@Oxbow - Thank you linking me up with your story. Just finished reading it and found it quite wonderful.
I am going to try demo two pairs at home first and go from there. I think I go down the source route once I’ve sorted the speakers out. I’m in no rush to make any descsions, and certainly not the wrong one at the expense of time.
I agree that source is important. But taking into consideration my long experience with IEMs which don’t suffer from any environment effects like loudspeakers I am yet to experience any mind blowing changes between my DAP/DAC/Headphones Amps when spending £200 to £3,000.
DACs/DAPs/Headpnone Amps I’ve owned are;
Chord Mojo
Luxury and Precision W2
Sony ZX507
Astell & Kern SE200
Luxury Precision P6 Pro
Cayin C9
Dragonfly Red
Yes, all different in various ways but subtle differences. When changing IEMs the difference is night and day. I found it best to find an IEM that suited my needs the best and then match that to the DAC.
I’d say IEM gave me 80% difference and DACs/DAPs/Amps 20% difference. Maybe not even that. Possibly more like 85%/15%.
The biggest single difference was the Cayin C9 when switching between valve and solid state output - this is the equivlent to my Naim Supernait 3 though which isn’t going anywhere.
The only difference I can see here is IEMs are easy to drive, whereas speakers aren’t so.
I’m done with the whole scratching my beard whilst trying to analyise every note of every song. I want a system that I can enjoy and relax to now. That’s what its all about at the end of the day. As I get older my priorities are enjoying over tweaking.
Last night I was watching some YouTube audiophile channel, and the guy proceeded to tell us all that using Fibre from his network switch over CAT6 makes a massive difference to his streaming sound. I mean, where does this stop? Dedicated fibre connection direct to my streamer from the streaming servers with my own isolated generator in the garden supplying clean electricity whilst sitting in a dark room as not to introduce any noise.
Unless anyone can tell me otherwise I’m going to bias my budget towards the 80%-85% differences.