The Coffee Shop HiFi Setup Challenge!

It's time for another headphone challenge. Resolve, Golden Sound, I brought you here today to help me pick out another system. Now, as you both know, I am a very avid coffee drinker. There is a coffee shop right next door to my office that I love. I go there all the time. All of us have five minutes to pick out the perfect system for going to your local coffee shop. You will have $1,000 US to design the perfect coffee shop system, something you would bring and listen to music at your local coffee shop, plugged up to your phone or your laptop. But you have to not look ridiculous. Let's just say there's points off for looking absolutely ridiculous. So you could go for some pretty wild stuff, but if you bring like an HE1 to a coffee shop and like, you know, a giant battery bank and all that, like a big, huge power supply, it's gonna be a little silly. Define ridiculous though. Like there's a sense in which my definition of ridiculous would be different from yours. Let's let the people in the comments be the judge. Are we doing used or are we doing brand new? Brand new. This is all brand new stuff. Brand new. All brand new. All brand new. 1,000 US. All right, everybody mute your microphones and I will start the timer now. Three, two, one, go. I am going to go all headphones and let's sort by closed back. We have a lot of stuff. I have a feeling those guys are gonna go for something IEM related, but I wanna do over ear headphones. My go-to in this situation would be an E3. but that does not fit in the budget. There is the Fiio FT1. I'm gonna open that another tab. That's a pretty pretty good one. I like the Focal Radiance that uses almost all of the budget. I like the Noire X. I could technically use that off of just a laptop's headphone jack but I feel like that's such an easy choice. It does look a little bit silly though right? Like kind of would have these big things on top your head. So the first thing I'm gonna try and find here is a Questyle dongle M15 because that's just a great little thing to plug any headphone in. Ooh, that's expensive. I didn't realize that was that expensive. Okay, maybe not that. I like it a lot, but I probably won't need headphones that are that power hungry. So I'm going to go with a Qudelix 5K. So the benefit there is that it has EQ functionality built in and it also has a whole bunch of EQ profiles there available as well. So Qudelix 5K is going to be what I'm running from the phone and now I got to come up with some sort of headphone and under a thousand dollars, there's a lot of options. I'm gonna do... hmm. Okay, so for mine, I'm gonna spend almost all my money on the IM, and it's gonna be an IM because we're wanting to not look ridiculous, and quite frankly there are not many audiophile headphones that don't look ridiculous, even the closed-back ones. Maybe some of the Dan Clark ones, those look a little bit more subtle, but even then, generally speaking, a lot of the audiophile stuff looks silly. How much is the Subtonic, not Storm. There's a method to the madness here, is one of my favorite IEMs for listening to bassier music, because it's a bassy boy. And that's exactly the kind of thing that I want to listen to when I'm on a walk outside going to the coffee shop. I like the Noire X a lot. That would probably be my go-to for sound quality at this price point, but I don't think it would deliver the isolation I need, and I would want something a little more low profile. I could go with an ANC option. There's a lot of ANC stuff out there, but I really don't like the frequency response of a lot of the ANC stuff. I like how low profile the headbands on these Denons are, but they're not going to isolate super well, and I don't think the frequency response of those would be to my taste. The Mark Levinson is not bad. Still needs some EQ. I want to go wired, though. Maxwell's really good, but it's heavy. I like the Bathyse, but I use that more on airplanes. I think I'm going to go with the HD620S because that isolates really really well it's low profile i just need something to fix the lower mid-range a little bit on it make it sound less boxy to not look ridiculous is hard because if you're going to a coffee shop you want it to cancel noise so in a sense i could just say bose qc ultra and then i wouldn't need the Qudelix 5k but if i'm gonna go with a passive headphone i would want to go honestly with something like a fio ft1 and just save the rest of the money so if i go for a fio ft1 that's 150 dollars though I know they're not shipping to North America right now, so that's probably not doable. If we're saying a few FT1 is out, I'm gonna go with a Focal Azurys. And I don't personally need the Capra Strap for the Focal Azurys, so this puts me at $600 plus the Qudelix 5K, that's $710. For people with small heads, the Capra Strap, it would be worth doing. So Capra Strap, I think that's another like 20, 30 bucks, something like that. So that puts me at around $740, which is decent with room to spare i saved some money right x demo okay does x demo count technically brand new it's not it's not used we're not looking on ebay i'm gonna argue that that counts but i think 830 usd to gpp we're looking this week it's uh it's down a little bit so that'll help us out here 839 pounds does that fit in oh not quite okay what about the meteor because the meteor is definitely cheaper and that's very similar. $600. That's not bad because again I like listening to bassier music kind of more four on the floor type stuff when I'm walking or whatever so that's going to be my IEM hands down. I love the Meteor. Meteor is really good fun. So that's $600. Now we've got another $400 for the actual source itself and I'm actually going to go for a Fiio KA17. This is pretty similar to what I had last time. Why are we using Bing again? In fact no. Qudelix 5K because then we can go Bluetooth and we can do EQ on the device if we want to. And that leaves us some nice room as well. So that's $109. So now we're at $709. Let's add another $20 or so for coffee and a sandwich or whatever. So we've got a little bit more money, but I don't really think we need to go much higher than that. This will run them. It'll do EQ. It sounds good. It gives us Bluetooth with LDAC as well and AptX HD. So we're not even sacrificing much by using Bluetooth. How about a nice cable? Let's throw that in since we've got something left in the budget. But $349, that gives me a lot of wiggle room to try and get like a good amp or something. There is always the FiiO FT1. I'll keep that as a backup in case I can't find a good amp. But the FT1 does not isolate nearly as well as the 620S. The 620S, you can sit in a really busy space and it's just like, it's like drumming headphones almost. How much time do I have left? Oh crap, I only have half my time left. Ooh, Mojo 2? Mojo 2? Wait, does this fit? This fits in my budget by five cents. That would leave me at five cents away from a thousand dollars. The Mojo 2 has what I need. It would power this easily. It has built-in EQ, so I could change the frequency response just a little bit and fix that kind of boxiness this HD620S has. This might be the move, and I could just plug that right into my laptop. The only downside is that you can't charge the Mojo 2 over the same cord that you're using to send data, but the battery does last a long time on it. Longer than I'm going to be sitting at a coffee shop. And it is really compact. It doesn't look ridiculous. I think I've got the answer. I think it's going to be Mojo 2 and 620S. That'd be a great coffee shop setup. I know I could do an IEM here, but I really, I just, I want to do a headphone. I want to do an over-ear headphone. I've got 56 seconds left. I was crunching last time. I was super worried I wasn't going to make it this time easy peasy lemon squeezy look at all these lemons squeezing them easy 40 seconds left either they are struggling right now for a time crunch or they got it figured out instantly i bet the resolve probably instantly picked like a really affordable iem like immediately and was just like this is all i need i bet he's doing like a Qudelix 5k and an iem i think the other option here might be maybe like an Aeon Noire, maybe. That's $900, but then I couldn't get the Qudelix 5k. So that's probably why that is out for me. Yeah, I think that's going to be it. I think it's going to be Focal Azurys with a Qudelix 5k. Or if we go the IEM route, I will go for a Thieaudio Hype 4. Not because it's better than anything else that's under $1,000, but because this design happens to not have length mode issues, making it, or at least for me, making it very easy to EQ. And it's something that I'd be able to use very well with the Qudelix 5K. Maybe even a matte black IEM cable. Matte black. Is it a 2-pin? Yes. 2-pin IEM cable. Look for something a little nicer than that. I mean, we can just go for something on AliExpress, but let's just do Thomann because Thomann's pretty reliable. So that's 42 pounds, which is 55 US dollars. So we're at what, $750? We've got $250 to spare. I mean, at that point, screw it. You can put the $250 or half of it towards a one-year Roon subscription and I'd run Roon Arc on my phone because then I can access all of my library from home and stream and just do everything that I want. So that way I can transfer all my playlists as well. So actually I'll throw in a one-year Roon Arc subscription as well. And then I think for a coffee run setup, that's pretty ideal. But before the big reveal of our systems, I'm going to tell you about Headphones.com. Griffin, I've been told that you are not only a great music connoisseur, but also someone who's very good at helping people determine what to get with their headphone systems. I have experience with it. I've been doing it for a very long time. Perfect. That's why we have decided recently to sell Griffin now on Headphones.com. He's available for purchase, so he can pick out the perfect stuff. He'll pick out music for it. He's a great little guy. He can dance. He can sing. You can do all that stuff. You can get Griffin over on headphones.com. Isn't that right, Griffin? This is what I get for not reading the totality of my contract, isn't it? It's exactly what Taron said. Oh. If you need to return him, there's 365-day returns, so we'll take him right back. And great customer support so we can tell you what to feed him and all that stuff. Okay, thanks, Griffin. Bye. Time is up, gentlemen. Unmute thyselves. Was this easy for you guys? You just like instantly just like, oh, it's going to be this. Yeah, this is actually really easy. Yeah, I was going, I knew what I was going for pretty quick. My first choice was not quite in budget, but I'm pretty happy with what I ended up with. Well, obviously you would choose the Hifiman Audivina. What the fuck is this? Yeah, oh, obviously. I mean, in terms of not looking ridiculous and not sounding ridiculous, that's about where it goes. Clearly. I predicted that one of you would choose a Qudelix 5k. Maybe. So here's the thing. If I were to be obnoxious, I would just say get like a Arya Stealth, specifically to offend everybody around you because of just how much sound leaks out of that one. Yeah. Ultimate bus setup. But I didn't do that. I didn't do that. Well, here you go first. Links in the chat. What do you got? The first thing I went to is actually to try and find the Questyle M15, but I didn't realize how expensive it is. That's like 250 bucks, which I felt was overkill, and I didn't really need to do that. So for the headphones that I was planning on going with. So I ended up getting the Qudelix 5K. Shocking. As you predicted. I am, I color me surprised. Yeah, but I mean, it makes sense, right? Like you can basically, like you get that, then you get all the EQ functionality. You can dial in your headphones exactly how you want them. What's not to love? So that puts me at $110. Then I was thinking, okay, because it's for the coffee shop and the requirement is to not look ridiculous. If I'm going with over-ear headphones of some kind, it makes sense to go with the passive over-ear headphone. And actually, at first I thought, well, I would just get a QC Ultra, right? Because, you know, you want to cancel noise and that's a major benefit to being in that environment. But we're here to be a little bit more, you know, audiophile, a little bit snobbier. So instead, I went with a passive close-back headphone, the Focal Azurys. Paired with the Qudelix 5K, that's around $600. That puts me at 710. And I thought for anybody with a smaller head, you could add the Capra strap on top, which would put you at like, you know, 730 with room to spare. That's good. So that's basically the over-ear setup. But then I also thought if I was going to go with an IEM, I would be able to save even more money because I'd go with a Qudelix 5K and a Thieaudio Hype 4 because that one doesn't have any length mode issues for me. It's very comfortable. It's more comfortable than the Megafest for me. and I would have a very easy time EQing that headphone or that IEM. I bet he's doing like a Qudelix 5K and an IEM. And that's my setup. That's a pretty good setup. So, I mean, I was a little tempted to just say, well, I'll just get a Bathyse, but I thought that that was going to be a bit boring. So I went with a Qudelix 5K, which... Shocking. Absolutely shocking. But actually, I might retrospectively change that to a FIO KA17, given as I actually had quite a bit of money left in the budget. The IEM I went for was the Symphonium Meteor. And there's a reason for this, which is that if I'm walking somewhere just out and about, A, I want isolation. And if we're not wanting to look ridiculous, I didn't want basically any audiophile headphone because quite frankly, almost none of them look anything other than ridiculous. And when I'm walking, I almost exclusively listen to like four on the floor type music, something kind of heavier and rhythmic. And so I wanted something bassier. And so that fit the bill quite nicely. Qudelix 5K also means that then you can EQ it. I have one criticism of your pick here with the Meteor. Sealed BA, meaning you're going to end up with the occlusion effect quite strongly, which may be okay. I think it would be fine for the coffee shop situation, but it might be a bit annoying when you are walking because you're going to end up hearing whatever gets transmitted through your body more. That's fair. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that, but that's a fair point. I will note that the stock cable that comes with this is a copper cable. And so I also thought that given as the aim of this is to not look ridiculous, I did budget in a just black two-pin cable as well, which is about 50 bucks. So that, I think, should earn bonus points in terms of not looking silly. Then I also budgeted for a year of Roon so that I can then use Roon Arc on my phone, get all my music from home and all of my playlists and things like that both local and streaming so that i threw in but if you take out the Qudelix this leaves us about 400 or so dollars i think you can just about get a FiiO KA17 i should also note that when i was first googling stuff i couldn't find prices for anything i was like why are all these results just horrible and then i realized i was using bing so i had to fix that pretty quick but the year of rune that was a good idea yeah Yeah, well, I mean, I use Roon, but also just then having all of my library, all of my playlists. And also Roon Arc does let you do EQ with a really nice interface. So then you don't need the Qudelix 5K, which is why then I said, okay, actually, you can probably swap to a Fiio Ka17 because that's got quite a lot of power. So that if you wanted to then just use that to go home and listen to your play nows or whatever, it'll work great for that as well. That's a good idea. I didn't think about that. You think things through. That was good. I try my best. All right. Douglas? I went with maybe a little bit of a spicy one, but I promise I have a good reason. At first, I was like, well, I love the E3, but that's twice the budget. And I was like, well, I love the Noire X, but it doesn't isolate quite the level I would want for public. And it does, it is kind of like... You're going to get some odd looks with any of the DCA ones. Like, even though they don't look anywhere near as ridiculous as most other stuff, they're a lot more subtle. They're still very head-turny. And then I thought, well, I love the FT1, but the FT1 doesn't isolate quite as much as I would want. And I want a little more comfort, like something that's going to be tighter on my head. So I thought, what isolates really well and is going to be really just like sealed onto my head well that I could then fix with a little bit of EQing? And I landed on this, the 620S. Oh, that is a good, wow. That is a good choice for the coffee shop or anywhere where you don't want to look ridiculous or stand out or whatever. I thought you were either going to yell at me or like it. So I'm glad that it was the liking it option. No, in terms of this use case, that's pretty ideal, actually. You know what? Like, okay, it's funny. My first pick was actually the Fiio. I went through exactly that same thought process that you went through with the Fiio FT1. But also I was thinking you can't really get it in North America right now. So for some reason, my brain just forgot that this headphone existed. Like the 620S is a great choice for exactly this. The 620s, it's got like the isolation of a drummer headphone. It's really comfortable for my head shape, but it has that little bit of boxiness in the low mid. So I was like, I need something that can add a little bit of EQ to it. And I didn't think of the Qudelix 5K for me personally. Instead, I went with the Mojo 2, which is overkill in a lot of ways for the 620s. And here's the best part. This ended up being perfect. I was looking through the site just now and I was like, is this actually gonna fit? Because I was looking for an amp and I was like, There's no way. It fits in the budget by five cents. Okay. Only downside that I could think of is you can't charge the Mojo 2 through the same Type-C cable that you're running it off data, but the battery, Mojo 2 is going to take barely any juice to drive a 620S, and the battery will last really long on that thing, way longer than I'll ever be in a coffee shop. Right. I had not even considered these. These are great picks. Mine was a bit obvious. I'm liking your suggestion here. Should we ask Griffin who wins this? What do you think, Griff? At least for the not looking ridiculous portion of it. I love the little Grif is typing. Oh, first scenes give this list. Oh my gosh, whoa. He's got so many things. Razor Kraken. No, no. Razor Kraken Kitty Quartz Edition? What the hell? Let's see what he had to say here. Rationale. Have to have lights on the headphone. Have to have kitty ears. Of course, you don't want to look ridiculous. Need to spend at least three times more on the headphone amp and have an audiophile aux cable. Can you just like add an isoacoustics isolator? Have that in the palm of your hand and just walk around with the like DAC on that all the way down. It's not in the budget. Well, clearly Griffin decimated all of us. I mean, no, I just disagree. Troll post or not. Oh, this is horrific. Oh, look what he said. Okay. Yeah, this whole thing was rigged. I demand a recount. Yeah, no, actually, like, getting a sense of your choices there, DMS, like, that's such a creative way to look at it. I had not, specifically for that purpose. Like, I actually think I prefer my choices for sound quality, but your choices for inconspicuousness are just superior. I didn't prep for this one, but I do go to a coffee shop every day. You really need to get a machine at home, man. Do you use the 620S there? I would get a machine at home, but the coffee there is so good. if I want to have a machine at home, it's going to cost more than most people's hi-fi setups. Yeah, it's worth it. I mean, it's a rabbit hole in and of itself, but you actually do end up saving money over the long run if you are getting coffees every day. Yeah, that's a problem for future me. So those are our systems. We had our things to say about them here, but the real defining factor is going to be who you guys pick as the winner in the comment down below. So let us know whose system you thought was the best, and we'll do another one of these challenges in the future If you have ideas for a future challenge, also leave them in the comments because this is going to become a series. I think these are pretty fun. Other than that, I think it's time to wrap this video up. So guys, if you like this video, leave a like down below, comment, let me know what you want to see in the future. If you want to get active in the community, you can at the Discord or the forum, both available at the link in the video description. As always, don't forget to stick around and subscribe for more videos like this in the future. Till next one, guys. Peace.