During ChatGPT investigations i find out that my DAP [Hiby R8 II] can be described as 88% of one of the most quality audio board on PC: [RME ADI-2 DAC FS] . [Empire Ears Raven] scored around 90% of [Sennheiser Orpheus HE-1] top of the crop electrostatic hi-end earphones. Not a bad result for portable devices considering substantial difference in the price and size! I totally understand that it is a synthetic comparison, but at least now i have understanding approximate audio quality of my setup versus top-notch professional hardware.

Previously i was quite satisfied with the [iBasso DX240] / [FiiO FA9] conjunction. But after some evening conversations with [DeepSeek] and [Qwen] , I decided to purchase the [FiiO FA19] . The main problem is that I did not stop there and decided to go completely crazy and dive into the [HiBy R8 II] / [Empire Ears Odin] configuration. Now to the main essence of things. FiiO FA7 has lots of bass and quite lush, mushy mids and trebles.

Do we really need expensive Sennheiser? In youth dates, I was fond of exploiting expensive audio technics.As for earphones, my favorite brand was Bayerdynamic. However, some time ago I have discovered relatively inexpensive headphones from Chinese brand [Fiio] . As a listener of wide gamut of music like ambient, trance, dub, psybient, jazz, metal: I have to say that this headphones provide totally unexpected level of audio quality. Especially if we’ll consider the price.