It depends on what you find on the journey. With my experience, there are some brand and model that not mess around with material, solid approach and performance upgrading in product line.
Brise Audio
- You should try Shirogane. Solid build and good silver tone approach. Better contrast and macro dynamic than Dream Duet. But micro detail and micro transient and transparency is behind Dream Duet.
Crystal Cable. Only Hiend signature out there in the portable market, IMO. The weakness is that the cable is small wire => not best for hi dynamic peak in popular gern.
- Duet: Good entry point, however, the 2pin connector lower the performance of this model a little bit. Regerminate to better 2pin improve much.
- Dream Duet: Clean, clear, fast, resolute, tonal accuracy, transparency, lowlevel detail, micro transient, fluent and coherence. It is the different.
I between some other brand PW, EA, Norne, DHC. Brimar give me the most special signature between them, however, it seems that they are out off business now.