Sometimes you can get used to a new IEM. If you think the Liberty Air 2 is a lot more comfortable, and can return them, maybe do it now.

Sony XM4 have a firmware bug where they overheat and destroy the battery, this wrecked my ones. This is possibly fixed now with the latest firmware.

/r/SonyHeadphones/comments/x7mx2n/wf1000xm4_severe_battery_issues/

Samsung Galaxy Buds line are much smaller, and sound better.

I have the 2020 Utopia as well, on Head-Fi Focal acknowledged but also said they had fixed the driver death issue with the Utopia by that point (I hope!)

>Garlick is a mystery even to the most hardcore New York real estate insiders. Attempts to reach him since last week have been unsuccessful. Developers, attorneys and brokers say they’d never heard of him before the auction. His company’s website is vague. His Twitter account is suspended. A good chunk of his LinkedIn activity consists of engagement with videos of Gary Vaynerchuk.

>Nonetheless, he showed up on the steps of the New York County Courthouse in Lower Manhattan on a mild March day and won an auction for a Big Apple landmark, claiming it had been his dream to own the building since he was 14 years old.

>But Garlick’s coup and the fracas that ensued may never have been possible without a key lapse in the proceeding: Bidders were not required to put down any deposit before participating in the auction, according to court filings.

>“It’s highly unorthodox to do an auction without requiring a deposit”, said Greg Corbin, a bankruptcy specialist at brokerage Rosewood Realty Group. “Over the past 15 years of conducting distressed asset auctions, only once have we allowed people to bid without providing funds up front.” ...

>Only after the auction would a winning bidder need to show proof of their finances to the referee and put down a 10 percent deposit within two days, according to a notice of sale filed as part of the interlocutory judgment. The winner would then need to post the remaining balance within either 10 days after the court confirmed the sale or 90 days after the auction date, whichever came later.

>But because there was no deposit required before the auction, anyone who happened to be in Lower Manhattan that afternoon might have placed a bid – whether or not they had the ability and desire to actually follow through.

https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2023/03/30/the-flatiron-fiasco-how-a-key-blunder-left-a-new-york-icon-in-limbo/

The open backs (Clear, Utopia) are very well tuned with particularly good dynamics and impact. Soundstage is smaller than something like a HD800S or Arya but sometimes you want that. The HD800S soundstage can be big to the point where it feels unnatural and lacks impact, the Clear feels more natural and has much better punch.

Soundstage while smaller than headphones with the very largest soundstage is still larger than the Sennheiser HD6X0 series. The OG Clear as /u/lh-95 says is a direct upgrade to the HD6XX, it's a very similar sound signature, but more technical, more detailed, more "clear", like the veil has been lifted. So if you like the HD6XX, you'd probably like the OG Clear.

Build quality is poor (the headband is a particular point of failure and is creaky even if it hasn't failed) and failure rates (both headband and driver) on certain models are very high. Replacement parts are ridiculously expensive, this includes the pads which are $200 MSRP. If you are in the US though there are some places selling Focal pads at lower prices, around $100. Third party pads are available but sound different.

It depends I think as well what you can pick them up for. The A$999 Addicted to Audio (Australia) price on the OG Clear is equivalent to US$600 ex-tax which is an insanely low price for the OG Clear.

Many prefer the OG Clear to the Clear MG, which seems overly dark. I haven't heard the latter, but I suspect I'd prefer the OG Clear which is a great headphone, if not perfect (but nothing is).

I was driving it off a Topping A90. It wasn't lack of power.

The current does change though, current is proportional to voltage (Ohms law).

Double the voltage, double the current.

Power is the product of the voltage and current (Watt's law).

But you double one, you double the other. So double the voltage = double the current and as both are doubled, the power increases by the square of the voltage.

• 2V @ 300Ω = 13.3 mW
• 4V @ 300Ω = 53.3 mW

And this is actually the typical power you get out of 2V single ended / 4V balanced stuff.

Look for example here at actual measurements of the Moondrop MoonRiver 2 which does max 2V SE, 4V balanced.

At 300Ω, it is able to reach the full 2/4V without clipping and does ~13mW single ended, ~53mW balanced. At 68Ω, it's still hitting the full 2/4V and the power is ~59/235mW. The balanced power in both these cases is 4x exactly. So any headphone over 68Ω, you will get 4x the power on the balanced.

At low impedances, there can be a limit to current, so the amplifier will clip and you won't get 4x. You can see this here with 32Ω, where it gets 125mW single ended but only ~250mW balanced- and it then clips and distorts, rather than running out of voltage as in the other cases.

But you typically will get the full 4x at double voltage, into higher impedances.

Exactly how much at a given impedance depends on the design of the amp. But 4x is the theoretical increase in power, if current is not a limiting factor. And it typically won't be, into higher impedances. Check the spec sheets for some other amps with both, like the Topping A90D, you can see that 250mW SE but 1,000mW balanced into 300Ω. If you go all the way down to 16Ω, it's less, it's 3,300mW vs 9,800mW, i.e. 3x. Because there's a current limit. It's still over 2x though even at 16Ω.

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.

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.

If it's under $200 maybe.

Fiio K7 at $199 is a good pick, DAC and amp in one unit.

Edition XS :)

I think they are very prevalent with Audeze and Focal. Particularly Focal, they were having driver and headband failures on certain models at an extraordinarily high rate.

They had to up the warranty on the Utopia to five years to try to reassure people, because they were crapping out left right and center. The Elex, even worse, a very high percentage of them were breaking. I have the Clear and Utopia myself, so nothing against Focal, but I'm more concerned about them than I am my Hifimans. Listen to this for headband quality.

Focal quality is worse than Hifiman. They sound great, but incredibly creaky (Hifiman doesn't do this) and I would be more concerned about Focal headband or driver failure. And if it's out of warranty Focal want stupid money to fix anything, even the pads are like $200+.

...says the Focal / Audeze owner

I have six, no issues

Wow a Sony collab, he's really moving up in the world

It's entirely possible to make a single ended amp that is as good as a balanced one, balanced isn't necessary in that regard. But it's often an easy/relatively cheap way to add more power, at a given pricepoint, or with a particular design. Particularly with small USB or battery powered stuff.

The person I was responding to doubted anyone "can actually hear the difference between balanced and single ended". But it provides in these type of devices typically 3-4x the power, and that's a very obvious difference, if you have something that needs it. HD660S doesn't need it.

It's the sort of headphone, that if it was priced $100-300, I could see it- although there are even better tuned headphones at that price. At $2,000...

The Topping DX1 is more like a "super dongle" than a desktop amp, it's USB powered and has power output similar to higher powered dongles.

>280mW X 2 @32Ω THD+N<0.1 %
>190mW X 2 @64Ω THD+N<0.1 %
>51mW X 2 @300Ω THD+N<0.1 %

The Fiio K7 entry level desktop amp (to take an example), does a bit over 10 times the power of this, out of its balanced. You may not need this, but it's a lot more.

It wouldn't be trivial, you'd need to open them up and find some space for the unit inside, wiring the + and - to the driver. You'd need to mod the case to connect the charge points to something on the outside to charge them. Having these modules in there could affect the frequency response too as it's an open back.

Someone did a very involved mod with the TRN BT20S Pro and the HD660S, which involved 3D printing a load of parts and re-fitting these into them

/r/headphones/comments/10h4psm/second_iteration_of_hd_660s_bluetooth_adapters/

Even in this case though it would be easier as the 660S is at least a dual sided headphone to start with, the HD560S is single sided so you have two mono adapters (for L and R) but you only have a port on one side. So you'd need to get more involved than that and I think re-wire it internally.

If you're super into modding/DIY projects. But it's not some easy thing to make this work.

Easiest way to make the HD560S work, as it's single ended, is use a single cable output stereo BT adapter and plug it into the one side, and then tie the adapter to the headband or something.

It's boomy in the bass and has a huge 3kHz spike. I got it acceptable with EQ but never loved it; for a TOTL headphone, the sound is not great. It does have great soundstage for a closed back and is very comfortable.

The bass after EQ is good... but it's not as good as open backs like the LCD-X, HE6SEV2, even the Hifiman Arya or Edition XS. While Focal (Clear, Utopia) are punchier, the bass on the Z1R is distinctly pillowy and undefined.

It sort of decided for me that I don't need closed back headphones, I use IEMs if I need the isolation. I actually swapped it for a Shure KSE1500 which also needs EQ, but is so much better. I have the IER-Z1R as well, it's much better.

Balanced typically has double the voltage and 3-4x the power which is easily audible if you have something that needs it. HD660S is not hard to drive though.

The HD560S is 120Ω and quite high sensitivity, many people report running it off a phone fine and the AZ09 Pro has more power than most phones, even more so in high power mode (triple click on the left). I don't have the HD560s but it almost certainly would have enough power for them.

On PC, Equalizer APO / Peace.

On Android, either Poweramp EQ or Wavelet. With the latter, you put the EQ into a site like squig.link and then "Export to Wavelet".

Here's a suggested EQ. This basically cuts the mid-bass to improve clarity (leaving the sub-bass) and smooths over the upper mids.

https://imgur.com/a/1VMuRZM

The smoothing over the upper mids in particular on these is based on my own set, some measurements like Crinacle's don't seem to line up so well but others like MRS line up better. If you listen for the peaks and dips, you could customize. This maybe just helps a little for me if the upper mids get harsh.

If it sounds off you could just try one filter, and less, say 200Hz -3dB Q0.7. This just cuts the midbass a BIT but not entirely. It's a little boomy stock.

You may well just like them stock either, that's fine too.

These do have great bass.

It's unlikely to be the CP155 as it would be much too loose on the nozzle, it's designed for large nozzle IEMs like the Moondrop Blessing 2.

If it's slightly pointy/olive shaped it could be the CP145 which is 4.5mm nozzle. CP100 is round/hemisphere shaped.