remarkable

got the 701s today. so i fired up the closest thing i have to "classical" on the DAP : a shitty VBR rip of "conan the barbarian" i got from a coworker. "conan the barbarian" soundtrack was one of the first CDs I ever bought and i still have it, so i reckon i'll rerip it tonight.

behind the mask of poor quality of the mp3, and behind the veil of poor quality of the recording itself (a disastrous treatment of, imho, the greatest movie soundtrack ever made), i'm hearing things i've never before heard, and appreciating even more the genius of the score.

for example, all throughout track 4, "wheel of pain", one of my favorites, and a theme that can often be heard dancing through my head at the top of a deadlift (if, that is, you've got an inner-cranial mic injected through an orifice of mine, which, i assure you, you do not), someone is beating a chain against a metal plate. that's right: beating a chain against a metal plate. it's been there all along, in the millions of times i've listened to it, and i've never heard it. it's plain as daylight now.

that's what the 701s do, they say: shine daylight on all the triumphs and flaws of a recording. this one's got plenty of both.

(not to mention that the open design lets in keyboard noise (not to mention blasted fan noise))

for the record, i'm not yet enjoying the much ballyhooed "soundstage" of the 701s, but i suspect that has much to do with the music and the noisy environment.

and perhaps, alas, the DAC. i want to put off purchasing a fancy dac, but i think to myself, "self: you're going to buy the fancy one sooner or later anyhow, why waste time listening at lower quality in the interim?"

then i says to myself, "self, have you seen that credit card bill? with a wedding coming up? and plane tickets? forget it, self!"