For Mac SoundSource is the best option

I'll save this comment

Heard both the U12T and the IER-M9 and the M9 was a much up my alley signature... The U12t isn't Warm Neutral... More like Neutral with Sub Bass Shelf...

IER-M9 on the other hand sounded actually Warm Neutral and it's timbre drew me in the most... So effortless... Not forcing details in my face but it's there in spades... Good headstage (I've never chased grandness of stage in IEMs anyhow but these did something impressive), superb tonal coherency

Why not U12t? They both should be similar in tuning, more like warm neutral with awesome technicalities

You can also tell it to make ASCII art and it gets it very wrong every time lol

74% of statistics are invented up

Sorry to not be a great constructive contribution to your question, but these headphones are very difficult to drive for one, and using a completely different driver tech which favors transparency and detail but falls short for dynamics and proper harmonics/ notes overtones. Very dry sounding.

The headphones are also subjectively not great and you may downgrade to an Arya V3 or MM500 and experience superior sound results

That’s quite a jump!

What closed backs have you tried?

Dt990 pro

Yeah, sure we can. :)

I have no idea what you are talking about with the CIE question.

Fair, I've had my Elex's for about a year and a half and they've held up well, but I also have a kinda round head lol

[deleted]

Abyss headphones don't measure well, so if your definition of HiFi is accurate sound reproduction then avoid the company without looking back.

At it's price point the idea of needing to do ANYTHING to like it is absurd.

ASR measured very high distortion on the Diana Phi and Abyss is a terrible snake oil company but I would not Amir's headphone measurements as gospel, he seems to routinely mess up the headphone measurements and won't take correction. According to Amir the Hifiman Ananda is also trash, a much more controversial opinion as more people have and love the Ananda and it doesn't sound like the distorted mess he measures it as.

Many subjective reviewers including good ones like Resolve have liked the Diana Phi (the predecessor), he has them in the top tier on his ranking list.

So I doubt they are quite as radically broken as Amir thinks they are.

That doesn't necessarily mean everyone likes them and thinks they are worth $4,500.

One issue though is the Phi vs TC. Wave Theory thinks they are overpriced and not worth it, he seems to think the TC is quite radically different to the Phi though (and worse). I get the impression from his review though he is basically saying they're not a $4,500 headphone, he doesn't think they are terrible, he even says they are "$2,000-$2,500 overpriced". So maybe even worth $2,000. Like, he's giving them a terrible review, but he's comparing to the Hifiman HE1000, which is a very good $2k (formerly $3k) headphone.

Ultimately, if YOU don't like them and CAN return them, I'd do it now. If you're spending that sort of money on a headphone, you want to love it. So get out now if you can.

If you can't return them, look at EQ. They look like they absolutely need EQ, they do have tonal issues. I have kilobuck and multi-kilobuck stuff that needs EQ, some stuff does. It's not a dealbreaker.

I don’t know if it’s manufacturing variation but my DT990s also don’t have super sharp or „ear piercing“ treble and I’m pretty treble sensitive due to my tinnitus. Other headphones make me wince, especially Hifimans seem to consistently pierce my ear drums.

My DT990s are definitely treble forward tho, no question about that.

Amir measured them as the hardest to drive headphone he had yet measured at that point. They aren't quite HE6SE/Susvara level, he has measured harder to drive since but they are up that end of it, they are among the hardest to drive headphones.

250mW is what a powerful dongle does these days.

https://www.lehmannaudio.com/de/service/kopfhoererrechner.html

It’s in German, but I guess you will get it!

check out the Fiio fh5s if you wanna try some IEMs they are excelent for gaming thanks to the semi open design their soundstage is huge

Lmao.

Thanks for the laugh, mate.

The Raptgo x HBB Hook-X is what you're looking for and they're good for gaming and sound very good for music.

Link to purchase - https://www.linsoul.com/products/raptgo-x-hbb-hook-x

u/Desperate_Map_605

You are the first person in history to say this lol

The LCD 5 is probably the best headphones to mix in because of their neutrality and detail. Also your headphone amp/dac is very important for these high end headphones and it looks like this is holding back the Diana TC.

Honestly based on the fact that they sell a $1200 dollar USB cord on their website, and their frequency response is all over the charts, I wouldn't ever trust them.

This is actually really helpfull thank you!