>You are effectively arguing that the Apple dongle is the last word in headphone amp fidelity

Uhm no? Have you not read what I typed?

>I'm not saying that there is absolutely
no difference, I can't say for sure. I'm saying that your "trust me
bro" approach isn't convincing enough to claim that as "objective",
because that's what "objective" means

Anyways, what I'm saying is, you claimed that there's objective differences, but you only listened through you own ears, and you didn't describe how different they are apart from some vague terms like "more detail and clarity" in ONE comment. Also, in the other comment you made, you said that "Every single aspect of how an audio device sounds can be measured", well, instead of throwing around buzzwords and arguing your ass off with random internet strangers like me, how about you provide said measurements and how those measurements corresponds to your experience? Educate us.

I (clearly?) am not trusting you, but others, especially newcomers, might, because of how you pass off your "info" as facts.

Also, just because you're xxx professional of some sort, does not make your ears the "objective" tool. Please don't think that you're that much superior than us just because you work with audio.

I'm not saying that there is absolutely no difference, I can't say for sure. I'm saying that your "trust me bro" approach isn't convincing enough to claim that as "objective", because that's not what "objective" means

Same with your eyes, ever heard of optical illusion?

How are you able to claim that they're objectively different? Listening by ears? It's is not an objective way to do that because your ears (brain) is easily influenced by many factors.

That said, if you enjoy it, that's what matters the most. Even if it's just placebo, if money can buy happiness, I see it as an absolute win.

But , until you can come up with some convincing and reproducible way of proving one is indeed better than the other, please just enjoy it. Don't come claiming that how something is much better than the others just "by your ears", because these "info" might be misleading to people and probably lead to disappointment and money down the drain.

Are they comparable? Yes, they both have strengths and weaknesses when compared to each other. Over-ears (especially open backs) generally have better and more natural soundstage, but the iem more in-your-head type sound feels (to me) like more details is crammed into my ears. The rest of it is down to the specific iem and headphones imo. For example, I have the sundara and b2d, they’re both in the same price point. Sundara’s bass isn’t particularly special, but it still feels more natural and just plain better than the b2d to my ears. That’s not because iem bass are inherently bad, it’s just that b2d specifically doesn’t have a great bass. If I heard another iem that’s known for their bass I might think that sundara’s bass is bad this time around.

It’s really down to use case tbh, I can’t bring my full sized headphones out on the street, can I? (Technically I can, but you know what I mean). And I certainly don’t want to sweat in my full sized headphones when the weather is hot. That’s where iem comes into place: when I can’t, or just don’t want to strap a full sized can onto my head.

I listen to my wallet crying