>Fostex TH610

These ones?

https://www.mimic-audio.com/products/fostex-th610

>What exactly do you want to improve?

Nothing really. As you mentioned, the upgrade itch is there and I bought these ones years ago.

I will look into the R70x as well.

Thanks!

its probably the best no frills lossless service out there aside from Qobuz, which is not available where I'm at. I would experiment which one you like more between the two.

That's fair

I’m confused at the pricing- something used is that much? When looking at the official Audeze distributor in the UK, https://www.audeze.co.uk/products/lcd-x , the price is 1149 brand new? There is a creator package (get that one) and the premium which comes with a balanced cable (unnecessary for the efficient-to-drive LCDX) and a case (which shouldn’t cost 550 pounds).

I would investigate why their prices are like that

Great response, I'll do that. It's the entire journey of getting your first setup and enjoying and moving on which makes it worth it, in my mind at least. The learning is also why this hobby is so great, It's like peering inside a product authors mind and seeing why/what/if they choose there product to sound like. It's great

Aeon closed...

I love this energy, keep looking and keep finding and trying different products. You'll find the ultimate product if you keep looking, or, it could be right in front of you... who knows right?

This is why I hate rubber coated electronics.

A lot of summit fi or high end gear are not scams, they may actually be quantifiable/ subjectively better in a very small way… but the truth is almost 99% of those options terrible in price to performance value. And that’s exactly why they make them so expensive. They know the people buying them are either gear chasers, big wallet enthusiasts wanting to try the most refined audio listening experience using the best materials refined to increase performance by >.01%, or well off people who just want the “best.” But regrets depends on how you look at your emotional investment in the hobby.

For example, I’ve owned countless headphones low, mid, high tier. I recently went gear chasing looking for the ultimate sound and had utopias, lcd-5s, multiple zmf’s, heddphone, multiple Grados, and Dan Clark’s older ether flagship. Don’t forget countless hours researching and trying amp pairings. Out of all of those, the lcd-5s were, imo, the best daily driver for me after months of buying and selling. In the end I sold them all and now I only have an older black silk HD600 from 1996 with custom cans brass bass port mod and I’m quite happy to stay here at the moment.

So I have ‘regrets’ in the sense that I spent all this time, energy, and money looking for and having something truly special, yet in the end, the entire process made me realize that my hd600s were all that I really needed. They do something special regarding my subjective listening preferences while being 90% the performance of anything else above them. And this is my 4th time owning various iterations of the 600. But at the same time, going through through this ordeal has made me realize more of what I value most. The journey has been really fun, really agonizing, and I’m sure I’ll continue having waves of wanting more in the future.

Turned it to max - hopefully this does the trick. Thanks so much!

I'm sorry but I don't think there is something for 300 bucks that will be a substiantial upgrade. The M40x you already have is a good headphone. What exactly do you want to improve? Do what you want, but we all sometimes get that upgrade itch although we have a perfectly good headphone on our head. My suggestion would be to cough up some more bucks and buy something like the Fostex TH610, which will be a substiantial upgrade.

That's provided you want another closed-back headphone. If you want to try an open-back, the ATH-R70x will be a huge upgrade. It trades blows with headphones around the kilobuck territory.

Glue n ducktape friend

I used it for a while but found myself always going back to spotify. I liked the discovery a lot more and the fact that I could play from any device and use and other device as a remote. Recently started using roon/qobuz and so far I like it a lot. I didn't care for qobuz as a standalone but it's pretty good with roon. Let's see if I switch back to spotify haha. Why can't they just release the damn hifi tier

this was years ago, but my first "high-end" headphone was an HD800, which I bought blind because I just got a job and it looked cool and audio reviewers were raving about it... and I hated it. These days I'm more cognizant of just how subjective head-fi is, so I don't spend money I'm not comfortable wasting without listening to something with my own ears or the recommendation of someone whose opinions I trust completely. Though of course, sometimes you buy something and it turns out to be unreliable or uncomfortable for long stretches and so on.

I've been meaning to make this a post but it might not warrant its own thing: I don't regret buying headphones but I hate how much I feel the need to switch between them... having too many headphones is only annoying because of how often I rotate between them.

Perfectly said. Switching between the XS and 6xx repeatedly is the perfect loop for me.

Which ones do you currently have?

No regrets. Chalk it up as the cost of enjoying a hobby, which brings excitement and requires building your knowledge. If you have cans you don’t use as much anymore, sell them second hand and use the proceeds towards new gear. As we are all on different stages of the audio hobby progression, beginners can get into the hobby by buying well cared for gear at a fraction of the new price. I think cans are just one part of the bigger hobby picture. DACs, amps and music library also provide a source of technical learning and appreciation. The question is, what would you have spent your money on otherwise? If the answer is alcohol, drugs or partying, I’d say spending your money on audio has been a wise choice (haha).

Not really, but kind of. DT 770 was my first headphone and I obviously liked it (fat sub-bass and spicy treble). With the knowledge I have today I would not buy it again. But can I really call it a regret? It's sturdy as hell, easy replacable and cheap parts and can be EQ'd. Then, I am still going down the IEM rabbit hole and have a bunch of IEMs that are not outright bad, but none of them satisfies me as an endgame should.

The lossless made it a no brainer for me

In America you can get Hulu and Spotify bundled for $10 which is a pretty great deal.

All you need to know is that you appreciate them all and to you, they are worth it.

I can rationalize the price when I remember that if I treat them well, they will last decades. Yeah, maybe I spent $500 now, but if I had spent that on something like Airpods (no hate, I have some) they would only last me a few years thanks to the batteries. Nothing about the headphones I have will stop working any time soon.

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Yeah, the newer Senns sound dead. The sennheiser veil used to be lack of treble, but these donlt have upper mids too. Make sure you never buy current Apple headphones then, haha. They are HD6xx squared. One day I equalized my ear gain flat with my own ears and then listened to heaphones like this. It was awful, sounded like an ear infection.

That being said, if you read B&K occluded ear simulator patent, you'll see that there is a big variance in our ears. Some ears have a response that matches headphones like the 6xx. HD650 is matching the median very closely up to 6k and then drops a little. Many people complain that they're too hot, so it tells you something about neutrality.

EQ'ed HD600 (to taste) is so fucking solid.