Wow congrats I too like polishing turds 👏

You're too caught up in graphs my dude, the 600 is way too narrow and mid focused to be considered neutral. 5128 is a better tool, I agree, but it's still far from the best we can do with human ears

I don't think anyone recommend a kz for quite a while they have been making mediocre products for a long time, the garbage tuning or the fake drivers isn't helping it either

My pick is the HD660S because it's a good all-rounder that I can listen to many genres without too much complaint. I have a hard time with the HD800S and rock due to the lack of visceral bottom end which no amount of EQ solves.

The K72 is hot garbage. I'd return it.

I only have the HD 280 lol, I don't really got the money but this shit sounds like heaven to my ears.

Final d8000 pro, best combination of build quality and compatibility with all genres I've heard so far.

Tonality in terms of how it sounds compared to neutral. Hd600 has a much smaller scoop than 660s2 thus making it closer to 5128 hrtf. The 660s seems to have a much worse timbre on paper too

What's with the stupid group thought on this sub? A year ago everyone was recommending kz's and now everyone hates them? Make up your damn minds lol

Objective, and tonality in the same sentence ? You okay buddy ?

What's puzzling me is that what I hear doesn't match those FR charts. My Yamahas sound a bit weird but are still fun, they were my only pair for almost a decade and I didn't feel the need to upgrade until they developed a channel imbalance. But to me the Etymotics sound bad, almost phone-like, and I have a hard time understanding how what I hear could get any praise, much less the cult following they seem to have... It feels like a lot of $20 chifi IEMs could do better, and the 7Hz Zero actually do, hands down. Which is why I suspect some ear canal shape incompatibility (given their unusual insertion depth), a faulty unit, or something along those lines. I'm seeing an audio nerd friend soon, I'll ask her what she thinks about them, but at that point it would take some "Eureka moment" for me to keep them. Thank you for spending the time trying to help me though...

My HD6XX sounds noticeably better on my 2012 motherboard than an E10K, which is probably more expensive than the whole motherboard, even had other people test and they prefer the motherboard. all running on 24bit 44100hz. but people on reddit will still tell me Its impossible xD

I find them a little annoying. They get dirty, are not easy to clean so I prefer silicone.

Silicone medium sized single flange tips. I’ve tried everything- different flanges, sizes, bore hole diameters, foam- and every time I just come back to the default. I think I must have very average ears.

Well from the graph your Yamaha has a worse case called having peaks because there's so much depression in a range... Makes the next highest point sound peaky... If you look at the ER2XR it's a gradual descent so it gradually gets dark whilst your Yamaha has that hole in the upper mids but gets increadly sharp at 7.9kHz approximately... Yeah that's dark but bright at the same time...

The Etymotic isn't that way it's gradual downward slope with zero peaks so there's no brightness sticking out from the dark. So yeah that can make the Yamaha sound dark and bright at the same time whilst the ER2XR will sound dark all the way to 20kHz because there's no unevenness in the treble... It's purely a slow glide

If you don't like the Etymotic get rid of it... And get another neutral set... The FATfreq Reference or the VSonic GR07 Classic is a good neutral set to get

Thanks for your input! Yes I understand the S12 are quite bright, and I wasn't expecting the same brightness in the ER2XR, this is even part of why I bought them. However I now have the opposite issue: I find the ER2XR way too dark, even darker than my old Yamaha EPH-100, although looking at their FR it doesn't look like it should be the case... They're honestly the worst-sounding piece of audio gear I've ever owned, which doesn't seem right given all the praise they receive, hence this post. Faulty unit? Weird ear canal shape? I honestly have no idea, but after spending a day trying everything I could think of, I'm very close to returning them...

For edm bass heavy I use the meze 99 neo and for gaming Cs go I use akg k712 pro but it's kind of pricey 😂

How do you feel the utopias and clears compare to each other?

I bought the k712 pro for my gaming last month I like it

I know. I was mostly joking. I’m aware there are good and bad designs. I pointed out build quality issues and also shown some good sides of akgs. I didn’t know this particular pair was so bad. I’m not that experienced with headphones so I was genuinely surprised and wanted to get more info.

I eq'd them with wavelet and it reduced the peak a fair amount.

Fair enough, but how many of these are as widely available as the KZ? Genuine question.

(And I do not mean just the US or Europe but actually globally)

Just because some akgs are good doesnt mean that they’re all good, what you have there is some flawed logic my friend

I would take the KZ's and send them straight back where they came from lol

u/smalg2, well yes doing a side by side comparison of their FRs and you see clearly the ER2XR has a slightly better low mid and uppermids presence than the S12 right until roughly 2.9kHz, then it starts gliding downwards rapidly to around -10dB at 10kHz whilst the S12 keeps enough energy from the 3kHz to 10kHz region(and even gets peaky).

Yes going from the S12 to the ER2XR is a jarring switch. The Air Frequencies beyond 10kHz have the same intensity so trailing ends of violins, cymbal crashes will still be present but the meat and body of these instruments will be a bit lost...

Here's the comparison graph - https://crinacle.com/graphs/iems/graphtool/?share=Harman_IE_2019_v2_Target,ER2XR_S3,S12_Shuoer