Apple Music is good. I used the student discount of spotify for awhile because Apple Music didn’t always have a discount. I would say it like this…

If you value knowing that you are streaming high quality audio, go with Apple Music.

If you like being able to discover new music very often, go with Spotify.

For a brief period I had both but only use Spotify now. I personally didn’t think that the higher quality audio was worth my extra money.

TL;DR: It is possible… but not really.

There is a few reasons. The first is the variance that occurs between products of the same model. Basically even headphones of the sane model still don’t sound exactly the same. Secondly, auto EQing to a target is fairly inaccurate in the treble frequencies (I don’t know why. It’s just something that I and others have noticed). Lastly, drivers have limitations. Not all drivers are capable of delivering specific FR without audibly distorting. I’m also sure that there is some limitations to how headphones are currently measured in terms if datapoints as well. There is a lot.

I have no idea about headphones, but I recall a buddy of mine messing with the magnets in his guitar pickups and it caused some serious issues for him. Signal cutouts galore, and the biggest kicker was that, somehow, some magnets were demagnetized by the other magnets.

Fuck, this just hit me. Hard for some reason. I need to make a phone call.

First off, you aren’t in the wrong. You just have a different taste in sound. Secondly, as much as I love the DT 770, you are correct about their hollow nature. They have a dip around 200hz which makes them sound thinner, and another dip at around 3.8Khz followed by a rise in the upper treble. So I can absolutely understand why you would perceive them as sounding hollow.

My experience with center image in music is that it tends to sound more “in your head.” The only way to really get a truly out of your head experience with headphones is when a track is mixed with that in mind or if you use an audio engine/dsp to simulate it.

Headphones are stereo devices by default. Good imaging on a stereo spectrum means pinpoint positioning of audio between far left and far right.

I commonly see people mention imaging in gaming and while it can be achieved (there are many game engines that support positional audio as well as simulate surround audio) the reality is that not all games support imaging through headphones. So keep that in mind if you plan to use your headphones for gaming.

Sundara, I’m kinda a jack of all trades, but a master of none.

I own both the Sundara and XS and would say they are both quite different. The XS has a much larger soundstage than the Sundara, but I would say that the Sundara has better imaging. I can definitely understand why people compare the two since they are relatively close in price, but I think the Edition XS is much closer the the Hifiman Ananda than it is the Sundara.

As for the AKG 712 and Sennheiser HD660S, I’ve heard great things, but I’ve never personally heard them so I can’t really recommend any actual opinions on them.

Personally, if you are looking for a combination of the two in the relative price range of the Edition XS, then I would recommend the Hifiman Sundara or AudioTechnica ATH-R70X. The R70X has insanely good imaging for its price and the soundstage is… decent, not as wide as the Sundara, but not narrow like an HD6x0 headphone. The Sundara is basically just good at both but not great at either.

It’s very hard to find headphones that do everything great. That’s why the ones that do cost a lot of money.

This is the issue. I have tinnitus. Trust me, it aint fun.

The people that I know who have tried them at a few events say that the driver array is good for metal and that’s about it.

Yeah, but my knob is bigger than your knob

I always hate the terminology of “properly power” simply because it implies that many amps cannot do it. Which isn’t true. Many amps are capable of powering most headphones, but not all amps deliver power as cleanly as others at certain settings. I actually had this question recently and got a very lovely short essay from GoldenSound. It basically came down to, “just because an amp can technically do it, doesn’t mean that it does it well.” I think the best example that I can give is my Element 3 vs my Apple dongle when powering my 250 Ohm DT 770 Pro. With the Apple dongle there is a ton of high end hiss that that goes beyond what the 770 is known for. It’s palatable, but definitely not pleasant. But with the Element 3, none of that is present. Different topologies allow for some amps to work better at lower gain settings. Hence why the Apple dongle has sizzle and hiss, but the Element does not. Ideally, you want to introduce as little gain into your signal as possible since gain will color the sound before it even reaches your headphones.

Beyerdynamic TYGR300 if you have a mic already, Sennheiser + Drop PC38x if you need something with a built in mic.

NGL, I was wondering why you needed a DAC and amp for the chus. My stupid ass thought the hifiman box was a desktop pc… I need to get some sleep.

I have an Edition-XS, the soundstage is wide but not massive. It is VERY good for classical and jazz music. I sometimes get the sensation of being in the room while I’m listening. As for describing them as natural or unnatural, I can’t really say. I’ve never really stopped to think of the soundstage of a headphone sounding natural. Just narrow, mild, medium, wide, or massive.

I like music and headphones provide me with different ways to experience the music that I like. It’s honestly that simple.

What is your source, and what is it set at?

When I use my setup I have windows set to 100% (Spotify at 90 since tracks can vary in volume) then I control all of my volume from my amp/dac. Before that I noticed distortion in my headphones and it was because I was sending a quiet signal (windows at like 30) and then amplifying the signal a lot more with the amp and that was what led to my distortion issues.

This is the best advice here. I’m only about 7 months in and I’ve spent a little over a grand. 🙃

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but FR graphs are also not pinpoint representations, correct? My understanding is that they smooth out the sample data.