Perfectly balanced ...

(With apologies to Thanos. Cute idea for a headphone stand!)

Thanos bust headphone holder

I recently picked up the Drop 2.5mm to Sennheiser headphone cable (for $19, I wouldn’t have at $50) (the 3.5mm single-ended cable that comes with the Sennheiser HD58x Jubilee headphones is hilariously long; the balanced cable is only slightly awkward in comparison). I’m using it with my EarStudio ES100 MK2 portable Bluetooth DAC/Amp, and it does seem to make a difference - the headphones seem “punchier” with the balanced connection, and can be set at a lower volume for an equivalent sonic experience. Liking it.

So of course that set me down the rabbit hole of DAPs with balanced outputs. The least expensive seems to be the $130 SHANLING M0 Pro, but to use a 2.5mm connection with that you’ll need their $14 3.5mm to 4.4mm adapter, plus another $10+ 4.4mm to 2.5mm adapter like this, and now you’re at like $160 for the audio player, and you have something akin to a Rube Goldberg machine sticking out of your svelte music device. Mediocre. (When I asked about a 3.5mm to 2.5mm balanced adapter, the manufacturer responded: “There is no M0 Pro adapter to 2.5mm. 4.4mm has slowly became the main balanced standard over past few years, so it was main choice for the adapter.” Well, I have several devices (including the Fiio BTR5-2021) that are 2.5mm only, and they’re pretty mainstream ... 🤷🏻‍♀️

At that point, you might as well look at the $170 HIDIZS AP80 PRO, which has a 2.5mm balanced connector built in. That’s probably what I’ll do, eventually. (My brother is happily using the Pro-X I got him for his birthday a few months ago.)

I really like the look and feel of the Sony Walkman DAPs, including the gimmicky but cool cassette aesthetic on some of them (NW-A306), but only a couple of those have balanced outputs, and they’re as spendy as you’d assume. The NW-ZX507, an $800+ flagship model when it was released in late 2019, is available used around $350-600 these days.

Meanwhile, I’m happily streaming from my iPhone to my Sennheisers via the ES100, especially once I used the EQ in the EarStudio app to setup the Harman Curve using an oratory1990 preset:

EQ screen shot