I listen to my headphones 10 pm when my wife goes to bed till 2am when I go to bed. I couldn't use my speakers at 10pm at anything more than very very quiet.

You can but not everyone likes EQ or is using a source where EQ is possible. So alternate options are appreciated by some. I use mine with no pads as I love them as they come.

People seem to forget that you can ride a motorbike all day with a helmet on that weighs far more than a set of Audeze.

No problem. Great list!

FYI it's jack of all trades not jack of all traits.

I have the GX and they are great headphones, can be driven by anything. To answer your question on how you should drive them, let your ears decide. If you can't tell the difference then just go with whatever is the most convenient.

The cable without the microphone won't be any different in sound quality, but just a nicer quality cable in general and nice and long so if you are going to plug them into a dedicated amp and then set back on a sofa or comfy chair, a nice long cable is great.

If you are going HDMI in to your tv, would you not be better just disabling the hdmi audio and directing audio straight to your dac from your PC? You are converting it to analogue, then back to digital, then back to analogue.

A (possibly) surprising number of people do not care, that's how :)

Me personally I use the volume on my DAC. I don't believe I could tell the difference between bit perfect and not.

The Sundara was my into into planar magnetic headphones too, and from that point on I was hooked. They are still the headphone to get in that budget. I remember being amazed at the clarity, and for me at least they were a definite step up from the HD600, which I know some people will take as sacrilege but they HD600 just lacked the low end I needed.

I shortened the headband on my LCD 4z and my LCD GX. I know some people take issue with it, and some people think it's a design flaw. It probably is, but it is still more comfortable than the old headband they used. Took me a few mins to mod my headphones and now they are super comfortable so I'm happy.

Have you done the mod where you shorten the leather to fix this?

Jumped in at the deep end there! Lovely headphones.

Funny you see guys that have gone bald from headphones but no woman ever seems to go bald from headphones.

Almost like it isn't the headphones...

No he was commonly depicted in red before coke stuck their oar in. He was also depicted in green or blue, but red was far from uncommon. They just want you to think that because their logo is red.

Love my Aeon 2 Noire, currently my closed back end game. One day I might own the stealth, but it's not on the cards currently.

If you boot into a live linux environment does it do the same thing? If so, it is hardware on the laptop somehow.

If not not then it is software and to be honest I would just make sure you have backups (which you should anyway) and re install a fresh install of windows as it looks like you have tried a great many things.

You will never find a controlled frequency response graph of a headphone before burn in and after burn in showing any difference, because there isn't.

What does exist:

Brain burn in - where you get used to how a headphone sounds and start to notice the intricate details it can present, or the low end that you thought was lacking but is actually just a little recessed but better quality than your previous headphones.

Pad burn in/wearing out - if you use a headphone for a long time, the pads will wear down which will change the sound of the headphones. It is not the driver itself burning in.

Changing how you wear the headphones - if you increase or reduce the clamp, start wearing glasses, have a lot of hair cut off or grow a lot of hair, these can all change how your headphones sound.

You have two Empyreans?!

I had the original gunmetal ones first but they had terrible planar crinkle and went back. I much prefer the darker black, it is also harder wearing.

If it sounds good to you then why change. Love my Empys, never put cat ears on them though. I do wish I had the copper sides rather than the black, yours look awesome especially with the matching cable.

Absolutely fantastic track. I use this to show people my headphones. Fantastically produced.

If they sound good to you then that is what matters. I have some silly priced headphones but I have never felt the ned to replace the Timeless with something better.

Don't feel silly at all, they are my favourite IEMs as well.

Looks cool, got a link to it?

They really are. I was looking for some end game closed backs and went through the Audeze LCD XC, and the Sony MDR-Z1R before settling with the noire. It's like a closed back that doent sound like a closed back. Watch the DMS review on them on YouTube if you have the time

If I had the cash I would get them, but for now the Aeon 2 Noire will see me through. The AMTS in the Stealth is very very interesting and the first time I have seen anything actually pushing boundaries with a new technology.