Of course, from my experience the material themselves rarely matters. The stock copper cables that come with my empire ears have more pronounced mid treble compared to an aftermarket silver one, even though people say copper were supposed to sound warm.

I started with 6xx but never got to try them with a good amp. I have owned all 6 series at some point in my life and they are all more similar than different with probably 660s having least scaling.

I stick with 600 because of personal preference, its less darker. But if not A-B ing, I won't really notice it. Enjoy your set up, its a killer !

All the people who stopped buying gear are probably no longer browsing this subreddit anymore. I was like that for 3 years, but I'm back now :)

Well, what happens is your monitor has DAC built in so it is it that handles the decoding and amplification and those are generally not so good. And those headphones could definitely use some quality amplification. DT 177x are not power hungry so something simple like ifi zen dac air will do. I'd take headphones and go to audio store first to listen to DAC-amp combos they have and decide if it is worthy investment.

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Lol that statement has nothing to do with inebriation.

It’s actually a technique first used to international audio acclaim in the Sennheiser HD-800. There are numerous articles in European and North American hi-Fi media outlets in which Sennheiser engineers talk about the strategy behind tuning the HD-800 the way they did.

The tuning was specifically attenuated in that frequency range to portray a sense of distance from the source sounds in that frequency range. Not quite the explanation you imagined earlier, eh ? You thought it was a joke. Joke is on you, son 😎

why you use drugs?

If you get the same sound out of your monitor and motherboard, maybe your headphones are boomy by design? Wouldn't be surprised if that's how you perceive DT177x.

Y'all are wearing pants?

Monitor outputs are the worst

Not yet. Currently at the Susvara stage and looking at tubes. It's a pretty deep hole! Lots of fun though, and my wife enjoys it, so a win-win.

Hah. Other direction for me. Nice KEFs and killer sub —> ZMFs I can use without disturbing the household.

I've just been using a Yamaha A-S301 that I bought for my bookshelf speakers. I do really want a Feliks Echo 2 though.

Amp?

The 600s sound best when driven by a tube amp. More/better bass too.

Do you have a USB dongle you use with your phone to plug headphones in? You might test that one first. These headphones do not seem power-hungry, so a dongle might be enough. And surprisingly one of the most cost-effective options is the Apple dongle for 10 dollars. Generally tho, monitors are terrible sources to plug your headphones in. Most of the time, the output is more of a marketing gimmick, not a well-engineered device.

The first thing you should try is checking whether any audio "enhancements" are turned on in your audio settings and turn them off if possible. Your monitor might have such settings included, Windows has a setting to turn its enhancements off, and your PC maker might have bundled enhancement software along with the audio drivers.

Apple's USB-C/3.5mm adapter is the cheapest way to diagnose whether the problem is coming from the headphone end or the DAC end. Make sure to buy from the Apple store to avoid counterfeits, get a USB-C/USB-A adapter if you need one, and make sure to configure it to 24-bit in OS settings. It might sound quiet if you buy an EU model due to regulations, but you should at least be able to tell whether it still sounds off.

If it's the headphone end, the most likely culprits for a headphone problem would be either 1) that your headphone sounds wrong naturally and the previous output was changing the sound in a way that made it sound better or 2) that the earpads went flat and you only just started noticing. If your problem is boomy bass, my guess would be that your outputs have really high output impedance, as flattening pads on closed-backs usually rolls off bass. Beyer treble tends to smooth out and sound less sharp as the pads flatten, though, so I can't make 100% guarantees; if Beyer included another pair of pads, I'd suggest swapping to verify.

For the first, try installing Equalizer APO + Peace GUI (assuming you're on Windows) and using one of Oratory1990's EQ presets. For the second, see which pads Beyer intended for use with the 177X and look for a new pair. Aftermarket pads will change the sound, for better or for worse, so it's best not to skimp. I'd only recommend the first solution in your current case, but the second might be advisable if you have other issues in the future.

One does not recline 99.98% copper free while sporting pants.

I found what I'm looking for, and I can't imagine music sounding better than it does now. Any change I would make at this point would essentially just be preference rather than an upgrade, and frankly the upgrades at this point cost entirely too much to justify. Even if I did want more, I wouldn't be able to afford it, so I'm more than happy with where I'm at.

My current chain is Audio GD DI-20 outputting IIS --> Audio GD Reference 1 --> heavily modded Bottlehead Crack with great tubes --> ZMF Verite Closed Leopardwood.

Thanks for the link. I was hoping there was just some box I needed to check somewhere or something but I guess each output has its own characteristics? It's crazy how different it sounds.

If it sounds bad, Just get a cheap Amp/DAC. Something like this should be quite satisfactory. And if you don't want to dive into the rabbit hole of software paramnetric EQ, you have basic tone controls by physical knobs there.

Better how? It reveals more detail. I don't know why and I can't quantify that but it does.

The difference between a slightly blurred window and a clearer one is the best analogy I can give. The sounds dont mesh into one "blob" as much if that makes sense.

With the worse cable, "s" sounds turn a bit more onto "ch". And that is a very very noticable difference.

Not saying the super super high end cables matter though lol

There's been a rising trend of new audiophiles who get all their information from bite-sized YouTube videos and thus don't know any of the exceptions to the basic rules.

IIRC, Andromeda bass drops by something ridiculous like 2 dB per ohm of impedance added. It's been documented and graphed, CA themselves recommend an IEMatch, and big-brain KB tuned at least the original while listening out of a Sony DAP with 1.5 ohm OI. It's nothing you can't simulate with a voltage divider like an IEMatch, EarBuddy, or UE Buffer Jack, though, so the $300 cables are still pretty pointless.

Eh, I run 25 ft rca cables from my phono preamp to valhalla 2 and another 25ft cable to my powered speakers (Klipsch The Sixes). No loss in quality; works fine.

I hear a difference too. But when u say its better quality, U need to say what and why. Better quality on which scale? There is no scale, so nothing like better or worse.

2003 thread about differences in copper vs silver cables