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Time-End-5288 t1_iszymq2 wrote

Not exactly, but I think it's best described as Macro Dynamics (Speakers) vs. Micro Dynamics (headphones).

Imaging and soundstage with speakers are large and 3 dimensional (it can feel like the music is all around you), they're completely different with headphones like you are inside the music. Don't get me wrong, you get a sense of space and air, but it's different (not better or worse).

Not many people coming from a speaker system would consider headphones like the Meze 99 as particularly bassy, or warm (maybe warmish), and it would likely be described as a weighty mid-range. But those headphones are considered bass cannons by a lot of people here.

I hear less of a difference moving from headphone amp to headphone amp, but more of a difference when I use different DACs.

Some things scale up better, and some things scale down better. Margins and deltas are so much smaller with headphones.

I mean there's the same dogma, and fanboy-ism here as there is with speakers, and just as many people will tell you what they like or don't like about things they've never listed too... so all that's the same.

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