thegavereguy OP t1_ixdgywz wrote on November 22, 2022 at 4:53 PM

Two days ago i finally received my first decent pair of open-back headphones after daily driving cheap IEMs for almost a year. The whole setup took a couple of month to put together as i waited for some good deals to popup on a couple of used marketplaces. The initial plan was to get a Topping DX3 pro+ and a pair of HD6xx/HD600, but after learning about the Sundaras i changed my mind. I went for the wider soundstage and supposed wow-factor over the neutral sound of the Sennys because the idea of a "boring" sounding headphone was not really appealing to me, given that i also wanted to use them to watch movies/shows. After reading a couple of reviews i went for the Atom Amp ( which was hard to find here in Italy due to the high shipping cost of a new one) and a cheap Topping D10. I decided to buy a DAC to test myself the dac-improve-sound theory that i often see discussed on forums, and doing some tests i can hear a slight difference from only using the phones/laptops dac.

Overall i'm quite happy with my purchase and i hope that these last at least a decade ( i'm a university student, i've thrown my extra-rent budget of the last 6 months on these lol)

The_D0lph1n t1_ixhzv8l wrote on November 23, 2022 at 4:17 PM

Topping D10 and JDS Atom amp was my first stack too! And driving a Sundara as well!

TheRadiantSoap t1_ixf0mr4 wrote on November 22, 2022 at 11:06 PM

Congratulations, I hope your love of music and gear brings you much joy. Genuinely good setup. Better than mine... for now

f3llyn t1_ixhayuv wrote on November 23, 2022 at 1:15 PM

> and i hope that these last at least a decade

For your sake I hope they do too but Hifimans from the bottom of the line all the way to the top are not known for their build quality. I went through 2 pairs of brand new Sundaras in the space of a month that both had the same issue before deciding to go with a different brand.

I'm not trying to rain on your parade, it's a good set up. This is just something you should be aware of.

thegavereguy OP t1_ixhs604 wrote on November 23, 2022 at 3:26 PM

maybe a decade it's not possible but i hope they last a fair bit. What were the failing points on your Sudaras that made you change them?

f3llyn t1_ixi7p58 wrote on November 23, 2022 at 5:09 PM

I assume it was weak soldering around the plugs, I never actually found out the cause. For both sets that I had they lost sound in the right ear cup within a weak. And these were supposedly the refreshed design that was supposed to address that issue.

One set was bought through amazon, the other through apos.

You'll notice that there is no protection where the cable plugs into the headphone meaning any little bump or nudge can stress the plug in. This compounds the issue with weak soldering for the connections. Other headphones have a recessed plug that helps protect from this issue.