Could be a coincidence, but not one I’d bet a $1000 IEM on. I would not keep using it, personally.

Well, I certainly wouldn’t have an expensive headphone rig if I didn’t like headphones, but ultimately different folks have differenent degrees of giving-a-shit about headphone sound quality. At some point the average person is just going to reach a point where they’re not going to be 2x more impressed for 2x the money invested money invested. Maybe for OP the AT50X is that point, or he needs to listen longer and attune his ears to the XS. Maybe he doesn’t like Hifiman. I would try a new headphone before a new amp, anyway.

I would set expectations from a new amp low if it's not money you're comfortable spending. There are probably cheaper ways of getting your placebo effect fix (like trying the balanced output, if you're not using it already).

Ultimately every single headphone discussed here is just a headphone. It doesn't sound like good speakers in a room, it doesn't sound like you're in a concert hall, it's a pair of little drivers strapped to your head, and past a certain point of quality, nothing is going to blow your mind, you're just getting different flavors of... headphones. If you're not interested in optimizing various fairly minor differences, just buy something cheap/good, EQ it to your taste, and move on with life.

Unfortunately that’s not really enough to go on. The only concrete detail a few minutes of internet sleuthing turned up suggests the headphone out is limited to less than 1Vrms, which is pretty low for these AKGs. So, probably less than ideal, but the extent to which that is the case is unclear, since there’s no good numbers for what its headphone out can do.

You know what your phone’s headphone jack’s specs are?

Well, who knows? Your motherboard could have a well-engineered headphone out that transparently reproduces sound across human-audible range... or it may not. I doubt anyone has measured its performance, and mystery headphone jacks are a crapshoot. But I'd say if you can turn the volume up to 100% with loudly mastered music and bear to listen to it, you don't have enough headroom. That said, if I'm going to shell out for a standalone unit that lives on my desk, I'd get something a bit more endgame than the E10K (in the $150-200USD new range)

wait what they've got closed back sundaras?

somehow I've literally never heard of this. are they any good?

I wouldn’t buy a headphone I wouldn’t listen to without PEQ, because I don’t always have PEQ.

FR is only so useful, the blathering of reviewers usually even less so. In the absence of being able to test a headphone yourself, both have their uses.

If a good dac/hpa is in your budget, get one. If it’s not, I wouldn’t sweat it too much. If you’re getting the volume you need, the difference between an external dac/amp and a solid headphone jack like the iPad’s is probably placebo.

Try disabling audio enhancements in the Windows sound settings. If your OEM configured it to have a bunch of signal processing enabled by default and that’s the difference you’re hearing, that applies to all connected audio devices in my experience.

Sound quality differences? Unless these are extraordinarily long cables, only the imaginary sort.

Briefly listenened to them at a store (a few years back now) and remember feeling very puzzled by what Sennheiser was thinking marketing this as one of their flagships. Not for me, definitely not at MSRP anyway, but this is a very subjective matter. I’d wouldn’t spend too much money you can’t get back if they don’t work for you IMO

I’d just dial them out by ear. Headphone treble is tricky to measure, they might not even be where oratory measures them on the artificial ear when on your head. And one of the beauties of EqAPO is how easy it makes hunting down these annoying timbre-ruining peaks by just scanning for them with a notch filter.

>Do I need a amp/dac

Much like with headphones, it depends on the IEM and the random headphone jack in question. If you want to be safe, get something that is a known quantity.

Aside from noise, which is obvious enough, IEMs are usually low-impedance so you're most likely to run into trouble if your source has a high output impedance relative to the impedance of the IEM, which is unfortunately not a spec you can usually find for headphone jacks that aren't on dedicated headphone amps. Since the Dioko is a planar single-driver IEM, I assume its impedance doesn't vary with frequency, so this is less of an issue since this will only affect volume, but many IEMs have goofy impedance curves and inadequate amplification will significantly affect the frequency response.

Another question for anyone who knows: is the socket the pins go into usually part of the plastic shell, or is it a separate component that can come loose?

They are accessibility settings for the hearing impaired, so I guess being used as an EQ just wasnt the design goal.

There’s also some weird way to import an audiogram that apparently applies some EQ without crushing dynamic range, but I never figured out how to use it. If you feed it some random picture it will prompt you to manually input settings but I never worked out how to get useful results from it.

Those settings heavily compress dynamic range. Not really usable for high fidelity.

No issues except scratchy pots for me.

lol, as opposed to the usual "these headphones are so amazing it's like the band is playing in my living room" reviews here?

FYI apple makes a 3.5mm -> lightning adapter you can use to connect these wired. It’s $35 and really should have been included, but Apple gonna Apple

while I'm not disputing anyone's credibility, ultimately these guys are part of the headphone industry. "buy a solid pair of $200-$500 headphones, EQ them to taste, go on with your life" isn't a way to make a living as a head-fi "influencer"

You sure it's not busted somehow? I'm not a huge fan of the Aria (it has some kind of large >10KHz peak I find fatiguing) but it's pretty inoffensive all-rounder, like a slightly darker, bassier Chu.

$80 Aria is a pretty safe choice.
If you want to get spendier, the Blessing2 Dusk is more of a palpable upgrade instead of a sidegrade with a different tuning.

By the “some random person on some random tech site said a headphone is good” metric, my sony WH1000XM3s must be among the best sounding cans in the world. If you have no idea how a reviewer’s expressed opinions tend to correlate to your own, their takes are useless even if they’re not paid for.

I personally wouldn’t spend a major chunk of savings I couldn’t get back on a headphone I haven’t heard. Headphones are just too subjective. I’m not personally that fond of the HD800S and would rather own numerous other headphones in its price tier - though its also entirely possible that it’ll be your favorite headphone. There’s no can jams or local meets in your area?