>Is there any reason a cheaper solid state amp like a Schitt or a Topping or a Monolith THX that put out 6W at 32ohm wouldn’t be sufficient enough to drive anything but the most very demanding headphones?

No. It's bullshit. Clean power is clean power. Anyone telling you that you need a $2,000 amp to drive anything is either a marketer or has drank the marketer's Kool-Aid.

I have tried the DCA Noires but they sound bland to me even with EQ. I prefer my headphones to have a certain character and that why I like the HD820, MDR-Z1R.

The differences between Tidal and Spotify are minute enough to where you're not likely to notice if you're actually listening to the music and not actively trying to dissect tiny details of it. I notice a -very- small difference between the two but I switched over to Tidal just because I was bored of the stuff Spotify kept recommending me year after year and I wanted to give hifi a shot. It's not night and day and who knows if I actually hear it myself, but here I am. They're the same price anyway so I don't care.

That's nothing about the connector. It's the fault of the devices.

So you already won the audiophile game, congrats on the speedrun haha. Jokes apart, I'm curious about which KZ you have? Just to get the full picture

> really HARD to beat the HD 600/650. I'd even go a step further and say it is really hard NO MATTER how much you spend

I feel pretty complete in my headphone journey, but the frequency in which I see comments like this makes me really want to pick up a 6XX.

I'm not sure that I'd like it, though. I have a set of HD555s with a foam-delete mod, and they're probably my least favorite in my collection for sound signature. I don't know how reflective the 555 would be of the 6XX's sound, but if it's more similar than different, then the 6XX wouldn't be for me. As it is, I EQ a bit more bass into my Sundaras to get them where I like them.

Exactly. First try EQ and see if you have headroom to work with. Maybe low shelf is a bit much, but definitely try to get more of the tones below 100Hz.

Great review. I'll chime in and say that for those prioritizing musicality/timbre/warm tonality, the Edition XS will not be your cup of tea. In terms of staging/resolution/PRaT, the Edition XS is fantastic in my view.

A stock Edition XS will not provide the same intimate, musical engagement factor for certain genres that are vocal/acoustic-centered the same way an HD6x0 will for example. However, for electronic/pop/guitar-centered music, the Edition XS has been an amazing addition to the rotation.

The presentation matters when you are charging more for a minor FR change, the chassis of the headphone hasn’t changed at all so there is no RnD costs there, just seems cheap on their end. Disappointed is all.

>And you're suggesting that, within that niche of a niche, that a small group of people saying "I don't hear anything" is proof that there's nothing to hear?

>Come on. If we're going to science, let's science. But as long as we can't actually do good science, let's stop pretending like it's already been done well. Because it hasn't.

So let's weigh up the evidence, then.

In the "most people can't hear it" camp we have:

• Scientific studies which show that people can't tell Hi-Res audio lossless from "regular" 16/44 lossless.
• Large scale blind tests such as this one which show that regardless of age, musical training, or expensive equipment, the vast majority of people can't tell the difference between lossless and MP3
• My own extensive testing which showed that not only can I personally not consistently hear any differences between Spotify and lossless streaming services, but none of the dozen or so people who contacted me with their test results could either
• Various encounters that I have had with members of audiophile Reddit subs who challenged my findings, agreed to conduct their own ABX tests to provide some actual evidence for their claim but then mysteriously disappeared and never contacted me again.

And in the "can hear a difference" camp, we have:

• A metric ton of people who claim they can but then offer no evidence whatsoever
• Some people who actually managed to pass one of the flawed, easymode online tests such as the NPR one and, to a lesser extent, the digitalfeed.net one.
• The handful of people who know the specific tells of lossy audio codecs and can genuinely ABX them consistently. These are super rare and I've maybe only seen one in my entire time on Reddit.

So, as you can see, the weight of evidence leans heavily towards the former rather than the latter group.

> It is slightly boring combination

This is something I've experienced with a lot of amps and HD6x0's. Tube amps are often recommended for the 600's. I personally thought the Jot2 was an interesting pairing using balanced. 789 was okay too. Also paired nicely with r2r-11mk2 Something about the r2r-11mk2 and HD6x0's just work very well for me.

I'm guessing here as I have never heard the 600, but the 650 and the 660s2.

IMO the bass on the S2 is much more textured, in a dry and less fuzzy way and the subbass extension feels better. The 650 sound more like a relaxed jazz sound. I'm guessing the 600 land somewhere in-between and might have been a very good option for me, bummer, but i still very much prefer the S2 over the 650.

I'm guessing the reviewer's assume that everyone bought the 650 and 600 based on what they preferred and want to say if you prefer the 650, the S2 isn't for you, and if you have the 600 the 660s2 isn't a worthwhile upgrade, but as a (maybe, idk) 600-person stuck with the 650 these sound great to me.

the headphone out of the M2 is supposed to be pretty well-engineered. Doubt it has anything to do with whatever you're hearing.

Looks like a pretty good audio interface to me: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/motu-m2-review-audio-interface.19911/

[removed]

>If you have to listen back and forth many times to hear a difference, the difference isn’t worth it. It should be obvious.

Totally agree with this.

However, there are a few things I'd like to address elsewhere in your comment.

>For one, tidal isn’t even lossless, so it has its own “color”.

While MQA technically isn't lossless, that doesn't mean that people can easily tell between Tidal and any other streaming service. In fact, all evidence points to the fact that MQA sounds the same as standard FLAC in blind listening tests.

> On high quality recordings, the differences are very obvious.

This is actually something of a myth - lossy audio codecs do not adversely affect dynamic range, nor do they affect "high quality" genres more than others. In fact, at low bitrates, imperfections may be more audible in genres that are more sensitive to time domain artifacts (such as electronic music) than with, say, classical music.

>At some point with the right gear and the right recordings, it will be extremely obvious.

Again, this is a common misconception that isn't actually true. Blind tests have shown that owning expensive gear doesn't really make much of a difference when it comes to discerning higher bitrate msuic from lower bitrate. Here's a CD vs Hi-Res study, and here's a more informal but still well conducted test for CD vs MP3.

The reason being that lossy audio codecs base their algorithms on psychoacoustic models of human hearing to determine what audio data human ears can and can't hear. So while you may be able to drop $20K on audio equipment, you still have to live with the same old ears you had before!

Why are you so comfortable in criticizing him for buying the S2, when it is better than the S1 which you own and I'm guessing paid more than 600/650 money for, when you by your own logic have the worst of the bunch for the second highest price?

I have the HD650, tested the HD660S1 and just received the HD660S2. To me it is a definite upgrade over the 650 as I vastly prefer its clean, clear and detailed sound, I never quite came around to the warmer sound of the 650 and eq didn't solve that. The 600 might have been the best price to performance for me, and I might even go for them still once I sell my 650, but saying he's wrong for enjoying them doesn't make any sense, especially from your standpoint.

Thanks man. I'll figure it out.

Well, that I can’t answer to you. I can’t use proper EQ with my iPad setup.

Depends on how much you’re willing to spend. Any headphones will work with 3D audio through the controller but you’re stuck with Bluetooth and the controllers built in amp which is just okay. If you’re looking to spend, you need to buy a PS5 compatible DAC like the Atom DAC+ and then whichever amp you want. Any decent open back headphone will work with this setup. This is my personal setup and it works great in games where 3D audio is well implemented.

>I'm unsure if it's a placebo.

Could be

>Is this normal?

Yes

>do I not have a trained ear for it?

Could be

If youre not sure you hear a difference, get the cheaper one. Doesnt matter if there is a difference or not if you can't hear it, as long as you dont claim there's objectively no difference. Really goes for everything audio, especially here

How do these compare to the HD 660s after you EQ both?

If they are too harsh try EQ and pull down the treble with a high shelf. Or bring up the bass a bit with a low shelf. Or both.

Holy macaroni all those spelling mistakes. I apologize. I'm glad you got the jist of it. That is a solution you have there and yeah you did guess right. I like to jam out with my music while I go around and do stuff A LOT so a cable just seems like a matter of time before it turns into a noose that will turn my head blue if I'm not careful haha. But thanks man I'll think about it.

I went to audio school and have done blind testing.

When I'm regularly keeping up with ear training exercises I can usually tell the difference between 128kbps and lossless with near-perfect accuracy, but 320kbps vs lossless I'm basically guessing. I still leave my projects and bounces at either 96/24 or 48/24, and all my downloaded music is in .flac or .wav, but I also am a pretty firm believer that unless you're actively training to hear the difference and using a very high quality setup the difference is negligible.