Immy

Hi there! I'm looking at getting some new headphones, and so I thought here would be a good place to start asking a few questions! So; While not a full on audiophile, I do appreciate my music quite a lot. I have a set of krk 5's that I use quite a bit at home for general listening. My dad also recently bought a decent set up (although I'm not sure exactly what's in it) for listening to his vinyl which I use sometimes as well. My source files are all either FLAC, 320 mp3's, or vinyl (although I tend to use the speakers for those, some are digitised though). However I will mainly be using these with my pc (Xonar DG soundcard) or with my phone (Nexus 5). I am looking at getting an Amp & DAC, however thought it would be better to get some headphones first and see how I get on with them (baby steps and all!). I have a pretty wide range of music taste, but tend to keep going back to Old School Rap (Biggie, Wu-Tang, Pharcyde etc...), Ska, Ska-Punk, Reggae, Dub, Dubstep and DnB. I'd like to be able to use these while exercising (gym, running) and working in the garden, and I've tended to be a bit clumsy in the past - I shut my Logitech UE 60's in a car door - so the more rugged the better. I'm leaning towards an in-ear solution at the moment as I find them easier to carry around and more comfortable (I have relatively large ears but average ear canals) and I have had a bit of a problem with on/over ear headphones falling off my head, however I'm definitely not ruling out over/on ear headphones. My budget isn't all that restricted, but I'd prefer to spend less than £250 ($430, 315€) In terms of response curve, I'd be okay with a bit of bass-heaviness, however a flatter response would be preferable. I've really liked my UE 60's, but they are just not quite up to the punishment I've been dishing out to them, and I can't quite seem to find the right tips for them so they are a little loose in my ears. What have I been looking at so far? IE 80's [current front runner] Philips Fidelio S2's Beyerdynamic MMX 101 iE Sony XBA-2iP Shure SE425 Grado SR80i AKG K550's Sorry for the long post! And thanks for any advice you guys have! Immy

Thanks to Darrin Lynch for joining us today! Was a great show so thanks to the both of you!

Chance to win a phone you say? Sign me up! Favourite thing about the M8 has to be the all mostly metal construction. Looks gorgeous!

Thanks for all the feedback so far guys, I've picked a Samsung 840 EVO 128GB @ £72.48 for my SSD, and am going to wait for more news on GPU prices etc before I make that decision, and will probably bump the thread at the time. Thanks again for all of your help!

What's the advantage/disadvantage of getting the HD 7970 over the R9 280X?

I'd like to spend under £450, £500 at a push.

I'm going to keep the HDD for mass storage. That was my thought process. Currently waiting for the R9 290X and GTX 780Ti which as you say will hopefully drop the prices of everything else a bit I think you're probably right, but I don't want to go for 16GB yet as I don't need that much and would probably just upgrade when that becomes a problem

I am planing on waiting until next week to see if the NVIDIA price drop happens or not. If they were closer in price would you recommend the 770 then? I currently have Windows 7 but am thinking about upgrading to 8.1 (edited in the OP)

Hey guys! This isn't strictly a new build, more of an upgrade to my existing rig (sorry if it's in the wrong place). I'm looking to see what you guys think of my choices and welcome any feedback (including saying I'm silly for picking one/the other). I use the PC mostly for gaming (Rome:2, WoW, LoL, CS:GO, Civ 5, Crysis 3, FarCry 2 plus more [would like to be able to run Watch_Dogs/AC4 on reasonably high]) and do some work, general browsing etc... on it as well. Current rig: Motherboard: ASUSTeK p8p67 Processor: Intel i7 2600K @ 4.4 GHz RAM: OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 4GB (2x2GB) 1600MHz Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX260 (originally had a GTX 560 but that burnt out) HDD: 1TB Samsung of some sort OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 Soundcard: Xonar DG something Powersupply: Thermaltake Toughpower XT 775W (partially modular) Monitor: Iiyama Prolite E2210HDS Peripherals: Plantronics GameCom 780, Logitech G19 and G500 What I am thinking of doing: Motherboard: Keeping it, I've not had any problems with it so far and don't think it needs an upgrade yet. Processor: Keeping it, same as the motherboard. RAM: Ideally looking at something like Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz kit (£59.99) to replace my current ram, or if money is looking a little tight then another 4GB kit (would need to be low profile for the CPU fan/heatsink). Graphics card: Currently looking at an MSI R9 280X Gaming Edition OC 3072MB (~£229.99) or an MSI GeForce GTX 770 Gaming Edition 2048MB (~£319.99) . The 770 is about £100 more at the time of writing (supposedly an NVIDIA price drop coming next week?) for not a huge increase in performance, but it is likely that in the future I will upgrade this rig by SLI/Crosfire so from what I've read the 770 would be better? Also from what I've read the improvements from G-sync will be more tangible, and available to all games compared to Mantle, as well as Mantle not actually being closed to AMD cards only. I'm open to other cards as well, these are just the two that jumped out at me. HDD: I'd like to get an SSD for my OS and a few key programs to run on. I don't know a huge amount about SSDs but think that 128GB is probably the right size for me, and looks like it will be about £100 or so mark? OS: I have been considering upgrading to Windows 8.1, and since I will be doing a fresh install anyway thought this might be a good time. I'm not overly fussed about an internal colour scheme/aesthetics so wouldn't pay a premium for it to fit with everything else/look a bit nicer. I have used www.overclockers.co.uk/ as a price guide, but would shop around a bit more before actually buying anything. Any thoughts/helpful tips you have would be much appreciated! Thanks, Immy