What mods can you do to them

And you may mod KSC-35 to improve SQ quite a lot.

I'm sure!

Sounds expensive

Yeah, not so smart when you think about it that way are you?

It does get louder, but when comparing I adjust it to be as close as I can get it. It is also clearer and has less smearing of details at all listening volumes.

I'm sure your new dongle certainly gets louder

I already own the dongle but thanks for the tip, I did order a 1/4 to 3.5mm socket so I can use the wires with no mic for music. In warzone it’s pretty crazy I can walk by a house and hear a box and think I bet that’s on the second floor and it is. With my h6pro I would get the direction but could never tell what floor. The tuning on the headset it a bit off. You can hear steps and boxes maybe a bit better, but because they are so loud it’s hard to pin point where they are.

I'm not very good at describing sound, so my list will just be the names of headphones. It also won't be in any particular order.

Anyways:

• HEDD Audio HEDDphone
• Audeze LCD-3
• Raal Requisite SR1a (but only if paired with VM1a amplifier)
• Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro
• Kennerton Audio GH40
• Warwick Acoustics Bravura
• Meze Audio Liric
• Grado Labs SR325e
• Modhouse Audio Argon MK3
• Rosson Audio Design RAD-0

Are you saying that the Apple dongle is the ultimate headphone amplifier and can not be surpassed in fidelity?

So how do I use the AutoEQ manually for my own targets?

🤡

I don't get it. I don't think they understand what they're saying, but people in here are basically arguing that the Apple dongle is the end of the road and the final word in headphone amp fidelity.

Mine sound different, not just louder.

My EU Apple lightning dongle doesn’t power my Ety ER4SR to high volumes in classical recordings (i.e. not normalised/compressed by loudness wars) in any but the louder sections. It has a sensitivity of 97 dB (45 Ohm impedance). I’d love to have that dongle without the EU constraints.

Please do not trust me bro. I should not have trusted the people who said the Apple dongle was the last word in headphone amp fidelity, and you should not trust me.

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

The difference between colors of light is the length of the wave of Electromagnetic radiation hitting your eye. Something that can be quite literally measured.

You way off track. I'm sorry but people can actually hear objective differences in sound. We can be tricked, but more often we are right. Especially those of us who are trained to critically listen to sound, which as a recordist, I am.

Same with your eyes, ever heard of optical illusion?

So are your fucking eyeballs, yet you can tell the difference between red and orange. Done with you dunces.

I've had one go bad and screw up the sound before. There's no ESD protection apart from the plastic casing, so the DAC can potentially accumulate damage in an audible way. The difference between it and the replacement I got was night and day.

I feel like I haven't seen much about these since they launched, so here goes.

Coming from an HE560v4 I found myself looking for a bit more resolving headphone that could handle bass better, with good seperation and imaging. Wound up with these just a few days ago.

A couple things I immediately noticed:

Detail. For sure. Went from 7/10 to a solid 9.5 in terms of what I am used to. These do soft little dynamic background things extremely well and I've noticed new subtleties in all kinds of music. Not every song has it to the same extent, and things never come off as falsely overemphasized(?) the smallest things are just there where they never were. Feeling like I can tell exactly how much spit there was when the vocalist just did that thing with their mouth, feeling like I can hear the air reverberating through an acoustic guitar. Wind instruments get that same awesome sense of airiness. Not every recording has the same level of emphasis though, I feel like these are 'honest' in that respect. If the producer wanted you to hear it, you hear it. Different recording environments are made apparent on these for better or worse, but not in a way that has made anything unpleasant so far.

Bass: It may not be as encapsulating as something like an Edition XS (to me), but it's far from disappointing. If I were to A/B these with the XS I think I might almost find the XS a little bloated in comparison. It's not that I found their bass muddy or something; in comparison to the Venus it seems like the XS have just enough bump in the low end to where details can be pushed back or lost altogether sometimes during busy passages. I noticed that difference starkly when I listened to DnB and bass house on the Venus. These thump. They slam a bit too. Again, it seems like if the producer wanted there to be bass there is ample bass. Things like low synths and all that 20-60hz wonkiness you find in some EDM music are faithfully reproduced. Bass detail is very good, clean & refined even, while still providing a satisfying amount of thump.

Highs/Treble: It's good. Things have more "thwack" than I'm used to. Female vocals are more present as well, sometimes verging on 'ethereal' feeling if that makes any sense at all. Goosebumps have occurred more than once already. I'll admit these can get a little intense at times if you're listening at high volume, but I tend to take that as an indicator I should probably bump it down a bit. To me the nature of these is that they kind of make you actively listen to whatever content you've got going. Is that 'analytical'?

Timbre: These headphones helped me understand this word. I see the word 'natural' thrown around a lot and I feel like it really fits here. At least when referenced to the limited pool of Hifiman and Sennheiser products I've heard. Vocals are more forward (but not seemingly not moreso than instruments!) than with anything else I've heard, super clear. Stringed instruments sound so nice and full and plucky. Wind instruments sound real. Snare drums tend to have awesome 'pop' and that sense of airiness I mentioned is there sometimes with all percussion depending on the recording, most electronic music aside. Anything that my brain wants to have impact seems to have an appropriate amount of impact to satisfy.

Staging/Imaging: Still figuring this one out but I am liking what I hear. I think I agree with some reviewers in that these may not image as accurately as something like an XS (just gonna keep shamelessly referencing those) but a.) I'm not bothered by it, and b.) it does not seem to always be the case with all tracks/genres. It's close imo. Seperation of musical elements and textures is laser precise, but one cannot always quite pinpoint exactly where those different elements are in space... I would directly compare the size of the stage on these to the XS, but these are more variable whereas the XS seemed to make almost everything sound equally large. With these some tracks sound concert-hall-big and some come across more intimate like a studio recording. When I play Squad with these I can for sure hear things happening further away than I have with any headphone ever; PC37x, HE4xx, HE560v4, XS... none of those are on par with these with how big they can sound, in my opinion. When gaming in general I have not noticed a much of difference thus far in being able to pinpoint sounds, which is okay because I do think the HE560 I'm used to already had great imaging. Weirdly enough it's only in some music tracks thus far that I notice slightly blurred imaging.

Let's see what else.. Power? I would say drive these off at least a semi-beefy little amp for the best experience. It's a bit odd. With some tracks and genres these need more power to get to the volume I'm accustomed to, some significantly less. I can see how these are purported to be a little amp picky. Through my Archel 2.5XL the "loud" setting can live anywhere from 12 o'clock w/ low gain to 2-3 o'clock w/ high gain. Note my amp's high gain multiplier is reduced from their normal factor of 6x down to 4x.

So coming from what I had, and having tried an XS, I am much happier with these than I thought I could be within this price bracket. I am sitting down and just listening to things for longer periods of time than before, looking for things with my ears again because I feel like if details were put somewhere these are gonna go and find them and show me.

Edit: The only negative I really have so far is that the unbalanced cable + 3.5mm->1/4in adapter provided seem to not be the best. I've had a couple instances where I rotated the connector slightly and lost volume, lost some instruments, maybe vocals too, etc. I haven't been able to get any ill effects from just twisting or rubbing the cable itself so that's a plus, but the connections do seem a little spotty. So planning to invest in a nicer cable soon for sure. I'm sure the included 4.4mm cable is great, I'm just unable to use it with my amp. Otherwise the build of these is fantastic and really speaks for itself just in picking them up, putting them on, adjusting, etc. Very very solid feeling all around.

Feed your son once a while.

HD600?

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.