Thanks. With the Quedelix and BTR5 being roughly equivalent I keep thinking that if I'm going to spend money it should be on an actual upgrade such as the Topping DX5, which I like the look of but oddly it doesn't have balanced output!

Holy

How are the MMK2s on them?

The 2 pin UTWS3/5 will fit any totally flush IEM fine. It has issues with IEMs that have a recess, even a slight recess. Flush is just fine. I don't recommend the MMCX with adapter thing either, that often means they don't fit will in the case any more and even if they do it messes up the fit on your ear, the MMCX adapter pushes the hook up too far. I have the MMCX version as well and I have tried it with a 2 pin adapter, it's not IMO a good idea.

I have the Monarch Mk2 on it and that's just fine, like /u/yrofddragon I tried the Blessing 2 on it and while it did work it wasn't terribly secure. But literally any flush 2 pin IEM is absolutely fine, and if you have a flush 2 pin, definitely get the 2 pin version rather than MMCX with janky adapter. Although, if you have flush 2 pin, I'd also consider cutting a AZ09 Pro for a lot less money, that works too, and it's actually a lot more comfortable than the Fiio which is bulky and a poor fit. LHDC (900kbps, Chinese LDAC) on the UTWS5 is nice if your phone supports it.

That is a very tough question. I absolutely love Prushka Sequence and Rumble of Scientific Triumph, but Old Stories, Tomorrowland, and Faputa are all godly out of the new OST. Kevin Penkin nailed it again.

Uh.. is it a high pitch rain or inside a house kind of rain sound? Can't hear it even with planars lol.

Honestly, the problem is pretty unique to the HE6se v2 and a small handful of other headphones still on the market. The HE6's problem in particular is that it is a bit of a dinosaur, based on driver design that is almost 15 years old now. These days, most modern headphones will sound just fine on most modern amps and you don't have to worry about any of this. But the dinosaur HE6, unfortunately, really does benefit from every watt you can give it.

What the HE6se V2 can sound like when properly amped is very raw, energetic, aggressive, ultra-detailed, ultra-fast, great bass slam, etc etc. Properly amped, this headphone can keep up with others three or four times its price. Without adequate power, the bass slam and speed vanishes, the soundstage narrows, and the highs lose all energy and become very vague and dull. Sounds like a completely different and just much worse headphone.

For instance, the way I normally listen to my HE6se V2 is by connecting it to the speaker taps on my Onkyo AVR that's good for 150WPC@8ohms (which is about 24WPC@50ohms). I'll be the first to tell you that this is extreme overkill, that much power is absolutely not necessary, but 1) it certainly eliminates any doubts you could have about providing adequate power, and 2) the AVR only cost me $100 used. Driving the HE6 this way, the wattage-to-dollar ratio is out of this world.

So my overkill Onkyo AVR is my point of reference. It allows me to hear everything that people endlessly praise this headphone for. And so from there, I experimented with how it sounds on other amps I own. The least powerful amp I tried was my little Liquid Spark, which is good for about 1W or so. Totally inadequate. No slam, no speed, no energy, etc. Honestly just bad. I love the amp for a lot of headphones in my collection, but it just doesn't cut it for the HE6.

It wasn't until I bumped up to my Liquid Platinum, which is good for about 4W, where I really started hearing that greatness that I was hearing with my overkill Onkyo. Such that if all I had was my Liquid Platinum, yeah, that'd be fine. I would say the LP's 4W is enough to get you nearly everything this headphone can deliver. It turns out that I don't really care for the planars-on-tubes sound, so I don't pair them often, but I found the LP to be technically capable for sure.

The community for this headphone on Head-Fi, we find that amps like the Liquid Platinum or the Schiit Jotunheim are about as low as you want to go in terms of wattage to extract most of what this headphone is capable of. One lesser-known amp that's been getting a bit of attention lately from HE6 owners is the Emotiva BasX A2m, which when set up in direct drive mode, is good for a whopping 8.5WPC@50ohms, and the amp only costs $350. Good bang for the buck.

All of the amazing things you hear people say about this headphone, honestly it's 100% true, it's real, the headphone can do it. Unfortunately, unlike modern headphones, you do just need to work for it. That's not to say you have to spend money to get there. Like I said, my Onkyo AVR I use with mine only cost me $100 used, and there is a good crop of dedicated headphone amps available new today that have adequate power without absurd price tags, like the ones I mentioned earlier. Just... some specialized gear is unfortunately required to really extract every ounce of greatness out of this dinosaur headphone.

The tracks I most use to tell apart good headphones from the not-so-good:

• Night Club Junkie by YUC'e. The percussion notes starting at 1:14 cover the entire treble range at once and reveal instantly if there are any detail-killing peaks or holes. Makes a nice, crisp, even TSK! sound on well-calibrated speakers and top-end gear, but the consonants increasingly become underemphasized (TsK!) or outright disappear (TK! or K!) as you go down in sound quality.

• Kiseki Musubi by Hololive. The passage at 2:53 features fast tempo, a buttload of instruments covering the entire audible range from 200 Hz up, and vocals to potentially mask it all. Notes are crisp and clearly separated/audible on the upper end of mid-fi, while they're squished together, blend into each other, are drowned out by the vocals, and/or sound like mush on anything below.

Lmao

You should hear the monogatari ost with these. (Nise especially). So nice.

Yeah man, Chainsaw Man OP/EDs are straight fire. Right now I'm digging the Mushoku Tensei's OSTs, very atmospheric. I find Japanese songs unique, fun and not boring compared to many copy-paste trendy pop songs, although, I'm a big fan of John Mayer.

My favourite Japanese band is RADWIMPS!

What's your preferences?

you're on your lucky day bro, that's exactly the model that I got. and indeed, I've got both the porta pros and the ksc75s and can tell you that definitely koss wanted to play it safe with these IEMs because they got a sound profile really similar that those headphones, they're more similar to the porta pros than the ksc75s tho.

Try Roon so that you can EQ with WASAPI and therefore no interference/distortion from your PC. I also had this problem before discovering Roon!

I be listening to hella anime intros/outros :) get introduced to lots of japanese bands that way. Like with chainsaw man, a new band doing an outro every episode lol eating good rn.

💀💀💀

Dragonfly Red USB DAC… best 300 bucks I ever spent

Which model Koss TWS earbuds do you have? Was interested in the 250i’s, have heard they sound like a combination of the Porta Pros and KSC75’s

.78 2 pin UTWS5. The fit is almost ideal. Was initially going to use a set of Moondrop Blessing 2, but the small divot made the connection weak. Same with the Truthear Zero. I narrowed my choices down to the Dioko or the S12, and the Dioko was a better fit all around. The Dioko's are also able to completely fit in the case without issues. It is almost like it was meant to be

Try using crossfeed! With the huge soundstage of the HD800S, you don’t lose that much and it makes listening to them much less fatiguing.

I assume this is a direct 2 pin UTWS? 3 or 5?

How's the fit between the Fiio and the Dioko?

Yep, that’s it. Went searching on google for HD800 pics and found it lol.

Words taken from my GF (who’s not a weeb). I was a bit shy to admit I like listening to anime music, so she said “embrace yourself” lol. Guess she’s a keeper.

If you think they sound good now, wait till you hear them with a proper amp (read: speaker amp).

I have a lesser Beyerdynamic headphone, and I love it, and I also bought the HD600s on sale for about the same price, and I also love them. The Beyerdynamics I have are bright, and some people don't care for that, but the Sennheisers have a sound signature that I don't think anyone would find offensive, so I think your safer bet is to buy the HD600s on sale rather than the 1990s at full price. They have a return policy if you don't like them, and if you do like them and decide to keep them, you got a great deal on them.

Now I can’t unsee it…