The way that air can freely move around the back of the driver actively contributes to the sound of the headphone. Remember that any speaker moves backwards and forwards - hence sound comes off both sides of it. So a closed back headphone design has to consider how the sound coming off the back of the driver contributes to what the listener hears. Its much less of a concern for open backs.

As somebody else said - experiment by placing your hands over the back of your open back headphones and hear the sound change. Also move them away slowly and hear the sound change gradually back to normal.

The fact is that probably >90% of the people posting this sub have never heard anything close to 'Summit Fi'. Also >90% have probably never tried high end closed backs. There is nothing valuable to be learned from this poll.

Leaving more or less anything out in direct for sunlight for too long is likely to cause some sort of UV degradation. However, over the period of time that it takes them to dry... I'd say unlikely.

Dry them in the shade for peace of mind.

TBF I tried them for 2 hours and they still sounded fairly terrible...

Honestly you've be better with LCD2 Closed than with 820.

I went to the shop ready to buy the 820s and the 2 Closed outperforms them by a long shot... And costs less!

The vast majority of 'power conditioners' are basically 4-way extensions inside a rackmount unit. You basically get a surge protector, an EM filter, and maybe a rack light or a little voltmeter.

The only way to actually 'condition' your power is to use an inline sin wave UPS. Fortunately these have become inexpensive these days, so do that, rather than pissing around with a Furman.

What's your problem with closed back?

I have literally never judged an amplifier by how it looks. So that one's new on me. Some of my hifi is on a Bryston amp which is literally just a heatsink with binding posts. Not a pretty thing.

I mean when it comes to how something sounds, I say buy it from wherever it comes from. But value for money... You'll always get more from China. But there's an invisible cost.

But, you are contributing to the Chinese slavery industry rather than paying a skilled American technician to make your amp.

Its a real thing. We do need to take it seriously.

For value for money yes you'll usually get more buying chinese goods than American. But you're sending your money into the wrong economy and in the long run we run the risks of losing these skills.

I could literally never spend that much money on a pair of headphones I have not tried. And I just don't understand people who do, either. Is there really a hobby in blind-buying expensive headphones just to own them?

I have 6 pairs but they were bought to fulfil purposes that I identified through hearing about them and confirmed by listening to them. And I didn't always buy the ones I'd heard about.

I started with HD650s and HD25s because I inherited them from my dad (the HD25s were his in-flight headphones from Concorde, they're still branded). I found the 650s often sounding very dull with a lot of music I like, so I bought Grado RS2Es which compensate well on that front and also add a bit of a spatial separation which I enjoyed enough to decide I wanted them. That said they majorly lack deep bass and I found myself wanting something that could really do sub bass properly, which Audeze were a clear contender for, and after lots of testing I arrived at the LCD-2 closed back, being my favourite. So I bought that. I also have Sony MX4s (over ear) for flying as they are ANC. I liked their sound a lot but didn't want to always carry the big case around for my daily commute, so I bought the in ear version as well.

What I'm getting at here is that every purchase was made as the result of me identifying that I wanted something specific, and trying multiple models to identify which one did that best for me. I have never just gone and bought headphones off the cuff because to me there is simply no point. I don't understand what you gain.

Honestly I don't know what you were expecting.

Sound has not changed in the last billion years so I wouldn't expect any updates there.

Transducer technology has not seen any major updates - the market is much smaller than it used to be anyway. Headphones is a really tiny part of that market. And all the technology updates in the headphone world have really been aimed at convenience (Bluetooth, charging etc) and playing with the sound via DSP since consumer headphones are virtually all self-powered now.

And "better" sound is a subjective term - what were you expecting? There were already headphones which could reproduce a recording in such a way that your ear could not discern it from the real instrument so what else would have been delivered?

I don't see new headphones as breaking new ground using the latest technology anyway.

Very few people can tell the difference between DACs under blind testing. Most of what they're hearing is psychological... they've decided what they want to hear, and they hear that because that makes them feel good.

I ran a blind test in a room full of audiophiles. It was a professionally treated listening room with PMC speakers (IB2 I think which is a pretty high-end speaker) running from Bryston amps which are pretty unarguably the best amps you can buy. The converters were all top-end studio converters rather than hi-fi converters but principally the same thing.

Converters were tested in blind and people were asked to complete a form as they listened, and identify which was which and which was their favourite. The options were:

• Prism ADA-8XR
• Apogee DA16
• IZ Radar 24
• Burl B2
• Avid 192 (Black)
• MOTU 828mkIII
• Macbook Pro (H/P socket)
• Clickwheel iPod (H/P socket)

Between that lot you have a value enough to buy a house.

The results were absolutely all over the shop with virtually no correlation. Numerous people with 5-figure hifi setups put down their favourite DAC as being the iPod. Generally the favourite was the Apogee but the results were pretty much a bit of everything. The Macbook Pro got more 'favourite' votes than the Prism, which is, on paper, the one credited for being 'scientifically' accurate.

Incidentally in the same room we also did a test with various speaker wire, from QED, Monster, some boutique brands... and also a piece of 1.5mm flex from a £5 consumer grade power extension lead like you'd find behind your TV. The latter was pretty consistently voted the best sounding speaker cable.

What about buying a pro audio graphic EQ?

You can get old Klark Teknik units on ebay for pretty cheap, the DN360 is the classic model used on some of the biggest gigs ever. But the XTA and BSS ones are also really good.

You wouldn't normally do headphone EQ with a graphic - most people say parametric. But perhaps with a graphic it'll be easier for you to feel the curve by hand.

Buy a pair of HD600s and a Modi. That's than enough to get started then refine your taste from there.