How many of those IEMs do you still currently own?

It's not your end game. You're addicted to IEMs and you're going to buy more!

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Yeah, when Innerfidelity was still a thing, Tyll used to have the Wall of Fame, which was similar to what you are suggesting, and it was certainly helpful. Crinacle and Resolve have their own respective modern lists as well, with Crinacle's being the more exhaustive one. Both definitely have their place as well.

Ultimately, there's bound to be one or more pairs that won't make the cut, and users may still feel slighted to not get a mention. Also, as odd as it is, the double edged sword sometimes rears its ugly head when pockets of communities adopt said lists as gospel, and anything that falls outside is deemed not worth pursuing, which to me is even worse than having no list at all.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. :/

Just got the Xduoo TA-26 added to my rig.

Right now, I'm just running out of the Presonus into the Xduoo to get a feel for it, but ultimately I plan on using the TA-26 as a tube preamp, then using the Magni 3 as the headphone amp at the end of the chain.

Right out of the box, the Xduoo doesn't sound bad at all. The tube saturation is evident, without being distracting, like I remember on my old Little Dot Mk1.

I'll eventually roll the tubes, would love to hear your experiences with different ones.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I'm using Focal Elegias, 6xx, 4xx, K371, Grado sr225, and of course Portapros and KSC75s.

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They always say that they "aren't being paid or influenced to say anything good or bad about this product" but they know as well as us that it's all hype cycle. They are paid for views, and people view what is new. That's what keeps the lights on for these reviewers. And I don't blame them. I also appreciate their honesty usually, but I know this is all just consumerism.

Seems like a good system would be to maybe have a "price point leaderboard" or something with like 5-10 pairs that form the basis for comparisons. Headphones can get moved in or out depending on their performance and stuff. That way you don't have to keep track of the dozens of mediocre sets of cans that pass through your hands every year but can still let people know that the best headphones of 2016 are still relevant or alternatively, you think the market has moved on.

Reviewing older models doesn't sell clicks.

(That's the charitable reading of course, there's also probably an element of pressure to feature mostly new stuff because that's what people want to see, will make their video do better, etc)

Thank you for the response! I'll check out the store when I'm town in a few weeks. :)

Gimme a sec lemme grab my popcorn

If you like the timeless, look up the s12 or s12 pro. It's what everyone is recommending over the timeless rn

returning is a thing

My understanding is that most reviewers receive review units that they eventually have to send back to the company. So when it comes time to make comparisons, they're probably only able to A-B what they currently have lying around from other companies (or what's in their own personal collection). I wouldn't want to be throwing out subjective comparisons to headphones I haven't heard in years unless I had a very systematic/objective resource to back up my memory (e.g. Crinacle has his ranking and measurements).

Had the xm1s, xm4s, and xm5 and I don't really think the voice prompts are loud at all. Interestingly

To be fair, how exhausting would it be to review a new pair of headphones, and then have to contextualize and make mention of the 376,798 pairs that came before them? Every. Single. Video.

Never felt like my Sony WF-1000XM4, Sennheiser MTW 2 or Audeze Penrose were too loud... in fact they were a good reminder of what volume level they are currently set to when putting them on.

wtf

I like them. They‘re pretty narrow stage-wise which is something that might be a turn-off, but they sound pretty good. I‘d recommend equalizing them though, as they are quite muffled and someehat bass-lite without. But they definitely can rumble and sound pretty clean to me. Plus, the lesther pads are super comfy (although the HP can be a bit heavy)

I still browse head-fi from time to time, especially since they tend to have more information on higher end or obscure items. But then there’s posts like these where people go completely overboard. They’ll mod their headphones, amp, DAC, PC trying to chase those 1% improvements. I’m just like… maybe you need to change something else in your life and not your setup if you’re not enjoying it 😬

It’s a decent $150 headphone. Money better spent at massdrop at this price point though…

They changed the packaging.

Source: I work at a music instrument retailer.

I didn’t get it try massariaj@yahoo.com

The person who you have learned that from clearly made it up.