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After lurking on this sub and watching a bunch of reviews, I landed on Focal Bathys for travel and commute. I love the build quality of these headphones, the ability to connect USB-C to USB-C audio especially now with the iPhone 15 Pro Max has been clutch. The only thing I would say is the personalized audio update for the Focal app feels janky. I think I failed multiple times to discern those dang beeps.
I also got a Hifiman Arya Organic. I've never owned a open planar magnetic headphone in my life and man these sound so good. I'm not getting a bunch of soundstage that people tote these have, but I guess I don't have that much experience listening to other headphones in this price range.
I mostly bought the Organic to listen to my vinyl collection more intimately, but soon wanted to be able to listen to more things on my PC so I went and got the XDuoo TA-22. I was curious about tube amps and this was a great one stop DAC Amp to suit my needs. Will try tube rolling but so far enjoying the sound already. Got it direct from ShenzenAudio and it only took a week to get here in Vancouver!
I think I'm set in my audio journey for awhile now, on to the music!
Hey, I recently picked up the TA-22 as well. I will probably be trading it for the TA-20 Plus and getting a seperate dac/amp strictly for gaming. I tried gaming on the stock tubes and it was horrible, the mids sounded extremely muffled compared to my Zen Dac, which was really confusing because every review I saw mentioned that the stock tubes would get the job done...
Anyway, I got a pair of used RCA Clear Tops. It was a night and day difference. I'm not the biggest audiophile out there by any means. I just got a pair of amperex short plate O-getter's today, and they seem significantly more balanced and a good all-purpose choice. In my opinion, the stock tubes were super bass heavy, so much so that everything else sounded kinda wonky. If you're going to be listening to music, I strongly recommend the RCA clear tops. There was just something about them... I sat and listened to music for hours and I never do that. They sounded great across most genres (I'm mainly a rap guy, but I found myself listening to alternative and R&B). If you want a do-it-all kind of tube, I'd recommend trying out the Amperex. (I'm new to tubes myself, and I'm sure I'll order more in the coming days)
FYSA, I'm using LCD-2 Closed Backs primarily.
Side question: Do you happen to notice that your SE output is just a hair louder than balanced XLR? I found someone else on the head-fi forum saying they experienced the exact same thing. I'm a newbie when it comes to most things audiophile, but I always assumed that balanced should be noticeably louder, which was the case on my zen dac.
Well you sold me on RCA clear tops. Do you have more info on the ones you got? There are many different RCAs.
Yeah TA-20 Plus seems to be the play if you’re going to get a DAC or have a DAC separately. The foot print of the TA-20 Plus is kind of too big to sit under my monitor though. I don’t plan on gaming with these, I usually just use speakers for games.