Did talk ab it lol

Yeah it be like that, at least I have a few friends that's in the same boat as me :)

Pretty average hand, these do have gigantic cups, like far from touching my ears

Lmao yeah surprising I know, I'm still waiting for quite a few of my cans to sell, and probably will look to selling my 009s as well. X9000 I only got because there was a good deal for it and I simply couldn't watch it slip :p

But happy new year to you as well

Yeah for real, x9000 is built and designed with such elegance, and a good throwback to omega as well. Really like the looks

009s is fairly intimate to me, like it's less than say LCD 5 but with sufficient volume it's very close and center imaged, and it has some peaks, compared to the x9000, so comparatively it sounds like there's a lot of artificial forwardness in the 009s.

When I got the 009s to begin with I was hoping for a relaxed sound to compliment 1266 but it wasn't at all.

Also heard very good things about z10e, not sure how that compared to the cayman and t2.

Also yeah funny we have the same experience switching between the two, but I can see me enjoying both still, 1266 is just a fun boom cannon, and going back to x9k after adjusting it sounds the most correct to me.

Yeah man, I'm generally curious about BHSE or T2 and SRL as well, but honestly don't have any plans to get them anytime soon from budget restraints lol, KGST so far has been quite good and maybe I'll look into trying out T2 when I sell some of my other headphones.

Also yeah I didn't think 1266 can be beaten really, and even now if I get used to 1266 and switch back to x9k, x9k end up sounding very very "flat and boring" until I get adjusted to the soft sound. But once I do, and switching to the 1266 sounds way too boomy.

LOL, yeah bravura was good but I canthandl the comfort, and it image and stage nothing like the x9000, also aren't all that natural compared to even 009s, and nowhere near x9k.

Generally speaking according to what I've heard these are the closest to ShangriLa and Orpheus than anything else, and probably he1?

Ignorant is a bliss, but tbh I always tell people as long as you buy used at the right price, as long as you don't break them they retain value pretty well so... Basically renting ¯_(ツ)_/¯

KGST for amp, I don't EQ the x9000 nor LCD5.

I think the x9000 is very soft sounding compared to almost everything else and that in particular is not very "blown away" kind of sound, so it's definitely not immediately obvious what it's capable.

Also to some degree it's so natural and laid back that it doesn't sound very impressive just from pure reaction compared to most other flagships that shoves things into your face. And yeah the noisy floor definitely doesn't help either.

I think x9000 vs LCD 5 would be somewhat similar to comparison between it and 1266, so lcd5 being quite a bit more dynamic sounding, but lcd5's soundstage is very small compared to x9k I believe, and imaging while good still sound unnatural. Many things would sound unnatural compared to x9000, but lcd5 does Excel at male vocal imo, and percussive instruments it does really well, but lacks in acoustic instruments and the mids gets pretty shouty sometimes, where x9000 is very neutral instead, and one of the less shouty flagships since things are pushed back a little bit. But at the same time it's definitely more detailed than LCD5

Yeah, Warwick bravura also has bass, like a lot, which are also estats.

x9000's bass is fairly neutral, maybe on the light side, but doesn't super depleted.

Having owned a fairly extensive list of many very end-game worthy headphones, LCD5, SR1A, Diana TC, 1266TC, susvara, sr009s and bravura, I didn't think there's anything that can be a "end-all" headphone that so much better than my previous 009s - 1266TC swap set-up, but the x9000 did it.

It's been quite a few days since I received the x9000, and it was not immediately obvious what the strengths of it were, but nonetheless it was a very spectacular performer without comparison, but after some time with it, it's clear that the sense of naturalness is superior than everything I've owned previously, with no compromise in detail and speed whatsoever.

While the 1266 being the only one that to me still holds some ground against x9000, the immense unnaturalness becomes very apparent when I compare them, where my Diana TC and 009s merely sounds flawed compared to either.

In the case of x9000 vs 009s, like many others have pointed out the x9000 does have a rather more laid back sound to it compared to the 009s, and things sound further away, yet with such width and separation it doesn't detour the center image of say like a vocalist, and doesn't leave me wanting more intimacy from it often.

Compared to 009s, which I considered to be very natural sounding to begin with, the vocal naturalness and imaging/stage sounds much more correct and well placed to me on the x9000, and it's also slightly more resolving sounding but unclear whether there are more details from x9000.

Diana TC vs x9000 is pretty disappointing on the TC side, imo a tamed version of 1266, better for lower quality recordings, but other than that not particularly notable.

Ab1266 vs x9000 is rather interesting, after being used to the bass quantity on the x9000, the 1266 does sound a little boomy in comparison, but because the tuning for mids and highs are pretty agressive it helps them to not be drowned by the bass. That was never my experience the 1266 until having being used to the x9000, but compared to the very very smooth sounding bass mid and highs on the x9000 the peaks and tuning signature of 1266 sounds much more prominent in comparison. However while the tuning is unnatural on the 1266, for the genres I listen to it is still very good at making things sound good, still very enjoyable. X9000 sounds extremely soft and smooth compared to the 1266 that sounds hyper dynamic, punchy, and uneven, and it's clear which one is much more fun sounding.

Generally speaking x9000 once getting used to is very close to the all in 1 solution for all genres that I thought couldn't exist, for now the 1266 still has its place, but the 009s is beaten by the x9000 in like almost every regard, and simply sounds some what out of tune compared to x9000.

Chain for x9k/009s: XIAUDIO sagra dac -> KGST Chain for DianaTC/1266TC: sagra dac -> formulaS

1266TC EQed -7db at 12800khz.

Few final words on fit and finish, better than 009s, bigger cups, very comfortable for up to around 6-8 hours then the clamp gets to me a little bit, but unit seems extremely new so probably comfort will improve as I wear them more. I also do prefer the looks of them by far over the 009s, the machining and chassis is very stunning to me. Flawless, luxurious look and feel, cable still bulky like every other stax but at least it's removable...

Poor guy refuse to comprehend analogies, truly delusional.

Whatever u say man, I like my bass guitar sound like proper bass guitar not some muddy mess but if you insist the mud is the way to go then feel free ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I wonder who's the one that's ignorant lul

Cheers to someone who's ignorant enough that thinks they can change engine pipes to make a civic into Bugatti lul

Having heard over 80 sets and owned 30+ from 30$ to 6000$+ I'd say I know what I'm listening for, compared to 95% of people out there especially on reddit. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

It's not like I listened to hd650 or focal clear for years before I started getting into TOTLs or anything right.

The most obvious measurement to how good a headphone is, is obviously enjoyment, the other not so obvious measurement is how "realistic" it sounds.

I think it's safe to say that anyone with ears can tell me a guitar sounds more real on any of the flagships I mentioned vs hd650, for a multitude of reasons from detail to tonality to resonance to decay.

If you recorded a guitar heard it live, then heard it played back it's easy to say which one sounds more real.

It's the difference between a synth piano vs Steinway grand, if you choose that the Steinway doesn't sound like what "piano" is supposed to sound to you, and it's colored, then so be it. Don't mind the Craftsmanship and careful tuning put into modern grands.

If Sennheiser truly believed hd650 was the least flawed possible then there would be no point for their hd800, he1, Orpheus.

You sure convinced your self that your hearing is better than it really is lul

Sensitive ears per se, having being used to hifi and flagships for a long time it's shocking to me I ever thought the hd650 sounded good when I put them on nowadays.

Lcd4 was the most "it sounds better the louder you go" headphone for me, and i couldn't stop turning it up...

It's not like I blast music at 100db+ for more than 30min to an hour at a time often anyways, and lower volume listening or regular web browsing is far from fatiguing to me.

Sounds like nocebo to me, coming from the hd650 to focal clear to lcd5 and Myriad of other flagships I never really found them particularly fatiguing, or rather it was easy to get used to them, in return making mid-hifi cans sound muddy in comparison.

Even hd650 has a 1k peak but it's just 2-3 DB lower.

yeah I can see that, sometimes I imagine if there's anything that somewhat combined the strengths of the flagships, and so far the closest I've heard is probably x9000 or bravura...

Yeah well obviously theoretically there can't be zero flaws, but some of them are so universally good that had you not compared them you would never think it's lacking in anything...