I would love to try them out, but I require the cable to only attach on one side, which means most of them wouldn't work for my primary setup.

Perhaps your ears just don't like any of the algorithms you've heard. I've found several that do a great job to my ears for games.

The secret to audio bliss is to find something decent, get used to it, and then just listen to the music with realistic expectations. Selling all the gear we have and settling for cheap stuff is bogus, and a lot of us here find great joy in tinkering and researching gear.

Good luck with your decision. I truly hope you find and/or keep your bliss, but your method is not a one-size-fits-all.

Thanks!

I wish I knew! I'm bookmarking this in hopes you get an answer, cause I'd like to know too.

I sleep with earplugs in almost every night, but I just use the generic purple ones from my local pharmacy. They're fine as long as I lie still on my back for 20 minutes after putting them in before turning on my side.

+1. EQ for your own enjoyment.

It took me many years. Every time I tried EQ I hated the changes until I tried convolution EQ impulses a couple years ago and suddenly I loved it.

Fren, I love your headphones and your stack. Great setup.

Oh man! I used a Headroom Total Airhead for a decade! It would distort so much at higher volume.

You won't get any nasty artifacts. Games will output what they support, and any modern version of Windows will resample it properly. There is no need to worry about it at all. Best to keep it at 48000Hz these days because most new content is at that rate unless all you do is listen to CDs.

As far as 44 being generous, that isn't the case. The Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem tells us that in order to reconstruct audio of a given frequency, you need at least double that in sampling rate. The next rung down from 44,100Hz on PCs - if it's even supported - is 22,050Hz, which would only allow for frequencies up to 11,025Hz. Keep in mind that 44,010Hz is for each channel and is not divided amongst each ear.

Modern games mix their audio at 48,000Hz. Additionally, a program like OBS will record at the rate your device is set to. I recommend 24-bit 48,000Hz for everything in Windows unless you have a particular reason to use something different.

The only major exception is that if you listen mainly to music from CDs, that will be at 16-bit 44,100Hz. Setting 24-bit won't hurt anything and will actually make volume changes better quality, and these days resampling 44,100 to 48,000 is transparent, but if you really want to ensure the best quality, setting your device to 24-bit 44,100 will technically be best if all you do is listen to music.

Thanks!

May I have a link to the background please?

Low battery warnings, charging things, and latency are all a pain in the ass. I understand wanting wireless while traveling, but if you're spending most of your listening time at a desk then wired stuff turns out to be more convenient for a lot of people.

No one wants to hear music blasted through someone's microphone in mono over Discord or Zoom or whatever voice app you use.

Just let them enjoy their gear!

u/jeeper173, the stuff you got is awesome and it sounds great. I hope you enjoy it for a good long time!

OP, I'd be curious to know which of you headphones you were talking about when you said they "melted my face off like they always have."

I can't verify if this is true or not, but in band in high school our instructor told us that in-ear can cause problems because there is very little between the driver and your ear drum.

I'm just relaying what I heard during my education. I'm skeptical of it because I would think what matters most is the SPL at your eardrum, and IEMs often seal and attenuate outside noise, meaning you can enjoy at a lower volume than with open headphones. I can't say I know for certain; my hope is only that this gives you some good ideas for finding real scientific studies.

Thanks for the accurate description!

I use Harman as a last EQ to 'correct' my headphones to a reference point, but I have a preferential EQ before that which mostly raises the mids and subbass, while lowering midbass and lower treble. This all means I get to use the same preferential EQ on all my headphones and I can still have them sound similar when I want them to because my preferences adjust from Harman.