Do you consider iPad as an audio device that satisfies audiophiles? There are talk about expensive headphones and lossless fileformat and such. But, most of us are using typical 192k or 256k compressed files and I'm curious if iPad's audio is up to the high standard.
If you consider yourself as an audiophile who listens to music on iPad, what's your opinion on this?
i'm no audiophile, but I do have good hearing (because I'm carefull with it).
I bought a Grado GS-1000 for several reasons. One of them being they fit very good, are light, have an impedance of 35 Ω (so I can use them on my iPhone, an audiophile's horror), and can play music ever so soft and still be able to give me the whole sound, which is more than just a feint bass like my wireless sennheisers.
But the main reason i bought them was because they where 30 Euro's. Cable was pulled to hard and it didn't work anymore. New cable, 40 euro's, and hey presto, they are working like a dream.
Yes the sound is better (more neutral, more open and vivid) anything I've ever heard, even from my iPhone. I also can hear the sound on my Macbook pro 13" mid 2010 is really bad with digital cracks, ticks and other sounds that aren't there on my iphone (same files). But to me it isn't worth $1000.
I think that is the biggest point for most people, not how good it sounds, but how much it costs. A headphone of $2000 must be better than one that was $1000, otherwise you would be throwing $1000 out of the window and there are not many people who are willing to admid they did that. Most people aren't able to hear the difference between two top-headphone's, I for one am not able to do so. But now I have the GS-1000's I will never sell them again. And if they got stolen? Pity, but I just don't have a grant or more hanging around for some good can's. Fact is that $150 sounds pretty good to me as well, perhaps even a bit better, a bit more color, just some more bass in them.
So if you want to listen to music on your iPhone? Buy a pair of headphones, good one's with a sound that fits your classical, jazz or hardcore taste. Read reviews on the internet as much as you want, but just go to a store, with your iphone and listen to the headphones with the music you like and play most. Feel how they fit your head, how they sound to your ears and if you can spare it, buy 100-150 dollar can's with a wire. There is enormous competition in that price range, and you'll probably get much, much more music and build quality for your dollar than with more expensive or cheaper headphones.
And the 100-150 range isn't fixed, if you find something that is 200, perfect, 75 or 80? great! but 1000's of dollars is madness.
Fun madness, and I understand the law of diminishing returns like no other, but it's not sensible.
After all this rationalizing; when I'm in my Stokke Gravity chair
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hanging back, listening on my iPhone to Alexandre Tharaud in lossless or to Mark Knopfler, GS1000 on my head, with a good cappuccino or whiskey within reach, it's terrible weather outside like tonight, wife gone for some tea to the neighbors, I feel totally relaxed and satisfied as I can be. That is a pleasure that is worth a lot to me. Just not $1000
One more thing, I prefer my iPhone to the iPad as it is more portable and I can't hear the difference in sound between them, if there is any. The audio on the iPad might be better 135x, I just can't hear it. So there goes the one legitimate reason to buy a super-expenisve audio gear: I can't hear the difference...
