Howdy,
I'll third (or fourth or whatever) this as well, though with a few
caveats...
> I really have to second this. A pair of $2000 floor standing speakers
> can't compete with the flatness of a good pair of headphones
> (due to room modes if nothing else).
Well, yes and no. I rely strongly on headphones to pick apart frequency
content (esp. highs), but I'd want the aforementioned $2000 speakers if I
were really concerned about stereo image and spatialization. Thankfully,
I'm not, though, which is good, 'cause I don't have the cash for that kind
of system.
> After spending about $100(us) on a pair of Grado SR80s...
I guess I'm going to have to try to locate some Grados. Here at work I use
AKG K240df, which are pretty much studio standard, and fairly expensive
(~$200).
I would note that there appears to be at least a small contingent who would
take issue with Monty's disdain for headphones by Sony and/or headphones
from Beast Buy or equivalent chains... I found some discussion either here
(http://www.headwize.com/) or elsewhere on the pros/cons of relatively
inexpensive Sony earbuds, which are actually what I use for day-to-day
listening.
Also, I'd like to plug http://pcavtech.com/ once more. They have
reorganized their soundcard ratings to be more readable, and have a lot of
'benchmark' data on pretty much everything out there, side by side for
comparison. When I was looking for soundcards, everyone else was offering
subjective impressions or manufacturer spam statistics - these guys do it
hard way it and makes a big difference. They confirm that the SB128 does
not suck (unlike many other fine SB products).
I use a refurbished Turtle Beach Pinnacle here at work, and it has _very
good_ D/A, though it has a disturbing tendency to crash my NT4 machine hard
once a week or so - but one can never really be sure who to blame that on,
now can one...
Alex
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