Entropy.

hurr, far better sound for a fraction of the price ain't weird. I second this rec, OP. But, if you're looking for something more discreet or something wireless, go for the Koss ksc35 wireless. They're on-ear headphones, and while they will cover your ears, you should be able to hear through them relatively well.

If that's what you're looking for, sure. But that's not for everybody, some people aren't just looking for clean and uncolored. The mmx300 mk2 and the 770 250 ohm seem to have the same sensitivity of 96 dB SPL/V, which honestly isn't that senstive. Both headphones do have a max power handling of 100mw, though. Makes me wonder if the mmx is similar to a dt770/700 32 ohm... I haven't seen any measurements of power draw, this is a calculator for the power draw of headphones. (32 ohm mmx300 top, 250 dt770 pro bottom) For OP, I would probably just recommend getting the Meizu masterhifi dongle for either case. Cheap, economical, and performant- it can push a good bit of power. Doesn't apply if you live outside of the US, the price is most likely going to be astronomical for you in most countries, or you might not be able to get it shipped to you. Even in the us, it might be out of stock, but it should come back pretty soon. It's $33. For the headphones my recommendations (if you're looking for them) would go to either the hifiman he400se/ drop x hifman he-x4 (slightly cheaper variant), or the hd560s. Personally, they're my favorite headphones in the pricerange.

Quick graph. Starfield and Aria look like they're almost on top of eachother. Well, honestly there shouldn't be too much of a difference. Suppose if you wanted to use it wired you could go for an apple 3.5mm dongle or a meizu masterhifi dongle if it's available (something of the sort). Phone amp dacs can be pretty clean, as well as most hardware these days, iirc the main concern is noise from the other components that the amp/dac sit so close to, and power, which shouldn't be a concern for almost all iems.

It could be a defective unit, most likely isn't your motherboard and it doesn't nede an amp and dac per se. What headphones were your wearing prior to this? It could just be that you're used to something with bloated bass and you need time to adjust.

There hersey measures cleaner, the 3+ uses a different architecture, kind of hard to explain. Schiit makes the two as they believe that there's something special about the 3+'s architecture essentially, and although the hersey measures more competently, the 3+, the 3+ has some redeeming factors. Honestly though, just purchase the one you think looks best, they're both good. A black and grey magni is also available exclusively on amazon for $120.

Here's a new cable to match But getting a little more serious, If it doesn't affect the greater industry too much, I think it's fine. If they think that whatever product they're looking at betters sound reproduction, it's all them. Would at least people to fact-check their stuff and listen in a proper test before purchasing something so expensive... but it's their money. But shrug, people spend money in questionable ways already, if it makes them happy doing it, they should knock themselves out. I guess the larger concern is about some looney stuff seeping into gudes and whatnot in the wrong fashion, and having people that don't know what they're doing blind buying the gear, because their favorite audio influencer gushed about it's greatness.

Less about sound and more about power requirements. Soundstage is if you will, a field of sound in the xyz axis's that the headphones "project," which is typically described as sounds appearing outside the headphones. Imaging is more or less placing the positioning of the a certain sound within that field I guess. Think the word you're looking for is "tuning." And yes, there's plenty. Schiit magni 3+/hersey, topping l30, l50, ect. It's hard to define and it'll depend on your opinion and point of view, and what you like. Honestly, the topping l50 when used as a transparent, relatively colourless amp is all you'd need for most headphones imo, aside from the flagships. If you're just talking about cleanliness, we're already there, but there are amplifiers that will colour the sound or alter it (at least to the ears of certain listeners) in a certain manner that some listeners may find to sound better to them. Those can get into the real big bucks pretty quickly.

Honestly, I would just recommend the akg k361. Considered by many to be a superior option in terms of performance, it's incredibly easy to run as well. You may prefer the tuning of the dt770, but that'd practically be it's only advantage (dt770 should have more elevated treble and bass). The Lower-ohmage versions of the dt770 are kind of loopy, the 250 ohm will be the best performer and is the only one that I can recommend, personally.

(Mostly just adding ont your statement, message is adressed to OP) Well, at least if youre looking to compare "clean" and relatively uncolored amps to smartphone outputs, such as the schiit magni or topping l30, for example. There's other options out there that will have pretty large differences, as they colour the sound in various ways. Subjective thoughts or preferences are not really predictable, you may perceive some differences in between say, your smartphone output or something like an apple 3.5mm dongle and another amplifier. Getting back on trackt, though, if you're content with what you have, and you don't see any issues, it's perfectly fine if you don't want to upgrade. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Just list whatever you're comfortable spending, imo. There's options from sub-$30 to literally $50,000+ (please specify your currency). Also, could you use an external mic, or a Lavier mic (a small, headset-like mic that with a bit of work you could attach to basically any headphone)?

I was conversing a bit ago with geo3 and other individuals about speaker placement and room issues. Currently my plan of keeping them on a desk with stands doesn't seem to be the best solution, but I'm unsure of how severely it would impact the reproduction. Additionally, there's going to be some glass directly behind the speaker, however like was previously mentioned, there will be a heavy curtain covering it, and I can put around 3 feet of distance from it, possibly more. Finally, well, it'll be on a desk setup, geo3 brought up possible desk reasonances and I doubt the other items the speaker would share space with on the desk (most primarily my 34' curved, which would be around level with the tweeter on a traditional box speaker, possibly higher. I am aware that these can present an issue, however I'm unsure of just how severely these factors will impact the listening experience. Do you have any input? Also related, I don't plan to keep them around forever, the 10k budget was intended to give me freedom to purchase some nice gear. I'm searching for a suitable place to tranition to that would include area that would be dedicated to and otpimized for listening. Geo3 commented that they didn't think that it would be worthwhile pursuing this caliber of system for my desk, Even while they had knowledge of my intentions to tranition to a dedicated listening room (iirc). Instead they recommended that I go with ~$2.5k usd system. Would you second that statement?

Well, yeah. Diminishing returns is pretty subjective, and in a lot of ways measurements don't tell the full story of a certain audio product, and subjective revies can't usually be trusted (at least much) since the reviewer likely will have different ears, opinions, gear, ect. It's just something that you usually just determine for yourself, like... almost everything else in audio. sigh. While not really relevant to you, I do think that for ~90% of people getting into the hobby, a $200 stack such as the magni 3+/heresey and a modi should be good enough for whatever. $400-$500 for a stack is good for damn near anything, and anything more likely won't benefit you much in most cases. Just me, though. Forgot to answer this. Well, yes. First of all if they just have terrible __ (THD, SNR, whatever), a stack can sound pretty crappy with those artifacts. You can color the sound in a myriad of ways, cleaner measurements aren't the only answer. Tubes, for example are an easy example of this. Spec sheets and product sites are pretty bad offenders, though. In this day and age, getting a marginally cleaner dac/amp is basically pointless, nobody can hear the difference anyways (Whole topping lineup in a nutshell... lul)

Doesn't seem like there are any great options there. You could get away with the sound card most likely, the schiit stack will perform significantly better. Maybe see how much the Ifi zendac is for you, if it's around $50 USD less than thee schiit stack, maybe consider that.

I assumed you were in the Us because of the sign and because you didn't elaborate, erm, The schiit stack is still decent at that price most likely, considering wha else you could get. Maybe a topping l30 e30 stack? But that would in the best-case scenario be the same price. For the headphones, yes, I consider the he400se to be significantly better. I'll just say it now in case, I've tried the majority of popular picks in the sub-$200 pricerange, and I'm aware of many other more obscure headphones from here and there, and have impressions from people that I trust for them. Out of basically everything, He400se is my personal pick, and I feel that it's a very well-rounded headphones.

AE-5 plus for $142 USD? That's what I'm assuming. I would probably recommend just returning it/canceling the order. Why? Well for like $60 more you can get something that performs much better (The schiit modi 3 with a magni3+ directly off of schiit.com). While there are likely better headphones out there for gaming, for general use the Hifiman he400se is my top pick, and I generaly fin it more enjoyable than anything that's optimized for gaming (You won't loose much of a competitive advantage if anything). So my Pick? -Hifiman he400se -Schiit Modi 3 and magni 3+ -RCA interconnect cables to connect the stack -Usb-type-a (or whatever cable you'll use to connect to your source, such as your pc), to micro usb cable iirc.

The sale the 599se is on isn't really very special, It's original list price is not it's retail value. The HD560s also goes on sale but not as often and not as reliably.

559 is okay, but that sale is total BS. The 560s is pretty much as plug-n'-play as you get with this type of stuff, it's a solid pick and it'll handily outperform the 599 SE.

What's your budget, do you need any specific features?

I forgot to mention, I was addressing what you were stating about gr researches other products based on their cables. Anyways I'm not going to dive into a debate about cables or snakeoil. People buy cables for whichever reason. Their money, their hobby, their setup, shrug. If they think they hear something, it's all fair game as long as they aren't dragging others down by say, way overexaggerating the perceived impact cables have or anything like that, imho.

Different strokes for different folks. People will beileve whatever they want to beileve, as is demonstrated by just this topic, I suppose. People like spending money, or have hobbies, or hear things, or get placeboed, whatever. I would just refrain from making such abstract judgements of products from say, GR-research from what looks to be purely from unrelated products and speaker decay measurements. Ears should be the judge of a speaker, no?

For wireless I don't recommend the amiron as much as the hifiman deva pro. It just outperforms the Amiron imo in most regards. Hifiman he400se with a schiit magni 3+ and modi 3 also get a solid shout from me. Maybe to differentiate it more from the 990? Dunno.

You might've missed a bit in my original post. That's fine, the room should be about 50-60 cubic meters, 1-2.5 ish meters with the speakers around a meter off of the wall, priority is on a soundstage, speakers without especially bright or sibilant voicing.

Crinacle though is a subjective reviewer. Their ratings of IEMs are not going to be infallible, and some may disagree with them. While the tier list is a good resource It really shouldn't be a one-stop-shop for IEMs... well, unless you're really lazy. Imo, use it for context and a perhaps general consensus on the performance of the iem.

It isn't executed well, imo. I'm rather a fan of a well-executed V curve, the 770 80 ohm really just isn't it for me.

popular=/ good, EG. almost any gaming headphone/set to exist, ever. dt770 is a little shouty, with slightly boosted treble and bloated and boomy bass. The akg outresolves it, doesn't have those issues, and Is easier to drive. Practically no reason to go with the dt770, and especially the 80ohm which has even more wonky tuning.