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Good headphones for macbook air?

Those headphones are pretty much the cream of the crop, but I'm not sure anyone but the most serious audiophiles could really appreciate them to be honest.

As for an external DAC, yea, that'll help once you start going into higher end audio equipment. Whether or not you'll appreciate the difference is another thing entirely though. The built-in DAC isn't too shabby, although it isn't great either.

The Fischer FA-011s are probably the best value for your money without going into really high end stuff, at least when paired with a decent dac/amp. It's only a fraction of the price too, but if you've got the spare change, then by all means get the LCDs.
 
WorldTravelBro said:
He mentioned this yesterday and I had no idea what it was until I googled it.
Click to expand...

If you didn't know what it was, then logically you don't need it.

Let me bring some literature to the table:

Personally, I wouldn't buy neither the headphones nor the external dac, because it would be illogical to spend a ridiculous of money if you don't even have the proper audio compressions. Because if you have the improper audio conversions, it doesn't matter if you buy a 1 million USD headphone/dac, it will sound horrible.

Is your music lossness or FLAC?

If you buy your music on iTunes, forget it. If you buy physical CD's and compress your own music to a minimum, just like an audiophile would do, then go ahead.

But with music compressed to a minimum, not even the maximum Apple SSD does justice, so your music would be stored on a external HDD just like an audiophile would do.

Honestly, you do not sound like an audiophile and have no idea what you are buying or in the looks of buying. My suggestion would be to research more about the topic, there is so much literature out there in the internet and take a decision based on what you want, and not on what your friend told you.

In order to be an audiophile, you need to have very good hearing, otherwise, you wouldn't notice the compression of the music, therefore you wouldn't mind.

By the way, those headphones, are not what an audiophile would buy, those are only a luxury signature headphones; what an audiophile would buy, are ultrasone headphones, those are truly german engineered, with real proprietary technology, and a set of PRO's would suffice for any audiophile. Ultrazone

Hoping that my own and personal opinion helps you out.
 
I recently got a pair of Grado headphones, great reviews and made in the USA. I've been very pleased with them.
 
Those are complete overkill for digital audio... It's like having a solid gold toilet seat.

I'd recommend the Alessandro or Audio Technica ATH-900X if you prefer close headphones. For portability I have a set of Audio Technica ES-7 though they've released a new pair of ES-700

For the $100 to $200 range you can pick up a pretty nice set of headphones that will last you without the need for DAC or external amps.
 
Ask yourself if you want to spend a lot of money on audio. Here's the thing about audiophilia— yes, you'll notice differences between cheap and expensive equipment. But it won't be something that you actively notice past a certain price range. I buy midrange equipment ($100 headphones) because they sound good enough and are affordable. I don't buy really expensive equipment because if I don't try that stuff on a regular basis, I'll never notice what I'm missing. That's how adaptive your ears are.

In addition, most people cannot hear the difference between FLAC and 192-256kbps compressed audio when being double-blind tested. That's pretty telling. Our ears just aren't very good. They are affected too easily by environmental considerations. It makes ridiculous the lengths some people go through to be audiophiles.

I think a DAC is such a hassle convenience-wise that you'd like a nicer pair of cans by itself. Why buy a computer famed for portability if you are going to have to drag around a bunch of external hardware with it?
 
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WorldTravelBro said:
My friend is addicted to audio equipment and he says I should get an external dac for my macbook air.

He mentioned this yesterday and I had no idea what it was until I googled it.

Does anyone know a good portable dac I can use with these headphones I want to purchase?

http://www.audeze.com/products/headphones/lcd3
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i question whether or not your friend really knows what he is talking about.

headphones like that would be wasted on any laptop in my opinion.
as it were i imagine headphones like that are wasted on a good chunk of the people that buy them but being a bit of a sound snob myself i don't have much room to talk.

you could easily spend about 20-30% of that asking price and not lose 70-80% of the quality. so it's not the best bang/buck ratio.

etymotic or shure would be a good bet for in-ear noise cancelling headphones.
sennheiser, sony or any of the other big brands hell even bose would be better than what you're probably used to if you haven't gone down this route before.

i think the chief component to a good set of headphones is comfort. it doesn't matter who you are, if you can't wear them comfortably for the time you need to wear them then they're useless. this is a big part of why people like Bose despite the audiophile snobbery.
 
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