Rushed Blind Impulse Buy from Cable Co

Submitted by Key_Salary974 t3_11d7fe0 in headphones

So, Ethan from Cable Co . sent me an email asking if I was planning to use my credit with them, because they are transitioning away from headphones, I told him I wasn't aware I had one , and he said......"Yep......$1826" I asked do you mean 182 dollars? Nope almost 2k.

I called him ASAP and verified. They are getting really low on inventory, so after talking a bit about my home setup and my taste in music and they came Saturday! I knew almost nothing about them except for their 99 Classics are my travel cans. What the hell amps are a good match? The only headphone amp I have is the Meridian Prime Amp and Meridian Power Supply. Of course my home preamp and and integrated amp have jacks, but I would much rather have a real headphone amp

https://preview.redd.it/dfi4sdb37pka1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=a8853bfa41b0290280ae521188f595472f2ae9a2

35

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

codename_username t1_ja72o57 wrote

Man one day I wish to do an impulse buy like this šŸ˜…

20

mqtpqt t1_ja7pzwn wrote

is it just me or i have no idea what OP is talking about

14

ender4171 t1_ja7yt8i wrote

He had $1862 in store credit from Cable Co (which is nuts) but didn't even know that he had credit built up. So, he used said credit to buy the Meze's, which normally retail for around $3k. Meaning he got a set of Empyreans for basically a third of the normal price.

12

minimus67 t1_ja9etzh wrote

The Cable Company ā€œloans outā€ audio equipment - primarily interconnects, digital cables, and power cords, but also some headphones and headphone amps - charging you a lending fee of something like 10% of the retail price of whatever you borrow from them to try out at home. Those 10% lending fees are treated like store credits and get deducted from the price of anything you later buy from the Cable Company.

So if you borrow $20K worth of cables, you accumulate $2K in lending fees. If you buy something from the Cable Co, they will deduct $2K from the retail price of whatever you buy. But if you donā€™t buy anything because a lot of what they sell is absurdly overpriced snake oily cables, the Cable Company keeps all lending fees. Itā€™s a savvy business model, because they incentivize you to buy from them and if you donā€™t buy anything, they still make a profit.

9

RayceManyon t1_ja7srod wrote

I think he bought Empyreans for under $1826. Which, to be fair is a very good deal.

6

BionicSammich t1_ja7jk91 wrote

The Empyreans in black copper are, IMO, the best looking headphones out there (aside from the Jecklin Float obviously). I love my Elites, but I'd love to try Empyreans too some day.

9

cr0ft t1_ja7jspy wrote

Any decent amp; FiiO may be a Chifi brand but their K7 amp should be great for this, THX AAA amp in there and enough power to drive just about anything. Or indeed the K9 Pro or K9 ESS but that may be overkill, but then again so are these cans. :)

Congrats.

5

Th3McL0v1n t1_ja9bgaw wrote

The Topping A90D is a very good amp according to a lot of reviewers out there. I think it would fit the empyreans pretty well with it's clean and powerful output.

2

Key_Salary974 OP t1_jae7w0h wrote

So, is I am seeing a lot if they are efficient and easy to drive. Should I stick with the Meridian or give some other amps a chance? I have tubes in one of my home setups and love their sound.

So, the credit was from when I was looking at headphones back in 2013. I did a lot of lending library rentals of cans, amps, dacs etc. I ended up getting a pair of Audeze LCD-3's and pairing it with a McIntosh MHA100.

My wife swears she got them from Cable Co, but who knows. I got out of Headphones when we built our house with a custom theater/2 channel room (I was much more into jamming out to my B&W 802 D3's). 2 kids now and another on the way, so I figured why not go back to headphones for a few years!

2

No-Context5479 t1_ja8vgpf wrote

u/Key_Salary974, Uhm the Meridian Prime Amp is literally labelled a headphone amplifier on their website.

Anyway the Empyreans aren't demanding so something like the FiiO K7 is more than enough.

FiiO K7 purchase link - https://www.amazon.com/FiiO-K7-Headphone-Amplifier-PCM384kHz/dp/B0BJKKPL71

1

Key_Salary974 OP t1_jae6c33 wrote

Yeah, but I wasn't sure it was a good pairing for the Meze or not. I love Meridian products and it was bought for streaming Tidal into my home system.

1

juannyca5h t1_jadgyiy wrote

Although the Hifiman ef400 of mine had a light issue and I moved on to the RME, the ef400 sound was incredibly musical and awesome to listen to. Iā€™ve got an eye on the ef600 which will come out in a couple weeks too. The R2R sound is awesome

1