Out of what you have owned or heard, what has stood out as a large surprise, turning point, or big realization? Positive or negative, what has changed the way you think about audio and how you enjoy music?
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Elex convinced me headphones were worth listening to.
Schiit Gungnir multibit convinced me DACâs were worth exploring, Lampizator Amber 3 solidified that.
Eddie Current ZDT Jr - convinced me I cared about tubes in headphone amps.
D8000Pro convinced me all planars didnât suck.
Ether CX convinced me Zeos was useless.
Edit: I added the Elex, since it was mentioned by many people below and Iâd just forgotten about it.
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A big realization for me was the Elex. Itâs stage, while not wide, has that almost spherical sound to it. This was the first time I ever heard anything like this. It was quite mind blowing. Then, the Clear really drove that home, basically taking the Elex and improving in every way, while also having tuning more to my preference.
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The Sennheiser HD 6xx showed me that performance and technicalities are not everything, and tuning plays a bigger part than you would think. Sometimes music just sounds good whether itâs $200 or $3000 on your head.
Lampizator Amber 3 showed me that the âhigh endâ was worth it and taught me that diminishing returns arenât nearly as bad as people let on. I further discovered and developed my sound preferences and learned to enjoy the music through this dac.
LCD 2.2 prefazor got me to understand why planars are so great finally and later on Diana V2 made me fall in love with them.
The Eddie Current Studio B Solidified my preference for tube amplifiers and has given me a new found love for 300b that might or might not break me in the future. that shit is really expensive yo 
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Great comments so far!
Elex showed me Hifi is real.
When I went from D10 to D90 I thought I learned that all DACs sound the same. Then I met everyone here and got a Soekris 1351 that demonstrated that DACS can be very different and amazing.
Verite showed that treble â detail.
Freid Reim (Violectric) showed me what âgrip and controlâ is.
Then the Susvara showed me that there is actually an endgameâŚmaybe.
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Stereo subwoofers.
Definitely fell into the game changing category for me. Yes they add bass punch and extension but also added a ton of spatial information and texture (given the subs and room are up to task). I also found setup to be much easier for myself to dial in compared to one sub.
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Funny enough the BL-03 started things for me. Was using the Sennheiser HD-2 wireless at the time which was close to a $300 headphone, then I got the Blon and thought âHow is it possible that this sounds better?â That led me to dive full on into the hobby.
AQ Nighthawk Carbon was next because they were a stupid good deal at the $200 I paid new and they easily outperformed anything else I could afford in that price range at the time. They taught me not to worry as much about FR curves, and to appreciate more creative tunings.
RNHP was the amp that separated itself from the lower level amps that I had tried and was obviously doing things they could not.
Chord Mojo taught me more about the intangible elements of sound in DACs. Still not sure the best words to articulate it but I think itâs the transients, the leading edge and trailing tones, the reverb, the textures. All stuff I mostly didnât hear or notice until the Mojo.
LSA-HP2 is what Iâve always thought a high quality headphone should sound like.
Curveball pick: Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus taught me that Bluetooth doesnât always suck and sometimes itâs fun to walk around with music playing in your head connected to nothing because it feels like the soundtrack to your very own movie.
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When I had a Burson Conductor 3X Reference. It was the first eye-opening amp that showed me the possibilities.
As far as DAC, the Bifrost 2 was probably my first ârealâ DAC after plugging away with the budget gear. I never experienced that much information in a musical second up to that point. I have an for ear that type of stuff after listening to it.
For headphones, I always had an affinity for the Focal sound. I continued with their brand with my living room, outdoor & car speakers. Iâve had the Elex/OG Clear Pro/Utopia and each time I switch back to these from another headphone, they have always demanded my attention and Iâd listen uninterrupted for lengths of time.
The more recent âwowâ headphone was the Gjallarhorn. Just a fun unique listen for me that I enjoy.
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i had a similiar experience, i had the dt770 and then got the t2. and i was like, bruh how does this sound better. thatâs when i was like, alright IEMs can be something interesting. The JVC from drop cemented that they could be more enjoyable than headphones when if you find the right one. And the Campfire Andromedas Pacific Blue edition sealed the deal, love it more than every headphone ive owned and rivals my speakers in enjoyment.
I will have a semi controversial comment to, while the Focal Elex proved to me that headphones could be as enjoyable as speakers the Focal clear sealed the deal in me deciding that Focal headphones are just not fully up my alley. I may be the only person who dosenât care for the focal presentation, imaging. The rest is great but it dosenât give me a reason to listen to it over my speakers or iems. (to be clear ive tried 4 focal headphones for what itâs worth)
Game changing gear, the hiby r5 dac in comparison to the xduoo xd05 plus. I wasnât even trying to compare but i always used the hiby r5 dac and it was great. But then for convinience i plugged in the xduoo dac for my LCD2PF and it could have been a Sundara for all i know lol, lost all organic atributes. Bifrost sealed the deal on that when i bought it as it really gave the speakers the forwardness, detail, separation and sense of space that i was looking for.
The biggest game changer however was probably the pass labs preamp. It truly brought a sort of heft to the music within the room, forwardness that i love and a sense of pin point belonging to everything in the recording that ended up giving the feel of the artist being in the room. It was ridiculously awesome. Most of my gear has been a interesting step in the journey that changed the game but the pass labs preamp was the biggest for sure.
I guess the micca rb42s are woth mentioning. They were my first speakers, absolutely loved speaker presentation after that. Super addicting.
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Iâm surprised i donât see mention of speakers 
indoors
So many game changers for me. Looking back i had no clue lol but getting an AKG712pro and an atom amp/ el dac stack was for sure the first game change. Hadnt really experienced anything like it before and i instantly got hooked. From their, Eikon and Lcd2.2pf was the next big wow. From there getting more into source gearâŚBF2 and MZ2 really brought things out and thats when i really got deep in the hobby lol
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my much loathed fiio e10k when I first got it plugged into my old akg k240 showed me the importance of power. And how much a decent source can improve a headphone instead of my motherboard
Recent eyeopening experience for me has been the addition of a Pass Labs X2.5 preamp. Whether itâs synergy or simply being that much better than my previous Freya +, it made clear how much information I was missing in my music. So far itâs been the biggest eye opening component addition to my system.
Then of course the Bottle Head Crack w/Speedball & an HD600.
The Lampizator Amber 3.
Honorable mentions to; The impact a good reclocker and a good LPS can make.
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Relevant but slightly off the topic title I am fully comprehending how much of a role speaker placement and room acoustics play in getting your 2 channel set-up to perform as much as it is capable of. It has been a truly eye opening experience for me moving speakers around from room to room and also taking the time to listen to them positioned in various fashions. So many differences in sound, some bad and some just exquisite and so surprising. Despite having read often about how much difference speaker placement and room treatment make until I took many hours to actually put the effort into these 2 subjects I continued to blindly follow traditional norms of placing things where they best fit and did not realize how much performance I was missing out on.
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You can buy a new $10,000 dollar DAC or you can move your speakers 1/2 inch in a different direction. The difference can often be the same.
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Perhaps if it was a 10k topping or smsl dac
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OW!!! BURN!!! lol
They tend to do that too
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Surprised that nobody has mentioned the P6/P6P yet, I know it seemed like a game changer for M0N.
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For daps absolutely, I was really shocked that portables would get that good lol
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