Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

At the time I was listening to everything on near field monitors so the soundstage might have been compromised but I couldn't get on with the crowd noise and stadium sound. That doesn't mean it's not a great album though! I think I sold the album with a bunch of others to Music Magpie and it turned out to be worth a £10-£20 a few years later.

thinking about getting some proper headphones.

my family are monopolising the snug and doing awful things like watching netflix on their laptops.

i'm thinking that with a good pair of headphones, i can enjoy the warmth and family vibe whilst floating away in my own world of audio nirvana.

well, it's a good theory anyway.

where to start?

wireless would be good but what's the best way of sharing my music library, internet radio etc via bluetooth?

and what's the range? would be good to be able to move into the kitchen without losing connection.

or should I stick to wired?

the laptop i use for music services seems to have bluetooth in it.

so i can just connect to that and off i go? seems like a potential winner.

I’ve got a pair of Sony Bluetooth headphones which have an optional cable connection and the cable sounds noticeably better, but they’re not a premium model. If you can live without the convenience of wireless I would choose wired.

If your laptop has Bluetooth then yes you’re good to go.

A really optimal setup at reasonable budget would be something like a raspberry pi streamer into a headphone amp / DAC combo feeding your favourite flavour of wired cans, probably closed-back if you’ve got other people in the room.

I've just bought these:

https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/bowers-and-wilkins-px7-review

convenience of being able to connect to laptop and phone wireless is quite appealing.

(escalated quickly...)

Nice. They’ll be great.

quite looking forward to them landing now.

currently listening to Fip Jazz on one of the £10 pairs of JVC headphones i bought in an attempt to get everyone else to privatise their netflix schizzle.

Proof of concept is strong. But these headphones are shit.

Might be worth seeing if you need any software to enable aptX HD on your laptop.

looks like my phone has that (oneplus 6T) but i don't see any laptops in the list.

I’ve got Momentum 2 phones, been quite happy with them though they don’t have the best sound blocking tech.
They also have a wired option.
My 2010 MacBook Pro has Bluetooth and is garbage. My iPhone 7 has Bluetooth and works great, don’t know how the source hardware would affect the sound.

looks like a dongle like this will solve that problem

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07W5DDZQN/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_uAYpEb5SD85KT

interesting; thanks.

i was looking at the momentums as i've had sennheisers in the past and liked them, but some reviews were critical of usability.

Looks like my phone will work; i am trad audio in still thinking that a phone is not an audio source. happily I can try both and see which is better.

Usability? Hm, plug them in or turn on the Bluetooth, either way works.

people were saying they lost connection when they moved their head and stuff. could be minor / user error but the b&w were cheaper and had less dissatisfaction.

Haven't run into that with phone, though I'm rarely doing anything but sitting while listening, I almost never walk/cycle while wearing them.

Bose qc35ii have connectivity issues sometimes when I turn my head and my phone is in my pocket...

I think you’re the only person I’ve seen in this thread moaning about that. Are you suuuure it’s not just your phone?

Nah, I get that when in congested BT areas, like in town or on a busy train. With both Sony and Cambridge Audio wirelesses.

My old iPhone 7 def had audio quality issues. I just upgraded to an 11 the same pair of headphones are all of a sudden sounding great.

For home headphone fun I have a pair of DT880s. Originally bought for mixing I love them straight out of my Yamaha amp for listening while working. Open back means I don’t feel totally isolated from the room I’m in either which is nice.

when in congested BT areas

right - so I will need to enforce BT switch-off of all the rest of my families devices. Glad that's settled.

B&W PX7s arrived yesterday. Was late back so didn't have time to play extensively but initial impressions are very positive.
Paired to the laptop, Bluetooth range seems good. I can wander into the adjoining room without losing signal.
Noise cancelling is so good, it's quite disconcerting. Only tried out at home so not a demanding environment but could hear nothing when people were trying to speak to me!
They are comfortable. They sound good. I'm hoping the sound my improve a bit further as they get some usage.

Not wanting to completely disappear down a wormhole with this but a couple of things I'm interested to try:
Aptx HD - don't have the hardware for this on my laptop so will load some music onto my phone and see if it sounds any different.
Wired connection
External dac / amp maybe...

You are wearing noise cancelling headphones in the house. With other people in the house.

I have understood that right?

That's right, yeah.

Tbf, the primary purpose was not to cancel other people's noise out. And I discovered that you can turn the noise cancelling off, which is handy.

But when we are all in the same room and people are watching Netflix on a laptop, and I want to listen to music, why not turn their volume down a bit?

Hand signals still work :-)

Dunno about turning my head, but mine were dropping out at KingsX station. Galaxy S8 in pocket.

So you're all in the same room, consuming different media from different sources, but still physically in the same space?

Just twigged - you've got older kids right? I'm trying to put that scenario in my house and imagining the chaos.