Recommendations?

Willing to spend up to 4-500ish, maybe more if it's really worth it

Just want to get a solid pair to have the option available.

I have a good pair of bookshelf speakers (klipshe rp600m II) and studio monitor headset (Beyer dynamic dt 1990 pros) already, I guess I just want to kind of compare. Will be for my pc, mostly music and some gaming.

I know yall are out there, this is your excuse to talk about your audio stuff, you know you want to

get the most expensive kz they are the latest hype in ear monitors.

Think the biggest thing if you’re actually getting into higher quality music files is making sure the formats you’re running are compatible with the hardware.

Like my Sony headphones are beast but aren’t compatible with apples higher end audio files

if your budget is 4/500 then just get whats within it?

Ya I have that covered, I have tidal /apple/amazon music for lossless.

I use a sound blaster ae-9 sound card in my pc for headphones, and for speakers I have a hybrid tube amp (aka a fake Amazon tube amp, but still does the trick and looks cool) connected to the sound card.

I have Spotify and youtube premium for when I don't care about quality (imo these two have the best Playlist generators, I wish they'd go hifi)

And ofc a huge stack of CD's tho I don't really bust them out often because my desktop has no CD drive.

Yeah I’ve grown to accept wireless will always be crap in comparison so I just do my wired setup with like 1k records. Regaplanar 3, exact cartridge, and KEF ls50 / KEF kube. Forgot what preamp I chose but it’s supposed to pair well with the setup. Stopped trying to upgrade digital collection but instead focus on quantity / variety.

Look into Linsoul and Moondrop. I saved those two because of how the reviews went for them. I personally Bookshelf > tower > over ears > IEM tho.

always fun to try something new bro, go for it. make sure your Amp and DAC are good. I assume you're not plugging directly into your computer, right?

For my headphones yeah they go into the sound card in my pc, but that's what it was made for, it's just basically a dac/amp that lives inside your pc rather than a separate unit. The issue with this is interference from all the other chit in my pc.

My speakers I have a separate amp that plugs into the sound card also, but I had to use the optical audio connection because there was alot of interference from my desktop thru the speakers. The amp isn't anything special, I just needed something that could power my speakers separately so I got a little bootylicious Amazon "hybrid tube amp" mostly because it looked cool on my desk. The sound card still does the audio processing





My pc has a bit of a chaotic audio setup.

Two pairs of headphones:
Dt990 pro for gaming (super comfy) - plugged into go xlr mixer. Easier for streaming and controlling multiple audio sources on the fly. Not as good of audio quality but not noticeable for gaming really. But allows me to separate audio channels, so I can change the audio levels of music, games, system, and voice chat audio separately by sliding different knobs. In windows you can set apps to use certain audio devices. This is a wildly convinient product srs.

Dt 1990 pro for music plugged into the sound card

Klipshe speakers plugged into amp, which is plugged into sound card

I have the ae9, right most column.

Why IEM when you have the DT990s tho?

IDK much about soundcards in a PC, but it can't be superior to an external DAC/amp. Although the gains in quality might be minimal, it's still ideal. I'm personally using a tube amp/dac myself.

^^^

Just wanna try something different, purely a "I feel like spending money for no reason" scenario

I'm sure a high quality amp could be better than the sound card, but I got this years ago before my high quality audio journey began. I built a new pc and had always used the basic sound blaster card since it was just better than on board sound, so when I did my "idc what it costs" pc I just bought the best version of the sound blaster since my old one was in use for about 10 years. Initially my only focus was just balling out on my pc components, I didn't even have decent speakers at the time and had 0 audio incentive other than "I just want the best sound blaster because I can"


I honestly don't know a ton about the more technical aspects of amps and dacs

It's a space worth learning, especially if you're down to spend this much on IEM. You'll see a difference and get the most out of the IEMs. And depending on the IEMs you may need significant power to see how they can truly perform. I got a friend into it and he started buying Schitt stuff, which usually has pretty rave reviews for DACs and Amps. I use some Boston towers at my PC and couldn't be happier with a Chinese Fosi $100 tube amp/dac., but different goals I'm sure. Just letting you know there's a lot more to the sound space than just buying speakers and a basic amp. Can be a money dump pretty easily though. But one thing about sound equipment, it does hold it's value for when you want to change things up or upgrade.