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iPhone 4 Audiophile Setup

S

satchboogieg3

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 11, 2011
6
0
Hello All,

I am new to the audiophile world and I feel a little bit out of my element. I am doing my best to educate myself but I am feeling a little overwhelmed with all of the information out there. Here is what I would like to do...I just bought a pair of Dre Beats Studio headphones and I also own an iPhone 4 that I primarily use for my music and I use an app on the iPhone to play my .flac files...I have found now that I am not getting the audio quality out of my beats that I could be because I am getting my audio directly from the headphone jack. I would like someone to suggest the accessories that I need to purchase to make my audio experience on my iPhone a great one.

I would like to focus on a couple of different factors and that is cost and portability. I would like the setup to be easy to use at home, on-the-go and traveling friendly as well as the setup to be $300 for all components including cables. Also, if someone could detail the number of cables I will need to purchase I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you!
 
Agreed...however, I am doing the best with what I have and I can't stand the audio that I am getting out of the headphone jack...plus I do not want to spend more than $300 to improve my listening situation and I am looking for improvement not perfection.
 
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get a real pair of headphones- not glorified dollarama/dollar tree headsets.

I dont understand why and "audiophile" would by beats in the first place.
 
I am not trying to debate my choice of headphone...The use of audiophile as a term is of course subjective in itself and is purely an opinion based term because what sounds good to one person may not sound good to another. I am just trying to get the best audio out of the iPhone and the beats headphones. Whether you believe that qualifies me as an audiophile or not is not something that I plan to debate w/ any of you because most that claim to be audiophiles are really just snobs. In my opinion a true audiophile is just someone who enjoys music and desires better sound than usual applications offer. I understand that an iPhone is not the ideal device (nowhere near) to use for lossless audio playback but it is what I am using for the time being and that isn't going to change anytime soon...Furthermore, I enjoyed the audio that I received out of the beats when I tested them (main test for headphones does not lie in stats...it is in the experiencing individual's taste) and I am looking to duplicate that quality with that set of headphones and not any others...Thank you for your input Quasinormal since your feedback has been the most helpful. I am not looking to cross the $300 threshold on the parts that I have to buy and the Burson HD is $1200 from what I am seeing. I do not want to belittle anyone else's opinion and I would prefer that you refrain from doing so to mine...I understand that each one of you have your thoughts on the products that I have bought thus far but I am only interested on building on to the components that I have and not completely replacing them.
 
aphexacid said:
Audiophile and iphone shouldn't even be in the same sentence. Or any other phone for that matter.
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Whatever. If you have lossless files on it and everything going out is digital (AirPlay) it will sound exactly the same as your $3000 CD player.

Stop being a snob ... which is funny because you're belittling the iPhone.
 
Interesting thread. Just help the guy out... I bought Beats too thinking they sounded great or would sound great... I learned my lesson 3 months later after the sheathing started coning of and I bought a pair of Bower & Wilkins C5s and was like Whoaaaaaa, along with Nokia Bh-905is, v-moda Crossfades and sold my beats.... I'm still work in progress ?.

I'm still learning. I think one figured out they are an audiophile as they try to continually upgrade the sound out of the system they have to work with.... Not really buying a uber expensive product....
Just my $.02
 
Anything you do to improve the sound, ie. Line out dock --> external amp will be for moot anyway because the fartcannon beats will cover up all the subtle improvements from this setup

for more info, visit head-fi.org, but good luck when you say that you have beats
 
Come on guys don't address him like he's a lower form of life because he decided to buy beats.


Op, just check out Head Fi and have a look at what headphones best suit you. For bass there is some great headphones to check out on there plus like another poster said check out the Fiio E11 for an entry level Amp. It's well worth the money for the improvement in sound you get. Plus it's smaller than the IPhone, the battery lasts about 8 hours and you can buy a bigger capacity battery for it.

Good luck!!
 
rwilliams said:
How does one classify himself as an audiophile to begin with? How do you "know" you fall into that category?
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If when your wife found out that you financed your latest pair of "the ultimate" speakers, she promptly filed for divorce.

That's how you know you're an audiophile.
 
Woah there..

satchboogieg3 said:
I am not trying to debate my choice of headphone...The use of audiophile as a term is of course subjective in itself and is purely an opinion based term because what sounds good to one person may not sound good to another. I am just trying to get the best audio out of the iPhone and the beats headphones. Whether you believe that qualifies me as an audiophile or not is not something that I plan to debate w/ any of you because most that claim to be audiophiles are really just snobs. In my opinion a true audiophile is just someone who enjoys music and desires better sound than usual applications offer.
Click to expand...

Chill out people, the guy's correct in saying there is no one strict interpretation for "audiophile". It's more of a spectrum:

An audiophile is a person who has a great interest in high-fidelity sound reproduction[1]. Some audiophiles are more interested in collecting and listening to music, while others are more interested in collecting and listening to audio components, whose "sound quality" they consider as important as the recorded musical performance, or even more important. The ratio of an audiophile's spending on software (music) versus hardware (audio components) is a rough guide to where they stand in the audiophile spectrum.
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visim91 said:
Chill out people, the guy's correct in saying there is no one strict interpretation for "audiophile". It's more of a spectrum:
Click to expand...

I think everyone here has been pretty "chill". The point we can take away from this is if you are going to use beats, just plug them in and enjoy them. You likely aren't going to get a whole lot more out of that setup than how it is out of the box, plug and play.
 
lordofthereef said:
i think everyone here has been pretty "chill". The point we can take away from this is if you are going to use beats, just plug them in and enjoy them. You likely aren't going to get a whole lot more out of that setup than how it is out of the box, plug and play.
Click to expand...

Chill out bro!
 
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aphexacid said:
Audiophile and iphone shouldn't even be in the same sentence. Or any other phone for that matter.
Click to expand...

This is a statement that is both wrong and dare I say dumb. While your headphone jack audio quality may not be "audiophile", if you get the digital audio sent out from the phone and then use an external DAC to convert that to audio, you can absolutely get fantastic sound from the iPhone. Getting a good DAC is key.

Also, definitely try using lossless audio formats or at least high bitrate mp3 (e.g. 320) as that will make a big difference.

Also, when you have some extra cash, a headphone upgrade would be good too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking your headphone choice: if you read an objective review of the beats studio (a rare thing to see), they are not as bad as people make them out to be. Yes they are overpriced, and they are bass heavy, but they do offer a pretty detailed high resolution sound, and the noise cancelling is handy too, and I find them comfortable. When you have some extra funds, you can definitely get a better sounding pair of headphones for the same price, but in the meantime, if you like your beats, then enjoy the sound and music that comes out of them! :)

Don't worry too much about the cables you use (at this point anyway), but do pay attention to the DAC you buy for the iPhone, because that will make the biggest difference... in conjunction with using lossless and high bit rate sound files.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

If you think Apple fans are snobbish, you're in for a treat with the "audiophiles"...

Head over to head-fi.org but avoid using the words Bose, Beats and Apple earbuds in that forum. You will learn something if you're able to weed out the good posts...
 
Get a Line out Dock (LOD) and a portable amp like FiiO E6 for decent sound from iPhone. LOD should sound better than the headphone out. I prefer this over my Cowon J3 and Galaxy S with Voodoo Sound.
 
Another thing to consider with audio is that your ears will adapt to a particular sound. Listen to a pair of Dr Dre's and listen to Etymotics and you'll find the in ear Etymotics flat.

I wouldn't worry about what people say about the Dr Dre's. They are a good choice if you listen to hip hop/rap. I personally like Etymotic Er-4P (around $300) or probably the HR- series. (around $150) With an iphone/touch and lossless files, I think it is the perfect portable set up. I have a Headroom Pico portable amp and the quality improvement with that is very marginal.

I mentioned that Burson set up as example of what you'd need to spend to get a really decent set up. (about $2000)
 
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