Oh come on, this has to be an absolutely genius troll move, surely? Assuming that it is: bravo, seller. Bravo indeed.

lol I feel I ran into similar issue as you before. There is a difference between "sound quality" and "tonality". Sound quality I'm referring to technical stuff like separation, sound stage, detail......etc. But after all that there is still a tonality preference.

For example if you come from V-shaped headphone then chances neutral headphone will not satisfy your preference. Reddit has the tendency to suggest neutral headphone because it's the "audiophile" thing to do.

But often people forget people listen to what they like and some headphone will do better than others at different genre. So back to what you said, I don't think mid range is Sundara's strong suit, mid range master is like HD600 or HD650. You could.... as you said, fix it by running a tube amp. I'm currently using Lawton TH900 and running a tube amp to fix the mid range and recessed vocal LOL. Also as much as people say all dac sound the same, I find dacs have their sound too. Though you're already using Zen Dac V2 I think that one is already warm dac so you're probably ok. Maybe try a hybrid tube amp.

Don't feel afraid to try "fun" headphones if that's what you like. There are also high quality fun headphones out there. Though I don't listen to electronic or hip hop so I don't know what's the best headphone for those genre unfortunately. Maybeeeeee just maybe, see if you can find a TH-X00 Purpleheart for cheap to try.

I wouldn't buy the same headphone that rips over and over again. There's the old saying "buy cheap, buy twice". Spend more the first time round and save yourself money in the long run. That kind of headphone doesn't look like it would last too well either. I've never been too fond of on-ears generally anyhow.

Every pad is user replaceable if you're brave enough.

4. Never buy headphones that do not have user replaceable pads.

What headphones are those? For me when pads wear out I buy aftermarket or just get some OEM pads and replace the old ones. It takes like 30 seconds.

Give me an excuse to buy new ones!

The WA2 and WA22 were the tube options I narrowed my searches down to initially, but I'm having second thoughts. They're not off entirely the table and look quite nice, but it's also a steep price tag for a result that might have too little a difference (at least for me) for too much. My personal endgame headphone-wise would probably be the Hifiman Anandas and HD 800S for planar and dynamic respectively, but it appears solid states show quality enough results to guarantee a sound I'd be satisfied with.

1. We don't buy crap headphones.

2. We take care of our headphones, ours don't show any degradation after only 1 year.

3. We replace the pads long before they get anywhere near this bad.

depending on topology, but it boils down to output impedance, 2nd order harmonic distortion, or a combination of both.

p.s: from what I've tried, the higher you go, the less "tubey" tube amps sound; they sound less stereotypical warm and more solid-state like. Common misconception about tubes is that they can sound slow, which is not the case at all.

If you are interested in getting a more tube-y sound, WA22 might be an option. Totally depends on your headphones tho

Thanks for everyone's thoughts and contributions here. They seriously help me out a ton! For a while before today, I was also considering potential Topping and Schiit combos for solid state, and I might end up choosing those since I'm leaning more towards accurate representations of what I listen to (I'm still surprised how complex and interesting tubes are though). The Topping L50 and E50 combo seems like a promising one, so I'll keep that on my radar for now and see what happens in the future. :)

The mid cycle players let you put MP3s on a disc, cool but not great, the upper tier end ones let you use Sony's proprietary compression format and jam hours of music on a disc - pretty impressive. That's assuming you could get the software to work though.

That was the 90's son - I've got a SL-SX500 from 1998 w/ 40 seconds of anti-shock memory II. It served me well, I used to haul it everywhere listening to stuff. Wouldn't be surprised if it still worked if I threw some batteries in it.

It's my endgame, have had it for about 9 months so I feel safe saying that now lol. I hope you get to try them soon!

When you find a tube amp you like, its just gooey. Kinda softens the harshness out of things. Objectively solid states are better and on the cheaper end much better. I listen out of my solid state 99% of the time but every so often I want to listen to the tubes

U12t reading all reviews about them, looks like very great IEM, I definitely plan to buy them one day or at least try them, maybe would be using them together with Variations one day

Well I definitely liked their song and MV 'BEcause' when it was released, but haven't enough time to explore more of their songs

Looks like a torture device designed for making pancakes out of velour pads

I prefer my music to sound close to me as opposed to making it feels like a concert that you get on headphone or speakers, so I chose IEM any day. When comparing items at the same price, I very much prefer Andromeda compared to DCA Aeon 2 or Audeze LCD-2, they just sounded more pleasing and more practical to me. Of course, the soundstage is much bigger in headphones but I can feel note textures and details better in IEM.

Edit: I already got to the point where the only headphone I keep is LCD-2 for 7 sake, but I rarely use them, maybe only a few days a month. I suggest OP try both himself and find what you like better.

I am biased but I'd definitely recommend U12T for metal. I tried listening to some metal when I briefly had the Monarch Mk II and it was far too harsh.

As long as you can get long warranty on your purchase, they are one of if not the most natural sounding IEM in that price range and possibly one of the few "affordable" endgames out there. It seems that driver failures happen early anyway.

In your opinion, which iems would be the best all rounder? I'm asking because currently i only own the Truthear Zero and the KZ Pr1 Pro. In the future i will want to upgrade to a really good set of iems. The thing is, i listen to a little bit of everything. Today i can be on a heavy metal mood and tomorrow i want to listen to trance, and the death metal, and then classic rock. I'm all over the place. I don't know what to aim for. I would like to have a really good all rounder instead of specific iems for different types of music (unlesse that is really the way to go). Thanks in advance.

"Deal Alert" LMAO

Uh why the fuck did you do that?

Sample rates definitely have their place in things like DSP and certain plugins though