but before it had completely hardened, I removed the faceplate and 2-pin port so that I could use 2-part JB Weld to permanently set them in place with the housing lip remade.
• For the smaller missing chunks, I was able to shape the putty in one go, but for the larger area, I ended up needing to use three layers of putty, building and smoothing with each one until the rebuilt area was flush with the acryllic.

So far, my budget repair has worked remarkably well. The sound quality is indistinguishable between the left and right IEM and I avoided gunking up any of the internals with either the putty or the epoxy. While it obviously looks "repaired" upon inspection, the surface is flush, smooth, and didn't turn out like the lamp from A Christmas Story. Ultimately, I spent $30 dollars on materials and ~8 hours total across 3 days of repairs/sculpting and managed to to salvage my most expensive IEMs.

I’ve recently moved and want to buy a tv and audio set up. TV is taken care of, however I am looking for better audio than stock TV speakers. I’m probably going to get an Apple TV and stay away from the “smart” features of the TV.

What would be the best price to performance audio solution?

I was looking at second hand AV receivers, but those are still quite pricy, and I will probably be satisfied with good quality L-R(-Center?) channels. I’m comfortable with jankier setups (more wires), but I am looking for better sound quality. So speakers, should I get older ones on the cheap (sub €100) or are newer speakers really worth their premium?

I’m curious what your setups are and based on experience what you would advise for.