LATEST ADDITIONS

I never use vulgar words—at least not in public. I rarely use the word shit as an adjective, a verb, or a noun. Therefore, when I first heard of an audio company founded by legendary audio engineer Mike Moffat (formally of Theta) and award-winning science-fiction author and audio polymath Jason Stoddard—a company named Schiit—I could permit myself to pronounce its name only as Shite. I thought it made me sound British instead of rude.

Many people, after seeing him repeatedly at Manhattan's Forrest Hotel in the early 1960s, might have described the lyricist and songwriter Doc Pomus as the narrator of a Damon Runyon short story depicts himself: as someone "who is just around." Pomus lived for years in lackluster hotels like the Forrest, which Runyon himself had once called home, and his cronies could be just as colorful as Runyon's creations, including the gamblers—for a time, Pomus gambled for a living.

HiFiMAN touts this headphone as great for direct play from portable devices—and I'll agree, it does play very well directly from a tablet or phone. Pretty nice not to have the burden and expense of having to carry around a portable amp, but at $1800 it doesn't really seem like a more affordable solution. And then, it's an open headphone while most portable cans are sealed to get rid of environmental noise. So...this is a flagship headphone for use with portable devices indoors? I'm not sure what to think...let's work through the details.