Have an HD600 and a Moondrop kato(sounds better stock), if the blessing sounds worse than the sennheiser then that's very disappointing.

Ditto.

Uhh, I mean same. Same, man.

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Just listen to dirty buds for a week and you'll be fixed right up

I can't speak for the very TOTL but i can speak for the 300€ range with the Blessing 2, i think the best headphone "competitor" would be the HD600, and it's safe to say that i use the Blessing 2 rarely enough to the point i sometimes forget i even have those while i use the HD600s on a daily basis, IEMs really aren't all that great compared to headphones, their only real advantage is size (at least in my opinion)

I'm listening to her songs right now, reminded me of IU, great songs

You basically just said all dynamic drivers are the same because they function the same. Would you say that all internal combustion engines are the same? Is the 1.0L engine out of a Nissan Versa the same as a 5.2L V8 out of a Shelby GT500? They function the same, right? Same technology. Fuel goes in, sparks and explosion, and drives the piston.

My current fave is the Dunu est112, it has a little warmth to the upper bass.

Now I understand why headphones are also called "cans"!

I think that might well happen as they do end up very open.

• Azla Xelastec
• Azla Crystal
• Azla Crystal TWS (on the right)

SpinFit CP155 might be another option, they fit these nozzles very well, and would be my next choice after either Azla or Spring Tips (which I like a lot and use on most of my other IEMs).

In my experience good iems under 250-300 usd compete and/or beat similarly priced headphones. But in higher price brackets headphones have the advantage. In my taste at least, your milage may differ.

Yeah, they both have somehow recessed mid-bass and lower midrange, and these genres of music value these parts of frequency response, son't know what even to recommend for these genres, maybe something like U12t? Or IER-M9 maybe

now they're portable :)

now they're portable :)

Timeless had some nasty bright peak with any stock eartips to my ears, so I was really suffering, but even without this peak, Variations are one of those IEMs that sound definitely above their price bracket, if they will fit your ear, they would be great, something better from Variations would start at 1000$ with IER-M9, Monarch MKII and so on, so yeah, upgrade was significant I should say to my ear, especially as time flows you would love your Variations even more, tonality is just perfect together with great technicalities

hi, you jumped from timeless to variations so I am curious about how much upgrade you felt given price jump is 2x as I'm also planning moving from timeless to variation

According to manual zen dac v2 gets < 1.5W via USB power and 5V via DC adapter. You're doing something wrong because I definitely hear different levels of loudness, it's about 30%. Keep in mind the Zen Dac does not always automatically switch to dc power but always sounds quieter when dc is plugged off.

A lot is actually, it's a way of recording, not a way of processing. So it's not labelled like 'hi-res, hifi etc' is.

I used to think I could tell the difference between 44.1 and 96 until I compared them from the same source

How much of the sound profile is from the weight crushing the cups into the side of the head? Ergonomics affects sound.

The mix/master matters way more than resolution

USB 3.0 already provides 5V. As I said already, tested them both on and off a brick, there's no difference that I can perceive be it sound quality or loudness.

And you'll need to burn it in again

Edit - I did not mean to post this line twice, but it kind of works

And you'll need to burn it in again

Also big fan of female vocals with some similar music tastes. I'll have to check out a couple of you and /u/Megidolan's mentioned songs/artists.

Can I recommend Lee Hi for slower but excellent vocals? Very unique textured voice.