Rich, you're living a world away from me, which isn't surprising. Of course I'm always interested in finding out what other foks are liking, 'cause you never know. . . The last IEMs I gave a lot of time to were Hifiman RE-600s and then RE-600V2s. When my Hifiman DAPs all broke down, I got an old Sony NW-ZX1, mainly for exercise. Otherwise, it's all physical media and HQ audio downloads to computer -> out through an old SB Audigy's optical to a spdif converter -> to a newish desk dac I can't see at the moment -> to a Eufonica H20 tube amp and Beyer DT-480s or a Sony MDR-Z7 or sumptin' else circumaural.
I've never felt right about using a mobile phone for a music source (it took ages just for me to accept it as an eBook reader). And I'm a tedious old Mac-hater, though I dispute the tropes that Mac-RAGE's all about inception period of technological acculturation(-'Scuse me a minute. . . 'HEY, YOU DAMN KIDS! YEAH YOU! HOW MANY TIMES I GOT TO TELL YOU TO GET THE HELL OFF'N MY LAWN!') failing aural sensitivity, incipient dementia, blah-de-blah. . .
No, the likeliest explanation is late-childhood watching '70s tv and movies where the *new* design aesthetic derived from a fast, durable, post-nuclear future built by rectilinear cast-steel wedges (kinda like Tesla's CyberTruck, but tougher and less shiny) with hardened plexi windows and six ginormous tractor tires. So I'm still one of those atavistic types who wishes a resurgent Scandinavian NOKIA would come out with this decade's 4.5 lb tungsten-cased satellite phone with india-rubber grips and an impact-resistant 4"x4" screen (maybe with a toggle-press) that can show all nine buttons, the first 10 characters of a caller's name, will read books in .txt and plays Snake.
