I know 50 Cent In Da Club has well produced bass, and good headphones will separate the different types of bass. Before I thought there was only bass, but with better headphones I learned there are 3 different types of bass in the song and it's fun to be able to differentiate then.

Headphones require a good seal to sound properly, so they clamp down heavily. Look into some open backs with soft pads that because they don't need such a good seal and the earpad will easily go around your glasses.

If you are an audiophile you already gave up looks for sound quality. (Except for Meze and Focal)

Do you pick the Elites and get much better sound quality, or do you puck the Empyreans and get the amazing looking copper and black headphones. Black and chrome looks a little cheap to me.

This is the best advice, just using the new headphones will automatically make you pick up on details on songs you have heard many times. Use them for a while until they become your baseline and then going back to the Grados will allow you to see if there is a big difference between them.

To further answer your question, how do the XS sound not compared to anything. If they sound good with great clarity, it means there are no defective parts. I'm pretty sure you already tried both headphones with and without the FiiO to make sure that's not playing a part in this. There should be an obvious boost in bass compared to the grados. Try using a different omit source to make sure there wasn't an issue with that.

Its all fun and games until you want to plug them into a dac or amp or other audio device and there is no Type C output.

Didn't Beyerdynamic recently make a type C to mini XLR cable. I think they priced it close to $100. They claim it has a high quality mic and built in amp and dac.

Sim Dane makes Formula 1 parodies of popular songs, and his versions sound really good, but he only posts youtube videos and his songs aren't on streaming services. I would love to play his music in a car, but only his earliest songs are available for streaming. You can't even use youtube music because he is recognized as an content creator and not an artist.

It is made of wood, so it get some audiophile credit there

You don't see the brand, these are from Sennheiser Pro Audio

The box of the Sundara can act as a realy good traveling case due to its padding, so keep that if you get them. IEM are pretty durable and very small and can be put in a backpack packet or a bag you know won't recieve a lot of pressue. There are reasonable priced headphone hard cases, but you can put them in a backpack if you know it will be safe in there.

Just keep the Sundara and don't buy new headphones unless you find a crazy deal on a used pair. But it is nice to have a few headphones for different use cases, but in you situation it does make sense to sell the Sennheiser if you have better refrence headphones. The Sundara are great and are called by almost everyone as the best headphones around $300. So I don't think you need to upgrade from them, and plus the upgrade is barely going to be noticeable.

Why do you want to get Aryas if you have Sundaras

I became an audiophile and have baught 3 headphones. I got the Sundara a month ago because Amazon had a 20% sale and I was already looking into getting them for a month. I told myself that it's unreasonable to have a bunch of headphones that will ask sound the same, but I told myself those would be my first planner magnetic headphones and if I get then they will be my only pair and I don't get anymore. Then after a lot of thinking, I told myself if I quit one of my bad habits permanently, I can get them. So I got them and quit my bad habit because of it. I'm not going to say what it was, but I've been trying to quit for a while.

Like John Candy said in Cool Runnings, "if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it."

I've been saying this for years, black with dark red looks stunning. It didn't master if it's on headphones, on cars, or whatever.

I don't have much experience with balanced output, but the easiest way to narrow down your list is to understand how it works. It sends power down both wires, so it has to have 2 ends, that's why the single mini XLR end of AKG headphones doesn't take balanced. You will need the headphones to take 2 inputs, one for each driver. Meze and Hifiman use 2 3.5 ports for balance, Sennheiser uses the 2 pin connectors.

I did some looking on Amazon, and the first thing I noticed was that these cost songs double what they cost for a Type C adapter. I noticed Anker makes one, and they are a huge trusted brand that offer an 18 month warranty on theirs. https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Lightning-Connector-Certified-Headphones/dp/B07S7C7WND/ref=mp_s_a_1_17?crid=4NEFL1YS7X03&keywords=lightning+dac&qid=1667208113&qu=eyJxc2MiOiI1LjQ3IiwicXNhIjoiNC42NCIsInFzcCI6IjMuNTgifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=lightning+dac%2Caps%2C115&sr=8-17 If you want to save a bit, I found one that looks good and I think we'll work just fine even though it's a less recognizable brand. https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-Lightning-3-5MM-Female-Adapter/dp/B07Q49SVYR/ref=mp_s_a_1_13?crid=4NEFL1YS7X03&keywords=lightning+dac&qid=1667208113&qu=eyJxc2MiOiI1LjQ3IiwicXNhIjoiNC42NCIsInFzcCI6IjMuNTgifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=lightning+dac%2Caps%2C115&sr=8-13

Why do people spend so much and why do people keep coming back. Honestly for most people, it's because DankPods keeps uploading.

With the ride of global warming, I'm doing my part to make wiggley air.

To basically everyone, these aren't going to make a noticeable difference. Yes I know every ear and every new processor is faster and better than the previous one, but it's very minor and the only was to know the difference is by running a test or comparing them side by side.

That is the most acurate way to test for this issue, I can't believe I didn't think of it.

The Amazon deal got you too? I was looking at these for months but decided I didn't need them, until I saw they were on Amazon as open box with a 20% discount and had to get them. I knew the QC issues existed, but by getting them in Amazon I can return them easily.

I think Dank Pods explained this the best. High quality audio has existed for decades, they aren't making huge innovations in sound quality anymore, they are making innovations to comfort and the listening experience. Modern headphones sound as good as old headphones, but probably have features that the previous ones didn't. I guess innovations have been made to try new things in the pursuit of better sound. I know the new Sennheiser IE 600 are 3D printed and are able to use a very interesting internal housing design which improved the sound, and that design is only possible because of 3D printing. Also look how far bluetooth headphones have come, I know for a fact modern Bluetooth headphones are better than Bluetooth headphones from 6 years ago.

Also I see this with phones as well, they have gotten so good that there is no additional point to improve. Around 2020 all smartphone had realy good cameras, from cheap phones to expensive phones, Android or Apple, every phone has an amazing camera, so now in smartphone ads it's features. Samsung talks about their 8K camera, their 100x zoom, Google talks about their unblur feature and object eraser, even Apple talks about their Adobe HDR and filmmaker modes. They all know saying we have a good camera isn't enough anymore. And in terms of hardware there has also been a limit reached. The last 3 years of Samsung and iphones have had no changes, the phones are basically the same as each other and there is no reason to upgrade to a new one. And this is someone know knows and cares a lot about this and all the small details involved. That's why people care so much about folding phones, it's something genuinely new and exciting.

When I was in middle school, my $5 earbuds lasted about a year before disintegrating.