Compare the specs: https://www.fiio.com/k7_parameters
You will notice that balanced / normal are almost identical in distortion, impedance etc. except for power, there the balanced almost doubles.
ConsciousNoise5690
joined 2 years ago
It is called masking. A bird is whistling and a trains rolls by. You simply won't hear the bird as its sound is masked by the train.
The same applies to a lot of consumer gear. It often comes with a V-shape frequency response as people love a thundering bass and a brilliant treble but it comes at he expense of the midrange. It is masked by the bass and the midrange is exactly the place where all acoustic instruments live.
The 6xx is reasonably neutral, keep it that way!
Exclusive!
Just get a media player supporting wasapi/exclusive like Musicbee or Foobar.
I don't want to hear a email notifications when listening to a string quartet!
I want to play all recordings I have at their native sample rate. No need to have it resampled to the system default as dictated by the shared mode setting.
Is shared mode bad? No, if you have a 24 or 32 data path to your DAC you won't notice the difference (except for the email notifications). However, if you play recordings with a level close to 0 dBFS and resample, there might be audible distortion. This can be cured by using a EQ offering a pre-amp function.
Have you tried the Sennheiser Smart Control App?
As it is an older gaming headset (low latency) I don't think it supports Bluetooth at all but has its own proprietary tansmission protocol.
As the transmitter has various inputs, connect a Bluetooth receiver to e.g. the Toslink input and pair it with your phone
If the source you are listening to has a analog output as well you can try guitar and source both in to a mixer, mixer output into a Bluetooth transmitter
Most amps today have a ruler flat frequency response and distortion products at vanishing low levels. So as long as you don't drive them into clipping, they will sound the same or better formulated: they don't have a sound of their own so nothing audible that set them apart.
However, the interaction between the impedance of the amp and the impedance headphone might make an audible difference. If the amp has a impedance of 10 Ohm and you combine it with a headphone having a impedance of 30, you have a damping ration of 3. Way to low and will result in a bloated bass.
Combine at with a 300 Ohm headphone and you have a damping ration of 10, a value considered sufficient.
However the biggest difference is simply us. Most of the time we don't test properly. We simply listen with our eyes. We see that impressive piece of audio gear, we have read raving reviews, it has a eyewatering price tag so it must be good. And indeed, what we believe, we will hear. Most of these perceived differences are a product of our perception. Not to be mistaken for properties of a product.