People need to vote with their wallets when it comes to Hifiman. I've had 2 new headphones from them and both had QC issues. Yeah they sound good and all that, but you can buy stuff that sounds good and is built well for the same and even less money.

I fookin' new there was a HE-1 in an $8 bin somewhere. I was hoping I'd find it first. Congrats OP. If you ever feel like selling it I'll not only double your money, I'll triple it. Thats an offer you can't refuse.

The Empyreans in black copper are, IMO, the best looking headphones out there (aside from the Jecklin Float obviously). I love my Elites, but I'd love to try Empyreans too some day.

For my daily, I love bass impact/slam. I really want it to kick me in the chest. I haven't quite found that set of headphones yet, although the 109 Pros have a nice kick to them without having too much of a bass shelf. I'm not expecting that sort of bass from the HD800s, but I'd iike to give them a go some day as a complimentary headphone to the rest of my gear.

How do they compare to the Aryas for music? I've had a couple of pairs of Aryas (V2s and V3s).

Instructions unclear, now I have a pair of Koss KSC75s with a $6500 cable plugged into an ipod shuffle.

You should.

Have you ever considered that headphones in general just aren't fir you? You seem to be wanting a sound that doesn't really exist. Harman isn't a million miles away from flat. I've played with EQ with the aim of making stuff "flat" before and you just end up with an ass load of mids and not much else.

I don't get what you are searching for. Harman is basically just a bit of extra bass and a bit of extra treble. Want it flat? Just reduce the bass and treble shelfs. Use Crinacles graph tool to visually test it out.

What headphones do you have? I'll make you an EQ profile you can import into Peace.

Ok so you just want a rant and not a solution. Best of luck with that.

And what is your context for flat? How do you quantify flat? Is Crinacle's IEF target "flat" to you? Do you want to look at a graph with a harman target and just see a flat line that ignores the target? Because thats technically flat if you don't consider the raw data.

So find headphones that aren't tuned around it. What are your preferences?

I don't think there is such a thing. The only way to find this out is to basically un-compensate graphs and revert them to raw.

You could get yourself some test equipment and just purely measure the dB across a sine sweep on various headphones until you find one with no dips or peaks anywhere, but I doubt you'd find any set thats truly flat.

I think the whole point of the Harman curve is that they tested the preferences of a bunch of people and came up with an average preference.

I don't understand why you have a problem a line on the graph thats basically arbitrary. You can still use it to find headphones that you like. If you like less bass, find sets that fall under the harman curve in the bass region on an FR graph. Like more treble? Find one thats above the curve in the treble region.

Whats funny is that the K612 pro and K702 are probably the closest of all the AKG headphones in terms of frequency response. I could swear I read somewhere that they are basically the same internally.

If I could make a suggestion for the K702s, go to crinacles website and find the graph tool. Select the K702, click the Equilizer tab and hit AutoEQ. Then hit export and load that text file into Peace using the import button. This takes away all the tinnyness.

I've never liked any of Oratory's EQs personally. I've used Crin's graph tool to AutoEQ to his target with some good results sometimes. K702s are the one headphone that gets vastly better IMO with EQ. My 6XXs get maybe 5-10% better, Meze Elites get maybe 5% better and I don't like my DT 770s with any EQ at all.

I miss my Arya Stealth. Much nicer than the V2 IMO.

I'm so tempted by them. Unfortunately I have to sell my Elites to get a new PC so I'm trying to decide between some used Arya V2s (had V3s before the Elites) or some 109 Pros. Both basically the same price. Tempted to go Arya and pick up some 109s anyway after my PC is sorted out.

Enjoy them. I love going back to my old headphones for a quick song or two. Makes me appreciate my better ones even more.

This, but with older silver Schiit, was literally my first decent setup.

Can I suggest trying out some EQ if you haven't already? I'm still blown away by how good my K702s are once I add just a tiny bit of EQ. Just reducing the peak at around 2000 Hz by a few dB makes a world of difference to them. It smoothens them out so much and makes them punch way above their price bracket. I personally used Crinacles Auto-EQ on his graph comparison tool as I like the bit of extra bass it adds, but just taking 3-5dB out of the 2k Hz region does 90% of the work.

Yep, I had Arya V3s briefly so I've some idea what I'm getting into.

P.S. Happy cake day!

Used Arya V2s are asking €850 (hasn't had any offers in 3 weeks so might take between €700-800) and the 109 Pros are €800 new. None used near me. Just for context, new Arya V3s are about €1400-1450 new for me.

In an ideal world, I'd get both and keep the Elites haha. I reckon I'll go with the used Arya's because I've a decent idea what I'll be getting into.

I watched a video on the V2 vs V3 from the headphone show and the guy said at one stage that the V2 has more slam/impact and then later said the V3 has better slam/impact! That left me a bit confused. The frequency response graphs for both are very similar. I must watch a few more videos, but being that this used pair is half the price of a new pair of V3s, I'd say will get over it if it's a tiny bit different.