From what I've gathered if you EQ these they add nothing but price and most reviewers at least prefer HD600/HD660 over these with 660s being a distant fourth.

HE6se V2. Absurd fidelity, great tuning so easy to EQ to perfection and dynamic beyond anything I've heard. The only headphone I would take over them so far is the LCD-5.

The headphone outputs on power amplifiers are often garbage. Like a $1-3k amp can have a headphone output that has nothing on an Apple dongle except maybe output power.

There is no endgame without EQ ;)

The dac/amp do so little in the end. A single band EQ does more than the difference between an Apple dongle and a multikilobuck stack imo.

Closing the same design narrows the stage. DT990 is bigger than DT770, which has a rather big stage for a closed back.

Jumping to something like that from Momentums is a ridiculous leap and I'd not be surprised if your ears need a lot of time to appreciate the differences. Like if you've had microwave meals your entire life and then you go to a three Michelin star restaurant. You'd have no idea what it's about. Could also be that they're not your type as well as they seem to be very neutral without bass elevation. It's common with planars that you need to EQ the bass.

There are good ones like Pro. DT770 with EQ (not DT700). Maybe K 273, I'm testing those tomorrow. Most are bad though.

Yeah... it wasn't just participating in the joke...

DT1990 is the harsh unsophisticated studio workhorse for the plebians who don't know about the Amiron ;)

I think it's Cirrus Logic SG-1🤔

The E10K is likely closer to how it should be technically and laptops can do whatever to the sound. A decent solid state amp and dac should sound pretty similar to each other. Like my iBasso DC05, an Apple dongle, 789 and L70 all sound essentially the same with just different noise floors and power outputs.

Oh yeah, true. I'll make more comparisons with the other ones since my guess is these are the smoothest by my ear (with the Cadenza, which is just a touch brighter).

That looks very strange to me. I wouldn't have thought any part of the treble goes above Harman and mostly stays 1-2dB below. I listened to many tracks that I often have treble issues with Beat by Tingvall Trio for example or Radha Kaise Na Jale by A.R. Rahman and they're easy to listen to at high volumes.

I got these to try since DMS mentioned they beat the Chu and I've felt the cheapo chifi situation has gotten a bit out of hand and having some other options would be very welcome. Turns out these are damn nice. I've been supposed to make a proper Wan'er, Zero and Cadenza comparison, but luckily having a baby in between delayed it enough to add these in the set. Here's a first impressions after a few hours of listening.

The balance is excellent. Perhaps a tiny bit safe in the highs, but smooth and present. There's as much bass as you can cleanly add, but a bit of sub bass is missing in comparison to some of the others, but the transition from bass to mids suits much more genres than with the Salnotes Zero for example. Detail, timbre, everything is great. The staging feels wider than usual with IEMs which has it's benefits and issues. For critical listening it's nice, but on the go casual listening might feel a bit less engaging.

These can be worn cable over the ear or normally, but at least for me over the ear negatively affects the sound rather clearly. Volume drops, dynamics suffer and of course flipping the channels can be jarring when you're familiar with songs with the intended mix. The part resting on your concha is also a bit chucky and fit might not be ideal for small ears while the tip itself fits nicely.

These might actually be the best tuned IEM I've ever heard having a Dusk, Timeless etc. It does no tuning tricks like added treble, clear sub bass separation etc, but just does everything nice and smooth.

I second this. The AutoEQ presets have been garbage and very different from his PDF's.

I'm the exact opposite. I much prefer (almost) every headphone with Oratory's presets than stock. There are a limited few that I would even care to listen without EQ anymore. Which headphones for example and are you sure you level matched? Louder is always better when A/B:ing. Any specific aspect that you didn't enjoy since perhaps dome aspect of Harman is not good for your taste or ear?

Like what?

Try Oratory1990's EQ preset. For me it doubles the sound quality.

HD560s have a small soundstage still. K 701/702 is a few steps more open, but Edition XS is probably the cheapest that sounds really open.

For me, if you use Oratory1990's EQ preset then these really offer so much that anything more is just luxury unless one listens to EDM, metal etc that need a bit more and cleaner bass and even then they're fine.

A) might not just be your thing, B) the jump might be so big you need time to understand the differences (like jumping from MoonDrop waifus to appreciating the masterpieces of impressionist art), C) the M50x's are laser sharp in the treble and have overdone porridge bass so your ears might be fucked like mine were after using them for a few years that something balanced sounded boring (HD650 for me) and it will take time to readjust, but the M50x's will likely sound horrific afterwards.

The amp is likely fine. An iBasso DC05 or Apple dongle is. I recommend EQ (Oratory1990 preset) to bring the bass up a bit. They're really damn nice headphones for most people. The big soundstage also makes them more diffuse sounding in the bass especially which is a bit less gripping and more ethereal than you're likely used to.

The 702 is a great headphone. Especially with a Harman EQ.

No, but I highly recommend EQing them.

Apple dongle is all you need for an amp, but EQing them makes a world of difference.

Apple dongle is fine, but for EQ a DC05 might be needed. A better amp than that is nice to have, but adds very little.