I've got a new job, working 10 hours a day, 5 days a week.. a 3-yr-old, and a wife.. I work a different job some weekends too. So, got very little time to listen to music... I decided to get my fix at work, with headphones when I do tasks that don't involve other people.
The only downside is I can't completely detach.. I have to still pay attention to what I'm doing and not get lost in the music.
I started by using an Android - Samsung S4 playing .flac. It sounded pretty good. The android music player plays .flac natively. Sweet. That was 1 very nice thing about Android. 1 more nice thing was the ease of moving files between the Android and the PC.
I hated the android os for a phone and email/text device. (Long story short) Also, AT&T didn't cover me at my new office. I bought a Verizon iphone 6. I had an iphone 4... And I know the iphone wants me to use itunes... which I don't care to do...
Somewhere along the way I'd installed Pandora on the S4 and was also enjoying that at work. I really like the idea of listening like a radio to music I might already be interested in... some of which I know/like, some I might not.. perfect.
The SQ of Pandora (paid) is acceptable to me. It doesn't sound bad... not OMG but better than I thought it would.
Most recently, I installed Onkyo HF on the phone, and copied .flac's into the specified location of the app so it can play them. No itunes integration!
Just add/subtract through the app within itunes... not bad... easy enough for me.
What I wasn't expecting was the giant leap forward in SQ. On the S4 if the .flac/music player was a level '6' out of 10 in detail, impact, musicality, etc... then the iphone + Onkyo is about an '8'. (or more) It's just so much more real sounding.
The difference between Pandora and the .flac over Android music player was enough to notice but it wasn't 'oh crap' like it is between the Pandora experience and iphone/Onkyo player.
There really wasn't much difference from the Samsung to the iphone with Pandora... if anything, the iphone sounded a tiny bit better...
The detail really is astounding... string plucks, cymbals, etc. all sound more real. Sounds are more distinct, less digital 'blur' between things... When certain high noises occur on the S4 it just made a kind of digital etch noise whereas now on the iphone/Onkyo it's clearly the instruments/voices/etc. that are differenitated and delineated. Just neat to hear...
So this is kind of a problem... Now I'm pretty distracted by the compelling music... It's very interesting and arrests my attention. There is decay, presence, a sound stage, etc... that I can immerse myself into. If I had fancier headphones I think I'd stop working for long periods of time.
Oh well, back to work.. just took some time to share what was on my mind.
-c