I think the newer ones come with CP100. If you are getting them, there's a slightly newer version, CP100+, with a slightly thinner/tackier/better silicone. CP100 fit, anyway, and are SpinFit's most popular tip. SpinFit W1 are a newer more expensive tip that is also decent. Personally, I use Moondrop Spring Tips on mine (Tia Trio).

Amplifiers vary in efficiency. This depends on their design. The less efficient, the excess power needs to be vented as heat. It depends too on stuff like the case design, the K5 Pro I think has a quite big (and particularly tall) case most of which is empty. I know with some other stuff, like Topping has one small amp, the A30 Pro, which does a very large amount of power but in a very small case, and it reportedly gets very hot, hotter than something like the A90 which has similar power but in a larger case. The A30 needs ventilation holes all over which the A90 doesn't. The dongle I have that gets hot, the MoonRiver 2, is also particularly thin for the power level.

I depends on the device, I have a K5 Pro as well (AKM version) and it doesn't get remotely hot at all but also have a Topping A90 that does get quite hot. And a xDuoo TA-26 (tube amp) that gets even hotter. Even for that matter a Moondrop MoonRiver 2 dongle gets quite hot.

Whatever they are doing, their headphones sound great. They are also very consistent in hitting their target, indeed over multiple headphones never mind batches or supposed revisions of headphones.

I do think the Edition XS and Arya sound very very close to each other, the tonality is very similar.

OG Ananda is a bit lighter/rolled off in the bass. From VSG's measurements they may have fixed that with the stealth edition.

https://vsg.squig.link/?share=HIFIMAN_Ananda_(2022_Stealth_Magnets),HIFIMAN_Edition_XS,HIFIMAN_Arya_(2021_Stealth_Magnets)

Well worth it, pick based on price and fit. Edition XS is far and away the best value, I recommend that.

Other companies like Audeze, there is far far more batch to batch variation, even with no "revisions", stealth or otherwise.

One indication I think is how close Oratory's EQ work, they seem to just work exactly on my Hifiman. Have to modify quite a bit for LCD-X, I think mine is different to his one.

Right, so they miscopied, or possibly adjusted, one datapoint. The original is neither 25Ω nor 27Ω anyway, it was measured by both ASR and RAA at 33Ω.

You are reading far, far too much into these numbers. It's like divining tea leaves.

Arya Stealth

• Hifiman Store 430g
• Hifiman website 404g in the text on the right, 430g on the graphic
• New box 430g, old box 404g (both of these are Arya Stealth boxes, they both have a stealth sticker on the front)
• Amazon, 404g

Mine, actual weight is 439g. Lots of other places saying 440g, which is close enough to the actual weight.

There just isn't consistency on this, I mean even Hifiman.com has both weights listed. They even have both weights listed on the one page. They simply aren't careful about these specs at all, and they frequently copy specs from an older model and only update them (if at all) somewhat later. They re-use the boxes (which have the old specs on them) and slap a "stealth magnet" sticker on the front, so sure they have the old specs on them, unless they put a label over that too.

But sometimes the specs even just get copied onto the new packaging. Like I said, they are quoting literally 14 year old specs from a model two generations back on the HE6SE and have never bothered to update that in all these years.

People then see the initial versions of the new model had specs from the old model and now they changed and think it's actually a third model, but it's not, this is reading far too much into the specs.

I don't think there is a V3. It's just they updated the specs on the box at some point after releasing the Stealth Ananda. They presumably remeasured them and updated the specs at that point.

There's the OG Ananda and the V2/Stealth Ananda. That's it.

The specs were never accurate in the first place, they are often way off. That doesn't mean anything.

OG Ananda Hifiman spec 25Ω / 103dB. ASR measured at 33Ω. RAA also measured at 33Ω and 109.2 dB/V SPL / 94.4 dB/mW SPL.

So this was already way off.

HE6SE is another one, Hifiman say 50Ω, ASR and RAA both measured at 64Ω. The 50Ω number was copy pasted from the HE6, which was 50Ω, and they are still using that number on the spec for the HE6SEV2 14 years later, even though it's not.

You can read far too much into this, they are nowhere near accurate.

The drivers would have changed in the change to the stealth version. Initially, I think they didn't update the specs, or not significantly, 2Ω is very little and they kept the 103dB. Then at some subsequent point they updated them.

The weights are often off as well, it's only 40g. I think the stealth version should be heavier. They has this whole same thing with the Arya/Arya Stealth, the weight changed by about the same and there was a delay until they updated it so there are two weights generally floating around for that.

None of this stuff is that accurate and it changing a bit doesn't indicate an actual change with the headphone.

In the post you linked someone emailed Hifiman and they said "They have the same drivers. The production batch is different, the specification will be adjusted, but the sound quality remains the same."

I suspect this the change from non-Stealth to Stealth, and that they initially didn't update the specs but then decided they had better. I also do suspect the Ananda Stealth and Edition XS driver may be related, as their specs are now so similar. But I don't think there was a distinct V2 and V3.

I would suggest bending the metal arms inwards. Don't bend the top of the headband, extend them out and bend in the arms only. This increases clamp force.

I also have a headband cover similar to the Geekria, this helps a bit too by increasing the contact area but the bending was the larger effect.

Before they were ridiculously loose, now they are secure and very comfortable.

KZ PR1 Pro has a lot of bass, but sub-bass focus so it isn't bloated. Agreed it's good, at least if you can handle the treble.

Right, but it doesn't matter whether it's the encoder or the parameters, the point is the result is different.

If you increase the parameters on SBC (SBC XQ) it can sound great too, but that doesn't help you particularly if the bitpool is artificially limited to a low bitrate as is done on Samsung buds (bitpool 37 rather than 53) and I believe, Windows.

That you could theoretically get a different result if the parameters were different, doesn't get you the different result, you get the result with the parameters chosen by the developers of the stuff you are using.

The Apple encoder is I believe different from the Fraunhofer one, and is supposedly, better. So there it's not just the parameters. But even if it was just the parameters, the average user isn't rooted and can't change the parameters. So it doesn't matter whether it's the "encoder" or the "parameters".

Personally- I think AAC sounds fine on Android, so I'm with your there.

This Soundguys comparison is from 2018, and it shows major differences in AAC encoding between iOS and Android, and for that matter between Android phones.

I don't think simply looking at the high frequency cut-off really tells much about audio quality, it's not the largest factor, and particularly when many of them are high enough that I know I wouldn't hear the difference personally. But it does indicate objectively that there were at least differences between the encoders as recently as 5 years ago, you don't need to go back 15.

AAC on my phone running Android 12 is also still truncated, I think around 17kHz. Subjectively, I think it sounds good, I don't think that's a problem. Arguably, cutting at 17kHz they don't have to waste as many bits on frequencies that most people can't hear. But it's lower than apparently iOS does it (Soundguys says it goes to 18.9kHz).

/r/headphones/comments/118hxsp/dunu_sa6_mk2_sa10_sa16_announced_sa16_demo_unit/

Anole VX is the SA6 with much more resolution. VX is better, the tonality is very similar though. Higher resolution than anything else I have heard, other than the Shure KSE1500, and even that it's on a similar level to. Higher resolution than the the MEST, it's really on a different level to other TOTL IEMs. The negative is it's maybe not quite as natural sounding as some other IEMs. I'd still take the Monarch Mk2 as a more natural sounding all rounder. I don't find the Anole VX too bright, but I'm not sensitive to very high frequencies.

It's much more expensive than the SA6 too though. But just to throw it out there as something that is tonally very close to the SA6, but absolute TOTL resolution.

https://crinacle.com/graphs/iems/graphtool/?share=IEF_Neutral_Target,Anole_VX,SA6

https://precog.squig.link/?share=qdc_Anole_VX_(OFF),DUNU_SA6_(Atmospheric)

My own graph possibly even closer

The SA6 Ultra was very well received, if the new SA6 is similar to that it could well be a winner.

Taste comes into it as well. I think the Variations competes well above its pricepoint. I have the SA6, IE600, Tia Trio and OG MEST as well. These are all great IEMs but I'd put the Variations over the SA6 and IE600 personally, and it's arguably better tuned than the Tia Trio or MEST. MEST has better stage, Tia Trio has better bass impact. But the tuning is better, and more natural, on the Variations. A/Bing right now with the SA6, the Variations sounds much more natural. Variations does have that mid-bass suck which doesn't work for everything.

HiByOS is based on Android.

That's very low power. The $9 Apple dongle does 31mW@33Ω, 30% more power than this does.

The Edition XS are much lower sensitivity (91dB/mW spec, and that's optimistic) than the Focal Clear (104dB/mw) or HD6XX (~100dB/mW), while your amp does higher power at 300Ω than 32Ω.

The Edition XS is 18Ω where presumably your integrated amp is putting out even less power.

Often the headphone outputs on these can be OK for high impedance dynamics but no good for low impedance, low sensitivity planars, it seems like this is one of these cases.

It's on the list of presets in my previous comment, it's the one for the HD600 labelled "Optimum HiFi Curve". This is the direct link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ygs3wfnj4ntgmhq/Sennheiser%20HD600%20%28Optimum%20HiFi%20Curve%29.pdf?dl=0

Or as Oratory replied to you, you can just leave the shelf off the Harman target.

Harman will increase the bass quite substantially on the HD600.

So do you want Harman or decreasing the bass?

Neither of these EQs will decrease the bass, both will increase it, Harman above flat, Oratory1990/USound up to flat.

If you don't want the bass boost to be honest the HD600 is extremely close already and there is no need or reason to EQ it.

On PC I use Equalizer APO, for mobile I use a Qudelix 5K.

Android apps for EQ there is Wavelet which is free. You need to convert PEQ to use- you can do this using the equalizer tab on Crinacle's graph tool, and "download for Wavelet". Or Poweramp EQ you can enter PEQ values directly.

I got an entire cable for $7 here in Asia. Same cable is $15 on Amazon, and is a decent cable with 2 connectors already attached.

https://imgur.com/a/E5Obukk

The HD6X0 connector is technically proprietary but it's very easy to get and it's cheaper even than supposedly non-proprietary connectors like Audeze's mini-XLR, or Audio-Technica's recessed 2.5mm. It's only marginally more difficult to get than dual 3.5mm.

If you have the HD600, you would use the HD600 preset. You always EQ using the presets for the model you have. The way it works, it's FROM the model to a specific target curve. So you need to start with the exact model you have.

Then there are three different options, Harman, Diffuse Field, or Oratory1990/Usound.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory1990/wiki/index/list_of_presets

Basically USound is Harman without the bass shelf, so if you find Harman bass too much and just want flat bass, that's a good pick. It will still bring up the HD600 bass roll-off. I'm not a fan of diffuse field.

Audeze have an open box/B stock sale at least once a year, usually in November. That's where I got my LCD-X, $699. They will ship internationally, I'm in Asia, shipping is around $100 and you would have to pay VAT on import and any warranty needs to go back to the US at your cost. But it's still a good deal IMO.

If you CAN get them locally, obviously do, it's better for the warranty etc. But this maybe an option for you. Audeze LCD-X is $1,950 retail here, and the only shop that has it even listed it looks like the old one, with the old headband, which was much worse.

I can't see any reason whatsoever as to why it is B stock, it looks perfect. And Audeze say with the B stock, it's never sonic issues, they don't sell anything with a sonic issue. It's anything that came back to them for any reason, and I think most of it, it's pretty much mint, I also have a B-stock Euclid IEM and it's also perfect.

The 2021 version isn't quite as bad as that, it's still recessed in the upper mids and needs EQ but it's not as bad as the previous version.

https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/graphtool/?share=IEF_Neutral_Target,LCD-X_(Fazor),LCD-X_(2021)

That's what it costs. If you don't have issues with the current headband, no need to swap it. It's a relatively marginal weight saving.

The weight is very well distributed with the headband, I have no issue at all with the LCD-X but get hotspots with the Hifiman HE6SEV2 which is only 470g.

Don't use any of them, they are automatically generated from those people's measurements to AutoEQ's Harman-but-not-quite-Harman target and are generally not very good.

As Oratory1990 has measured them, he has a number of Harman-actually-Harman presets for that headphone with different pads, use one of those instead.