Soo many questions

[turbo311]

OK, so this is a tough decision. I currently have Bose triports that I've been told are crappy (and the headband broke). The same guy who told me that recommended the Sony V700DJ (studio monitors) as a replacement. He builds studios for a living and recommended those over any of the Shure earplug types. Anyone tried them?
Everyone seems to think the Shure E3c is really good for the money.

Besides those two I am aware of Ultimate Ears (probably can't afford them) and Etymotic. I have no idea which direction to go. Help please!

Also, related to sound quality...
I just got a 20gb ipod so I can have high quality files. I've been told the Apple Lossless encoder is the way to go, and I've also been told to do WAV importing. I'm in the process of reimporting most of my cds now since they're at 128kbps. What should I go with?
And why can you only buy 128kbps AAC files from iTunes!?!?!:confused:

[kauffee]

Most people aren't too picky about sound quality so iTunes sells in 128k AAC, which is sufficient for the vast majority. Unfortunately, if you have high quality headphones and good ears, you'll hear the difference.

Don't use WAV... that's uncompressed. Apple Lossless will give you the same quality as wav at about half the size. I use 320 AAC and I can't tell the difference between that and lossless, even with my Ultimate Ears. And 320 AAC is about half the size of AL.

You really need to decide whether you want full-size headphones or need the portability of canalphones. You'll need to go up to at least Shure E5c/Westone UM2 or Ultimate Ears before canalphones will match the quality of a good full-size headphones. The V700DJ is pretty warm, so it'll give you a similar sound to the Triports. Still, I'm not a fan of either.

Let us know what you're looking for and how much you can spend it'll be easier to make a recommendation.

[turbo311]

How is it possible that between WAV, lossless, and 320 aac you can't tell a difference? As you said you're cutting the filesize in half each time. I may do lossless instead of WAV, but AAC I think is just too compressed.

For the monitors... I don't know how much I want to spend. I'd say no more that $500 but I'd like to stay closer to $300. You say the triport is basically the same as the V700DJ, then why would that guy say they're soo much better? I think I'd prefer the canalphones as you call them, but I'm open. If you say it takes a good pair of canalphones to equal a good set of full size ones, what would be a good set of full size?

[kauffee]

Well as I understand it, lossless removes areas of the track where there is no data. I really don't know the details, but you don't lose any quality over wav. As far as AAC goes, 320k is a really high bitrate and AAC is a very good algorithm. I don't doubt that there are people that can hear the difference between 320 AAC and lossless, but I know I sure can't. Think about it... the 128 AAC files from iTunes sound pretty darned good. 320 AAC will have 2.5x the data. You gotta have some serious equipment and serious ears to hear the difference between that and lossless.

As far as headphones, I don't really know that much about full-size headphones. I only have experience with a few models. Personally, I prefer the Grado line. But check out Grado, Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, Audio-Technica, etc. There's more info than you need over at head-fi.org. Remember to consider that many full-size phones will require an amp to sound good out of the iPod.

As far as canalphones, the Shure E5 and Westone UM2 are universal-fit dual-driver phones. Since you've got the cash, you should start there. The next step up is Ultimate Ears UE5c, which will probably cost you around $600 when all is said and done. The next step up from that are the Sensaphonics 2X-S at about $800.

[turbo311]

Hmm, soo many choices and soo much money, hehe. I would love to have some Ultimate ears, Westones, or Sensaphonics. Those custom fit ones look great, but man are they pricey. I ordered the Etymotic 6i on ebay (with free overnight shipping, cool!) to start out with. I'm going to be using my headphones 99% with my iPod and the 6i was designed for the iPod. If I don't like them I'll try the Shure E3c or E5c. I read that the E3c needs a good brek-in period before optimal sound quality is achieved. Are any others like this?

[kauffee]

In my opinion there's no break-in required for canalphones. People have referred to "mental burn-in," where your brain needs to adjust to the inside-the-head sound. That might be true.

[Angelfly]

I think lossless just uses a compression algorithm that doesn't actually cut away any of the track, just replaces patterns in the data with tokens which it then substitutes for the patterns, replacing them when it needs to be read. Like Zipping. In that way, nothing is cut away - hence it is lossless.

I might have misunderstood something though.

[jwc110869]

If you edit you "view options', in iTunes, to show bit rate, you'll notice that each lossless track has a different rate. I believe that if a track is less "complicated" there is more "wasted space" to remove. I think the bit rate of WAV is around 1700kbps (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), whereas my "lossless" collection ranges around 550 to 1150kbps).

I'm in the same dilema as you; I want higher end universal fit in-ears, and am also considering E5Cs and UM2s after the holidays (and dream of the ES3 tripple drivers)