I mean you've tried them for yourself and given plenty of time for them. Not everything that's more expensive will be better for your subjective preference. I had the M50X for 7 years and loved it until I lost it.

How long have you had the Edition XS?

Nice! I’m also a Schiit guy too. I currently use a Bifrost 2/64 and Jot2 stack. I also have a Mani 2 for my turntable

DT1990s. I had those for another year before getting the 660s. Then I have had a very fortunate last 16 months that have allowed me to increase my budget for audio. And I’ve reached an endgame with the headphones in my flair. I still have the DT1990s but I have them indefinitely loaned out to a friend.

I first listened to my favorite album of all time on the k702s so it’s always has a place in my heart. A Sailor’s Guide to the Earth by Sturgill Simpson is the album btw

Nice! I ran a Modi/Magni stack with K702s for a few years. It was my first dedicated headphone and stack. I hope it treats you as well as mine did!

Headphones Show did a pretty good video overview of how pads affect sound. Link to it - https://youtu.be/pPcMxmwDw-c

Quick! Break them apart before you open a portal into the analog realm!

> but that you are used to other headphones or just have a different preference.

100% true. I prefer dark headphones and EQ in treble to taste / mood / genre.

> Really my point is that we are (most of the time, 80%+ of the people) not hearing differently but that we have different preferences (or known/used to targets),

I can get behind an 80/20 weighting of preference to literally hearing different. I'm still holding onto a shard of hearing differently because I don't know how some people can listen to Beyerdynamics (990 and 1990) even after testing headphones with different signatures. They both pierce my soul haha.

It'd be cool to be a participant in that study and get our own HRTF profile.

I know this is an anecdotal example so feel free to dismiss my following subjective impression.

The Meze 109 Pro is lauded and praised by many reviewers and people in the headphone community. I found its treble to be way too hot and I couldn't comfortably listen to more than 1.5 songs with it. This anecdote ties into the sentence you conclude with

> most headphone will sound the same, differences probably will be in perceived treble levels which other research also proves (treble sensitivity etc.).

My experience with the 109 differs from most. And it sounds different to me than it does to someone else.

If you think that any given headphone will sound the same to everyone who tries it, then we disagree and I'm not budging on this point. I don't mean to come across as stubborn or anything but there is not a single headphone that everyone agrees to sound the same. Sure there are general trends e.g. DT990 is bright, but how much a headphone is enjoyed will vary from person to person.

You're welcome!

Measured frequency response (at least for over ears) will not match exactly what you hear because the measurement rig has a different anatomy than your ears.

This is a graph of 40 different peoples perception of FR, and the divergence starts at 1Khz.

So how a headphone looks on its FR, and how it is perceived by the individual, is totally subjective.

Check out the paper: https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/227875122/1995_M_ller_et_al_AES_Journal_a.pdf

If OP wants to know more- here's a decent wikipedia article on Equal-loudness contour - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour

Awesome! Thank you for the comparison

Nice! I tried it at Capitol Audiofest the other month but wasn't blown away by it. It was in a noisy environment so I reckon the things that made it special got drowned out by the ambient noise. Also, I believe you can't properly judge a transducer until you've spent at least 3 or 4 hours with it.

• How does it compare to the LCD-5 you own? And do you EQ?
• What energizer are you using?

Happy listening!

The mic clips in Pneuma by Tool. One happens at 9:58, another at 10:16, and multiple times after 10:43 in the outro. All in the left channel. Music is a human creation and by extension it will be flawed. I like to hear flaws because it makes it more real to me.

> I have no experience when it comes to headphones the only thing i’m worried about is the sharp highs people have mentioned with the 1990s as i have quite sensitive hearing.

The HD600s are the safer bet IMO. This isn't to say you wouldn't like the 1990s over the 600s but there's a reason the HD600s are one the most celebrated headphone of all time. And for 130 quid less, I'd go this route.

Does the place you're ordering from have a return policy?

> too long didn't read: TWS earbuds are the only future for IEMs

Emphasis added. Be careful when using absolute statements. We're a community of psychos that put audio fidelity (whatever that means to each of us) above everything else.

> sales for wired products will not even make a shadow in the soon to become massive, wireless market.

That's already the case and has been the case ever since Apple released Airpods (if not sooner). But the wired IEM resurgence in the past 5ish years took place despite such a small market percentage wired IEMs make up.

> Why use headphones at home? They'll never sound as good as a hi-fi speaker system. I've tried.

Disagree with your subjective impression but in no way is it "wrong" nor do I mean to imply it is. Just speaking from my own preferences.

Obviously, headphones won't deliver the chest feel of a stereo system nor will they deliver a soundstage on the level of stereo. But on pure sound quality, my headphones eek out my 2.1 system. Both cost roughly the same (LCD-5 vs. Philharmonic BMR towers) and both employ DSP (convolution to measure "flat").

There's something to the immediacy of music notes when you have a planar driver 3" from your ear drum that the stereo lacks. And that in turn changes the perception of sound.

There are mic clips in so much music. Luckily it makes you appreciate the well mastered stuff and follow the other projects the mastering engineer worked on.

I feel like my ears are broken. So many people love the Elite but I didn't. I A/B'd them next to the LCD-5 for a week and the Elite (IMO) is a significant step down in sonic attributes. I perceived its imaging to be blobish in comparison.

Just me though and hope you enjoy your set immensely.

Yeah I'd say. But I grew up with a headset since I played video games with them and glasses. So I have thousands of hours with the feeling.

Sounds like it would be! I know they make glasses that are designed to be worn with motorcycle helmets and pilot headsets.

I wear glasses and you get used to it. I find it helps to move the glasses off the bridge of my nose slightly

Wouldn't you still feel the pads around your ear?

I would love to somehow blind test headphones. I'm not a dogmatic person and would love to eat crow and save some money by selling the LCD-5 and just chilling with HD660. But there's things it does that the 660 can't (at least sighted).

The downfall of headphone blind testing is that you would feel the pads. And I'd be able to know which brand is which by the pads haha (Hifiman is egg shaped, Sennheiser is oval, DCA is "D" shaped, Beyer is circular, and Audeze is rectangular with lots of cushion).