Hi Ken80s High-end and Beats is an Oxymoron.

Claret Badger love the Gene Wilder image

Yes, I try to do the best exact copy of the original, so I leave the enhancement to the player and not the recording.

I agree with you that with many walkmans the audio quality cannot be compared to a good HIFI deck. I don't intend to use them to get extreme audio quality, specially if I walk in the street with them; just to enjoy a bit. For me it's more the fun of knowing your are listening to real analog audio than a digital music.

When I'm at home I love to listen to the D6C, the D5ProII or the Marantz 430 connected to my sound card (just to equalize, adding some bass and highs).

However, there are a few models that have real audio quality, like some SONY DD and the wonderful DD9. I'm waiting for my DD9 to be tuned by Dr Walkman as well as my loved red DD30, a Boodo Khan and a DC2. These are, IMHO, some of the best players in terms of audio quality. The AIWA PX303 too.

One thing I learned is the the quality of the recording and the tape is 80% of the perceived quality. An excellent tape and a extraordinary recording can sound excellent even in a rather old TPS-L2!

I recently showed my TPS-L2 connected to a CMoyBB amp to some friends (using an excellent recording on a UX-Pro) and I think I should have record those moments... Specially their face and their eyes! They were blowed out by the qualilty, power and presence of the music. They usually listen to ipods.

Regarding the headphones, I think I'm almost done. My main headphones are a Sennheiser HD280 Pro, a reference studio headphones. The isolation and the audio quality is impressive. the only critizism is that the headroom is limited.

But for that (the headroom) I have a GRADO 325i, that are well known for their extremely high quality:

And also a ultra-rare SONY CD-3000, which are known for having some of the world's best headroom that a headphone ever had... (it's the smaller brother of the legendary SONY MDR-R1 wooden headphones)

Oh, and for the street I have a pair of BOSE AE2i, which have very good headroom and pretty decent quality.

Those DrDre are known for having not so good quality. I don't have any idea if they sound as bad as many people say, but every time I heard about Dr Dre, I remember this funny video:

The old Stax bins used to be the shizzle

not too handy for portable use mind

the new ones are getting good reviews

The Stax is simply stunning, but then I have always loved Stax.

I use to have Stax SR001 MKII for my personal but it was temperamental and I broke 4 so I gave it up.

You want to get a Hi MD MD player

PCM lossless files

I would prefer SP mode with higher bit rate compression for better sound quality rather than LP on Hi MD.  I dont mind having lesser songs in the 80 mins minidisc as long as I could enjoy good sound. Hi MD  is moving towards the concept of mp3... compromise in sound quality with higher capacity.

Yeah, MD sounds excellent like good MP3 or other high quality compressed music.

To my ears, prolongued listening to digital music, even through very high quality equipment (always headphones, as I don't have good acoustics at home) cause me ear fatigue.

Digital music is very crisp, while good analog recordings are smoother. I like them both, but for long listening I feel good analog recordings less fatiguing.

Can you give us more info about that? I don't know what are those electrostatic earspeaker

NO NO NO

not LP - it's PCM  you don't understand the concept

no compression NOTHING

MD SP < Hi MD SP < PCM

(atrac)    (atrac)      (lossless)

Hi hurodal these are portable electrostatic headphones, they are wonderful sounding but very temperamental. I cannot recommend them due to the temperamentality of the unit.

I had them when they where first released, they may have improved the reliability by now but at the beginning they where unreliable hence I gave them up.

Here is some write up about them.   

http://www.stereomojo.com/HEAD...XSR-001MK2review.htm

Yeah, that's why I am aiming for the Sony MZ RH1 unfortunately I have a tight budget right now.  This unit is the last and the best from Sony but still pricey in ebay

Very interesting all that about electrostatic headphones. thanks for the info.

No problem.