I wasn't all that impressed my the Gryphon personally. It was nice but not my favorite. What's your price range?

I’ll preface this by saying what I heard is totally subjective to my experience. So don’t base your experience only on mine. Expect to have your own. For the burn in the sound seemed to open up much more. There’s was better separation. The bass was more clear and defined and the highs were...

I’m not a fan of daps. And if I get one I’m not going to put that much money into one. I’ve tried them and I just don’t take music portable enough to need one. I always have my computer with me when I want music so I lean much more towards dongles and devices like the Angel/Mojo2/Hugo 2 type thing.

What I really want is the Angel. I’ve got a good amount a dongles and a good amount of desktop setups but the middle ground is super interesting to me. I’ve got a Chord Mojo 2 which I LOVE for IEMs. I love the idea of that space in the audio world, not quite a full tilt desktop device and not...

I’ve heard nothing but great things about earmem. I have yet to try.

That would be a spectacular combo. I don’t have and JDS labs stuff but I have a lot of Geshelli stuff and I love it. I’ve actually been eyeing that totl jds labs dac/amp.

If you want to save a bunch of money, the Cayin RU7 and Questyle M15 dongles are incredible. Seriously amazing. I didn’t believe the hype but they’re wild. Pretty shocking for the size and price. You could buy one from Amazon if they’re on there and if you don’t like them return it no questions...

One of my all time favorite paring around $1000 is the Geshelli J2 dac with the Archel 3 Pro or Erish 3 pro. Mine XTC2 isn’t the warm detailed one, it’s the biowool one. I do however have a second pair of warm detailed XTC2s coming in the mail Monday. If you can remember, hit me up on Wednesday...

No prob! Happy to help. Keep asking, anything you need.

Yes to both. Absolutely yes to both. It did sound better once broken in. Much better. I just let it run for like 2 weeks straight. The difference between balanced and single ended was not that it was better, just different.

A couple days ago I started the Pine Tree Audio Fan Club thread here on headfi. I’m hoping to create a community just like this wonderful one but for Pine Tree. Astounding values from very small independent companies like them and JM audio deserve to be celebrated.

Yes absolutely. I have a pair of XTC2s with the biowool drivers. They’re so different and amazing that I ordered a pair of XTC2 warm detailed with the Beryllium drivers that should be at my place on Monday. I’ve got what I think is a wonderful collection of gear and headphones and no matter how...

Same. They turned me into a believer. I’ve got a custom conditioner from Pine Tree Audio coming in the next couple months which I’m excited about. Pine Tree reminds be of JM Audio a lot. Totally shocking how much quality and performance comes at those price points.

I have. The HP1s are planar magnetic and wide open so to me the sound signature from that alone made it a totally different headphones. Besides that it was also tuned differently which I loved. Underwood Hifi was kind of my gateway into the Hifi world focusing on smaller brands with independent...

I'm VERY interested in how the LSA HP2 Ultras imporove with John's magic. I had them in the past. They were cool. Sounded good to me. With one one amp, the Hagerman Tuba, which is no longer built, it took me to a whole wild transcendent place. I did like how those headphones would change with...

I just received a package from JM Audio today. My modded Hifiman HE-R10 Dynamic headphones. What John does to theses is nothing short of miraculous. I have not yet run them through all my amps and dacs, I haven't even gotten them to my high end amps and dacs and I'm gobsmacked by the...

One of the most amazing things to me about audio gd is that there can be such huge amounts of power in a class A amp and be able to use IEMs with super close to zero background hiss on balanced

On mine I’ve listened to everything from sensitive IEMs to hard to drive dynamics to planars like HE1000s and have had zero issues

The LE is an amazing amp and amazing preamp as well. You'll be happy with it. Noise in a system a lot of the time can't be heard like it's a sound. Sometimes it can but a lot of the time it can't. In my experience I couldn't hear it at all then I heard my system with a very good power...

Yes. Exactly. I have no idea how I'd ever hear that. I love hearing about this though. My brain and focus doesn't work that way with HIFI. Good lord am I happy yours does. That's how amazing new ideas and products are made. I'm like a guy who sometimes goes to a public basketball hoop and you...

I once had a phone call with a long time product engineer. He took me down an incredible rabbit hole explaining to me how and why different external hard drives sound better with different types of music. It was incredible. Far beyond anything I focus on but it was amazing. Truly amazing. I’ll...

This is a great point. Some people do value the small differences a lot. The differences will also be more depending on the rest of the chain. Super revealing headphones speakers and components will show make the differences between the DI24 and DI24HE more noticeable.

Looking for custom cables half a year ago I came across Pine Tree Audio. I sent an email got a swift reply and ordered some cables. Great cables at affordable prices. I then ordered a speaker switch and once again, great product at a great price. I kept reading the reviews of the products and...

Oh yah. Even with an amazing conditioner the HE will sound better than the non HE. But not much better, according to that reply by audio gd.