Ya definitely don't buy the GW that's just a batshit crazy product. So I take it you're looking for an all-rounder right? Because you only have the Grados now so I'm guessing whatever else you get needs to be well rounded? I really think you should check out the PM3 you know.. The more I think about it I think you're really not going to be disappointed with those and if you factor everything in they're cost effective, punch above their price, and are a really truly decent and very well made headphone. You should listen to them. They scratch that planar itch very well. Inarguably superior to 400SE IMO (at 3x the price mind you)

One thing I do really want to stress is that the fun of collecting headphones is in the differences and getting to the point where you decide "These are for pop" "These are for techno" "These are for jazz" and you have a good rotation going. If you get any other grado below their "premium" line it's just going to be a slightly better version of the same. It will obsolete your current grados so you never use them again. Wouldn't it be more fun to buy something that was totally different and sounded totally different to add some variety to your life? Just saying.

Ya Grado is a strange company... All you have to do is look at their headphones. They look like they sound awful, but they don't sound awful. Very strange indeed. The 325 can best be described like this:

SR 60: YesSR 80: Yes, and then someSR 125: Even more Gradoey goodnessSR 225: Gradoey goodness with graveySR 325: Extra tasty crispy Gradoey goodness, and they painted it silver so it looks more expensive.

Every step you take up from the SR 60 just sounds like a better SR60 all the way up to the 325. Again, Grado is frickin weird. I don't know of any other company that has 5 of the same headphone, literally, looks and all, where each step up is just (It's like the cheaper one, but with peanuts).

So, if you got the 325, your reaction, almost guaranteed would be "This is better". Not, "This is different" or "ooh I like XYZ"... just "This is Grado-er than the other Grado"

I WILL say that, if the GW100 is the wireless grado, that's a stupid product if I ever saw a stupid product. Bluetooth- so highly mobile... and open back? So "Take them on the subway train and annoy absolutely everyone with your k-pop"? I don't get it.

Oh sorry- totally spaced on these I keep forgetting they exist. Oppo PM3. $399 on Amazon.com (you have to click them then click see all buying options and there's only one seller).

I used to have these and had to tragically sell them when I ran into financial trouble BUT this is the one planar magnetic headphone that you can run off pretty much anything and it sounds good. You can even run them off those little 3.5mm to USB C dongles. That's not ideal, and I'd still suggest at least a dragonfly, but they sounds pretty damn good straight off a phone, and they will definitely get loud with no clipping. You get most of the planar benefits that would come with the 400SE/400i/4XX with less drawbacks (better build quality, closed back, smaller driver is quicker and doesn't get muddy, better bass). The only place I'd say the 400SE beat the PM3 is in smokey female vocals, which most music doesn't have, but if you were Dianna Krall's number one fan I'd stear you to Hifiman or LCD.

Sorry for 3 posts in a row. I'd say my 2 best recommendations that are the most bulletproof are Momentum 4 and PM3. PM3 is $100 more but sounds like $300 more, but is also not wireless, and you really ought to consider the Dongle DAC. Momentum 4 is $300 one time and done.

Another thing that I think is worth mentioning is that, depending on what you're looking for and how far you want to stretch your budget, bluetooth headphones have gotten gooooood in the last couple of years. Really really good. All the ones that are worth buying are $300 USD and up, BUT, you have a few advantages on hand. 1) You buy ONE thing and you're done. They sound right out of the box because they are self amplified. No need to buy any dongles or anything which means more junk to stuff in your bag or pocket. 2) No cables! No more getting tangled in cables or snagging the cable with your leg and ending up with headphones on the floor. 3) They always sound right. No fiddling with "Should I get THIS dongle DAC or that dongle DAC. But so and so said it sounds better with XYZ. It's a pain free experience.

My personal favourite full size bluetooth headphone that I own is the Sennheiser Momentum 4- but it's firmly in basshead territory. It has classic veiled Sennheiser upper treble and very prominent and tight sub-bass- but not in a way that makes the mids sound crappy. These headphones are phenomenal for electronic music IMO and they do vocals in a very pleasing way. Battery life is up to 60 hours and they charge fast on USB C. Call quality on these is the best regular phone call quality I have ever heard absolutely anywhere. Idk how they do it but they make crappy phone audio sound like a skype call. It's magic. Also if you're walking downtown in high wind with trucks driving past the person on the other end can't hear shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit it's spectacular. I will say that if you're going for Bluetooth headphones, make sure your phone supports at least BT 5.0 and AptX. That's going to give you the best experience. The Momentum 4 are $300ish USD and very worth it. If you're even a bit of an audiophile don't even look at the Sony's. Do look at the Bowers and Wilkins PX7S2 and the PX8 but those are starting to get into the big bucks. I also have the Focal Bathys which is the second most expensive bluetooth full size after the Mark Levinson 5909. Bathys is worth it but I only have them because I'm a curious single loser with no wife or children and I can buy stupid things that I don't need. If you can afford the Bathys they're delightful but you don't need to go that extreme coming from SR80s. I think the Momentum 4 might be ideal for you in terms of cost effectiveness and providing what sounds like an upgrade coming from your Grados.

Having said aaaaaaaaalll that, if you LIKE Grado (Grado sounds great I just hate the way they look. I've had SR80/125/225 myself) and you want good grado, Get SR325's and pick up a decent quality Dongle DAC. That's going to put you above the Momentum 4 price wise but will arguably give you better detail and a more natural sound, which might be good depending on what you listen to. Still open back though so hard to blast loud on public transit etc.

You have tons of options coming from android if you want better sound, starting from entry level enhancements like a Dragonfly dongle DAC (which I wouldn't use with pretty much any Hifiman headphones) all the way up to a Chord Mojo portable amp/dac and even beyond. If you want to drive more serious headphones properly though, you're going to have to do something, because unless you want to wade into the sea of IEM options out there, most proper full size headphones that are worth listening to need more juice than your android phone can provide. Also, if I had to choose between the HE400SE and the SHR840A I'd take the Shure in a heartbeat. The 400SE have an issue where if the mix is very complex the sound kinds of bunches up, sounds muddy, and you lose the sound stage. The 400SE lacks bass punch which is fine for most music but if you put something like "Who am I" By Beenie man on, you're going to be a sad panda. The 400SE delivers a very relaxed non-speedy sound that is usually detailed and does great work with vocals end electric guitar especially but they run into issues with a lot of music. An example of a ridiculously cluttered track is Champagne supernova by Oasis. On the 840A it still sounds organized but feed it to the 400SE and it just becomes a swamp in the most complex parts.Basically what I'm saying is, the 400SE is not a "This is my only headphone" headphone. It doesn't meet the cut for that. It does a lot of things really well, but it does too many things badly to be your "only headphone" and it's also seriously non ideal to run off mobile without investing $$ into a proper mobile amp. The 840A also gives you several advantages over the 400SE and Grados- it's closed back, so you can take it on the bus and not bother people. It's easier to drive than the 400SE. Buy a dragonfly, and you're going to be good. Also, based on my experience with the SR80 and 400SE and even 400i I can confidently say that the Shure's sound "right" with more music, more often, than either of those other headphones, while also offering better bass. I don't have experience at home with that many headphones long term, but I have listened to pretty much all the major full size headphones at the headphone shops in my city at some point. I don't like talking about most of them though because I have maybe 4-5 tracks each on them and not 3500 like on the stuff I use at home.

Both built by a drunk gerbil at 4:59PM on a Friday but the 400SE sounds better. I've listened to the SR80/80E/80X and used to have SR80 (original). 400SE NEEDS an amp though while SR80 doesn't.

>KPH30i

Come on. How can those be better than 400Se?

You're wrong. I have HD600's on a Fiio K7 with the balanced cable. No comparison to the Bathys (and the HD600 are >> than the 560S). Sure the Bathys aren't great on bluetooth but if you do a wired connection with USB they smoke everything else I have including HD600. You might not have heard the Bathys with the latest firmware. The original firmware sound was anaemic and kind of lame but now they're terrific.

IMO 400SE has better vocals most of the time.

The 800 series Sennheisers have terrific soundstage and are spectacularly comfortable.

Get the 840A you won't be disappointed if you have a decent amp. They are truly spectacular for the price just like the 400SE, but in a different way.

Don't listen to advice. Go listen to expensive headphones. And remember you'll need a good amp/DAC to pair with them. If you throw $1000 at LCD2C, throw $800 at a decent amp/DAC, like a Fiio K9.

Seriously though, you can learn a lot through reviews and frequency response graphs but you have to hear headphones. Go to Hifi and headphone shops. Talk to dealers and ask to audition stuff. Some will send you stuff to try. Some audiophile forums out there have reps from these companies that will loan you stuff to try. The best option by far though is a hifi shop that has 100 pairs of headphones out to try.

There are so manyh variables out there. Even saying "I really like bass/midrange and I enjoy hip hop" is not enough information. Even if you added more information its still not enough, because everyone hears differently. To use your own example- you know how you have that ONE friend that looks at your 144Hz monitor and says "I dont see a difference"? Audio is like that.

Go try headphones. Tis the only way

How i do dis? Pretend I'm a noob. :P

Ok folks, I get it. I'm getting roasted pretty hard here.
I didn't do my research. I've been out of hifi for a while and only recently got back into it and last time I hit hifi semi hard (well more mid-fi and chifi to be fair) these USB filters were all the rage. I must admit I bought the jitterbug out of nostalgia... I'm still going to try it. It'll be here in about six hours. Will report back. I have no equipment to measure other than my two ears.

Sorry for causing raised emotions.

Yes. It affects CPU usage but that hasn't mattered since like the 486 days. If you are using the line out 3.5mm jack on your motherboard, your CPU is doing some of the processing, but we're talking like less than 1% usage hit on a midrange modern CPU like a 13600K. If you are using digital out, the processinmg is done entirely outside the computer. It's sending a raw digital signal to your DAC and your DAC does all the work. DAC out USB ports are regular USB ports but there is filtering on the motherboard to prevent some of the noise issues that can sometimes arise with USB. It's a good feature to have on a mobo if you like audio more than the avg PC user.

My dad is a big Seiko guy. Some Seiko watches are so beautiful. Personally I never got into watches even though i like them because they give me a rash on my wrist from the band. I've tried metal, leather, synthetic. Always a rash, so I look at the time on my phone.

Hey friend I just want to say I'm very sorry about your mental health struggles. I've had mental health problems for 25 years and have ended up in the psychiatric hospital more times than I can count. I hurts me to see other people suffer with this because I know how difficult it is. I love headphones and mechanical keyboards too. I have 3 blue switch keyboards and one brown switch keyboard. I can't type on regular membrane keyboards anymore.

If you're a PC gamer maybe we could do a few games of Overwatch 2 or Warthunder or something. Private message me if you're interested.

I hope you enjoy your IEM hobby :)

Sorry I thought you already had the PC. Honestly I'd suggest going for a motherboard that has a DAC out USB port. Those are filtered better. Back when I first got into HIFI in 2015, USB filters were all the rage. There were a lot of them, from cheap to expensive, with one of the most affordable being the Audioquest Jitterbug. I don't hear anyone talk about that stuff anymore. Not sure if it still makes a difference.
Anyways Optical and coax digital tend to top you out around 96Khz vs USB which can go all the way up to DSD so you're limiting yourself by not going USB. Some (some) people have said optical in particular sounds cleaner if you use a good cable. Personally I've never had high end enough gear to notice a difference between optical and USB and I prefer having the option to go to higher sample rates with USB.

Also if you want to go down the "I need a clean signal!" rabbit hole, you might want to see if USB filtering is still a thing in the hobby I haven't looked into it for awhile.

HTH

Also as a followup to my previous comment, you're definitely not an audiophile and you don't have a critical ear because M50X, bad as they are, sound better than even the $200 Klipsch Promedia or the $250 Bose Revolve+ 2 speakers. It sounds like you're just a bass head, which is fine, but you have to understand that sound is subjective and you don't have "normal" (no insult intended) audio preferences that would line up with the majority of the public (again no insult) which is fine. If you do buy headphones again look for something with very heavy bass to match your preferences. Again the Sennheiser Momentum 4 is a good choice for this.

To be fair, neither of the headphones you have are HiFi. ATHM50X doesn't deserve to be popular just like Beats doesn't deserve to be popular but they're available at every Best Buy and people buy them and think they're good. They're not. Actually IMO M50X is worse than the old M50 (no X) and definitely worse than the cheaper M40X. If you want to truly get good sound out of wired headphones you're going to need to run them off a semi decent dac/amp and get some decent headphones.

Having said that there are some things that headphones will never do as well as speakers, such as if you're just a total total bass freak. Overall though, in terms of clarity and detail, headphones tend to give you more bang per dollar vs speakers, if you know what to buy.

So TLDR blame your headphones. Try something higher end. If you don't want to bother with an amp you might find something wireless like Sennheiser Momentum 4 or even the cheaper 450BT sounds a lot better. Make sure you have at least BT 4.8 on your phone/other devices.

Yes. More dynamics and detail on soft 100%.

"The PC motherboard may limit my options."
Why don't you TELL us if you have optical or coax digital outputs????