this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Headphones

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This all started several weeks ago when a set of trusty earbuds broke on me. When I thought about it, there were things I didn't love about them (Cambridge Audio ones), so I got some Pixel Buds Pro as I liked the functionality. I was under no illusions about sound quality. They would sound good enough.

Then I started researching.

Then I kept going. And going. Now I'm sitting here with a Mojo Chord 2 DAC and some Sennheiser HD 6XX and Grado SR80s.

I'm now waiting on some Hifiman Anandas arriving today.

Can someone please tell me to stop, because now I'm browsing Aryas. And the Anandas haven't even arrived.

I know that I get addicted to deep dives on tech. And this is swallowing me.

I'm fully aware of diminishing returns, and I can tell from how you guys talk about listening to music that I don't have nearly the same sophistication or vocabulary. That said, I hear a clear difference between my Grados and 6XXs.

I expect I'll hear *some* difference between Ananda and Arya.

But should I spend a few extra hundred to get there? Will Anandas get me a solid upgrade from the HD 6XX (which I like fine). I can't help chasing better. Or am I just chasing different at this point?

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[–] Named-User-who-died@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

The validity of my following statement is unproven and may require criticism as I don't have access to various headphones and equalizers.

I imagine someone with OCD could get a headphone with an easily manipulatable frequency response when EQ is applied to emulate any other headphones they want with the exception of the fixed soundstage, transient response, imaging, detail retrieval and perhaps THD, though again, I don't have enough information to confirm the validity of this idea and perhaps I could create a post about this later, but if my statement is valid, I presume based on my current limited headphone knowledge that an HD800 series headphone or a Stax electrostatic (like the Stax SR-L300 + Topping EHA5 for 750$) + EQ and speaker emulation software would be the ultimate performance to cost ratio, they both have a good transient response, detail retrieval, THD level, and an easily manipulatable frequency response curve when EQ is applied, and they can both get excellent soundstage performance when using speaker emulation.