>I was always under the impression that I had an audiophile worthy setup especially considering that I’ve spent upwards of $300 on headphones like Beats by Dre or Skull Candy.

This actually tells you how much of an 'Audiophile' he is. A true Audiophile will actually see through the marketing crap out of these brands like Beats by Dr.Dre et al, because they aren't really Audiophile grade. Skull Candy is never really Audiophile grade. It's one of the shittiest manufacturer of headphones, which have cheap chinese-designed and chinese-manufactured drivers that distort at high volumes.

Most of these guys who claim themselves as Audiophiles are usually victims of Psychological marketing - I tell you to close your eyes and listen to the sounds you've never heard before and after you hear them by willfully paying much attention to detail than you ever used to, I tell you it's because of the headphones you're wearing right now and it's Audiophile-grade. Bang! My $500 headphone sold! (Bose is very good at this)

A note to my fellow HN'ers - When reading articles like these, please take them with a grain of salt. In the world of audio, brands aren't important at all, it's the product that matters. It's logical to say that product A by Brand A is better than product B by Brand B, rather than simply assuming all products by Brand A are great.

As a headphone collector (I own 40+ models), I can tell you that the popular $450 Sennheiser HD650 Headphones he references are over-priced and you can get a better (excellent, actually) headphones for less than half the price, from a not-so-popular brand. The Pioneer SE-A-1000 (Google it out).

But, it is important to note that the world of Audio is incredibly subjective and what one person likes may be the worst choice for another. Always listen to something before buying them.

Usually the differences in Sound Quality between a $1500 headphone and a $500 headphone are marginally low (unlike what the author claims) and are not worth the price difference, unless you are making a living out of Audio monitoring, etc.

>you’ll hear things you’ve never heard before. It's like these new details were added to the music and it just blows you away.

Stay away from such ambiguous claims. a)It's highly subjective, b)It's the after-effect of Psychological marketing.

>I listen to Apple Lossless music files and watch a lot of movies on my notebook and I wanted superb audio.

From the excerpt that the author provides, it is clearly evident that he is just getting started (it's not a bad thing at all). But what is not right here is misleading people into believing something that is not true, especially when you are just getting started yourself.

[Edit]
The author is trying to flaunt that he listens to only lossless music, but fails to tell you how even Lossless music can suck at times. As daeken and greyfade point out, It depends on the input content while the audio was recorded. Simply by listening to lossless music you won't discover 'sounds you've never heard before' as the author claims. You need to listen to good versions of these lossless audio files.

Ok, enough bashing...as for a simple in-expensive set-up, yet incredibly clear Audio, here's a combo for all you fellow HN'ers -

The Sony MDR V6 (Legendry Monitoring headphones, actually) + a Fiio E11 headphone amplifier.

It's inexpensive and it's amazing for its price. Try it out and let me know.

Thanks for reading.