Quite odd. But fasting does have the super adamant minority of people that are off putting. Like with cross fit, vegans, and even some audiophiles. I intermittent fast and it helps me a lot. But most people tell me I’m weird for not eating until 3pm haha

Shoutout to 18:6 intermittent fasting for keeping me sane these past few years. Helped me lose some weight a few years ago. Ofc it’s CICO, but IF worked best for me.

I see it will be too large for my ear.

I'm leaving that train.

Never gonna happen

Lol.

But I would mind them but the western audience (unlike me) won't like it so I have no hope.

QC was great on my ÆON RT, just that the pads deform and flake earlier than they should. They’re super comfy though.

My personal preference would be to migrate those cans over to a balanced output for more power. However, in this scenario the DAC wouldn't be balanced.

I know iFi offers balances DACs/Amps. I wonder if selling your current amp and migrating to a stack that moves you to balanced + xbass would get you what you want. You'd also need a new cable.

Can't wait to put the new forgis on the jeep 🔥💯🙏

Hifiman sound so good but the build quality is dollar store level

Turn your sink on and pour the water on the nozzle for about 1.5 sec, though make sure that the water doesn't have enough pressure which could displace the mesh filter. Wait for around 3 days for the IEMs to dry.

If you feel a weird ear pressure while wearing the IEMs, often resulting in a weird or imbalanced sound, then you must simply wait until it disappears. You might not experience this if you wait for more than 3 days, but I'm not sure as I only waited 3 days for each IEM.

Once the pressure is completely gone, the IEMs should sound as new. This method was successful after trying it with the cca cra, moondrop chu and 7hz zero which all had channel imbalance on the right side, especially the chu with its infamous qc.

Did it 2 months ago and still no imbalance until now. I also read a few post claiming that their IEMs survived in the washer, and I can see why.

With some yoghurt?..

The Topping DX1 does 51mW @300Ω - 280mW @32Ω.

This is fine for the HD660S but it's nowhere near 1.5W.

Now obviously you can make a single ended amp that does 1.5W. But particularly in these small USB-powered devices, it seems easier/cheaper to get more power with a balanced output than increasing the power on single ended.

Everything else being equal, you get double the voltage balanced, which is 4x the power theoretically (and usually you'll get that into higher impedances) and typically at least 3x at lower impedances when you consider current limitations. This is a significant difference and will be audible if you need a headphone that needs the power.

Nothing about this is saying you need balanced rather than single ended for a given power level or that you need over 1.5W for most headphones (my HE6SE, Hifiman do recommend 2W@50Ω though, and I think it sort of needs this). Just that balanced does typically give substantially higher power and that is audible if you need it.

Yeah, I guess I'm showing my Sennheiser bias - my HD25s, HD600s, and HD800s have never died on me and have been working just fine for years 😄

Hope we do!!!

I would surely try to buy it.

Koss KPH30i (clear) $29.99

Other than the channel issue, how do you like your Aeons? That’s one headphone I’ve been waffling over for a year or two now.

i’m not trying to start an argument here. but have you actually tried them?

Redditors are afraid of weightloss apparently. Everyone is Downvoting people for fasting and their reasons why lol

There's no conventional headphone in the world that takes more than 1.5W to power under 115db You just spouting fud. You may use an amp that has a little headroom for that 1.5w but that's more to the quality of the amp than the power requirement.

Balanced outputs are for speakers, because the power requirements are much higher and the cable runs are/can be longer.

Have you considered this might be the headphone rather than the amp?

HD800S does have quite a lot of distortion in the bass and XBass is a bit over +12dB in the sub-bass, it's a lot.

If you're pushing that into it and then turning it up high, it's possibly just distorting because you're trying to make the HD800S into a basshead headphone that it's just not.

Having said that, with that +12.3dB bass shelf suggested by Oratory to replicate xBass, with the HD800S I can get up to physically feeling it wobbling my head with something like Trentemoller's Chameleon without obvious distortion. It's a bit excessive though. Fiio K7 is a good choice for amp, it will do over 500mW clean into 300Ω out of its balanced output. This is a lot.

If you're looking for large amounts of bass though, there are better options than the HD800S, I'd get a new headphone rather than a new amp. Edition XS or LCD-X are good choices. I own and enjoy the HD800S for what it does well but this is not its forte.

They're both tuned to the Harman target more of less. They're going to sound at least decent to most anyone.

Cos it's not the worth the money. Get this combo:

DAC: https://audiophileshop.com.au/products/smsl-su-9n-es9038pro-dac-xmos-dsd512-pcm768khz-32bit-bluetooth-5-0-ldac-usb-balanced-decoder

Amp: https://audiophileshop.com.au/collections/headphone-amplifiers/products/smsl-sh-9-aaa-technology-ultra-high-performance-fully-balanced-headphone-amplifier

or… they just didn’t fit his preferences?

those headphones represent one type of frequency response lol. they’re incredibly neutral with a slight tilt towards brightness. i can absolutely see how they could sound “shrill” or “thin” to a newcomer, especially the beyers which are outright sibilant at times

that’s not to say i don’t like them — but i wouldn’t have enjoyed them if they were my first cans. i’m still glad i invested in other headphones

Yea, what amp would you recommend?

Same happened with my clears, 2 rmas within weeks. They didn't even check if the drivers are matched.

Really goes to show that there is no price quality or at least QC mgmt correlation.

Sennheisers will still run decades later.