Yup. Have to quit while you're ahead lol. I agree about the 5k. It's wonderful.

It’s warm enough to be smooth and pleasant, not overbearing. Has enough punch to stay fun, I miss them!

Headphones I stopped when I learned how to eq to my taste. What I grab/reach for Iem: k10 ciem, monarch mk1

Headphone: lcd 2 closed, my hd800 has stayed on its case for a few years now. Haven’t sold because it was my first “endgame”

I haven’t bought a new headphone since early 2020. I’m extremely happy with the two pair I have, my speakers which don’t cost a ton blow them out of the water, and I always find myself wanting to listen to things through the gear I have when I’m trying out other, “better” headphones. I did buy a moondrop aria snow edition for convenience this year, but it was filling a use case my headphones couldn’t fill. I don’t think I’ll be upgrading those in a long time either.

I’ve got a 650 and an Audeze El-08 closed (The third revision that has foam over the drivers.). Both do different things extremely well, the Audeze’s handle percussion incredibly have an insanely linear low-end all the way to 20, the 650‘s have amazing warm mids. I’ve got an amp with more than enough power and a transparent DAC (and an ipod with a wolfson DAC that adds some fun warmth to things). I want to enjoy the music now.

This is the internet, there IS NO MiDDLE GROUND sir.

A lot crappy headphones are just muddied with bass. Remove a lot of that bass and the overall detail retrieval will still be bad. It’s really just the distortion that EQ makes by adding volume to certain frequencies. One section will ruin the sound for the rest of the spectrum. That’s why tuning is important as you will hear the most resolution the driver can provide without distorting the whole thing with EQ

I feel like I'm at endgame with a 660s, though a part of me is itching to mod some KSC75s just for fun

Read the last word as cannabis

Might not be placebo. I have a copper cable and a silver cable and they sound ever so slightly different. Also they’re in different lengths so that could be playing a part too. But in essence, cables can make a difference.

I stopped buying headphones at HD580. I have enough budget speaker sets as well that I've gotten over the years, all sounding more than good enough, I have no itch for higher end speaker gear. So I only buy IEMs now, which tend to be a lot cheaper, even there I'm close to endgame. So I probably have 1 or 2 higher end IEMs ahead of me, and maybe a subwoofer upgrade, that's it. I see myself getting more into modding and rolling accessories in the future.

You cannot. But you can give the illusion of instruments being farther away by recessing the mids, especially the upper mids from 900hz-3khz lol

I reached an end game setup in 2014 with the HD800S, Apex Teton headphone amp, and the PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC and Transport. I had owned about 8 other headphone amps and numerous TOTL headphones in the prior decade, none of which measured up to this setup.

As an aside, I also bought an Eddie Current 4-45 tube amp in 2014 after a bunch of shills on the forum Changstar, predecessor of SuperBestAudioFriends, said that the heavens parted when they heard the 4-45. One of the Changstar mods - who soon thereafter went to work full-time for Eddie Current - even referred to the 4-45 as “the God amp”. The 4-45 ended up sounding OK, but was both dry and lean and not as good as the Teton. It has extremely expensive tubes, repeatedly blows fuses, and is not supported by the builder, Craig Uthus, who has since retired. Bottom line: avoid expensive amps that are hyped on forums by friends of the amp’s builder (e.g. DNA).

Last summer, I had a change in living arrangements that meant I could not use an open-back headphone anymore. I first went down the portable amp and IEM route, which is very convenient but offers inferior sound quality to a desktop setup and full-size headphones. I recently bought a used set of ZMF Verite Closed at a good price, which competes pretty well with the HD800s in terms of sound quality but is a step down in comfort - the HD800S are the world’s most comfortable headphones, whereas the VC are very heavy.

Even including my recent purchases, I’m much less active in buying/selling headphone gear than I was prior to 2014 and still consider the HD800s and Apex Teton to be my end game if I can go back to using open-back headphones.

Idk if I count as being in this hobby, I’ve been lurking in this sub a long time though. I got koss portapros and have been happy ever since, would like to get some iems here soon just for added convenience in some situations. But definitely not eating up my wallet on the hobby.

Yeah, especially when it adds a ton of midbass to Andromeda which is the opposite of their graph. The build and feel is amazing though, can't believe they're only $20.

On the one hand, it’s understandable; there’s a lot of snake oil in the industry and there are some pretty sensible-sounding rebuttals to expensive cables (“what about the cables inside the amp?”). For that reason, people don’t trust anything that can’t be demonstrated with an A/B blind test, even though they have their own demonstrable problems and are almost never conducted on/by people who would have the faintest clue what to listen for.

But there’s a difference between healthy skepticism and the r/headphones equivalent of an arrogant 14-year-old atheist who denies our understanding of solid state physics and human hearing and instead spouts “hurr durr can’t tell the difference on MY chi-fi IEMs!” every time someone mentions any part of the audio chain that isn’t headphones. Some kind of middle ground of “cables theoretically make a difference but you shouldn’t lose sleep over it unless you’re picking up some serious interference” would go a long way, but Reddit is incapable of nuance.

I love coiled cables

Yes. Got my HD800S and never looked back.

Yes

Yep. Ever since buying the Meze Elites, I've been done looking at new headphones.

What if I clip it to my pants?

I was cleaning my room (I live in an attic) and was enjoying my headphones using it's included 10 ft cable plugged into my iPod on my bed, which is in the middle of my room so I was able to get almost everywhere I needed to clean.

I bought a short cable for my desk but kept the stock HD800 cable since its super long for listening from bed side also. I feel like the new cables make the sound punchier but that is most definitely just placebo.

For me personally, I'm more than satisfied with my setup. Must say that everytime that I use my gear for some listening sessions, i'm blown away by the sound. Already reached endgame and not planning on upgrading anymore in the near future. This hobby is addicting plus very costly and you never feel satisfied with what you currently have.

Headphone: Hifiman Ananda non stealth

DAC/AMP combo: Fiio Q1 Mark 2

Cable: Meze 99 classic balanced 2.5 mm

Just some no name nonsense. I haven't gotten a good extension yet

Which extension cables do you all use with your IEMs?

I am currently making do with a 15 ft Mogami 2549 cable I had bought for use with my headphones, but would like to find a light weight cable that doesn't tug down when I have to move around.