Honestly rovo, posts like yours are why I get so bugged by people who INSIST on extremely expensive peripheral gear. It's how NwAvGuy caused such a firestorm.
Audiophilia is clearly a personal thing.
I think liking sound system is a hobby.
I appreciate people who like the sound system hobby because my personal experience the past three days proved that with good design, good materials, and good tuning comes higher price and the sound does becomes different.
Better amps, better source, tube rolling, and better headphones does a make difference sound-wise from the hobby standpoint.
However, liking music and the
rush and emotion associated with listening to music is universal.
For everybody that isn't in the audio hobby but likes music, to be able to hear that
emotion and rush from music better, they would benefit from having a good audio device. This is head-fi so, a better headphones. I call that
emotion-invoking aspect. Which i think is universal and inherently bias.
I didn't disclose this previously to avoid further confusions on my already-long-winded-and-structurally-messy post, but i have another small story.
Short version : i tried two hd650, the termination change (and cable change probably?), actually makes it sound worse.
Long Version : On the hifiman store (the same store i tried worn-out hd600),
i also tried hd650. The hd650 there terminates to a 3.5 instead of a 6.5. And as far as i can tell, it didn't use the stock cable.
I found it noticeable that the vocals on that hd650 sound both really recessed, and dry. Actually, since i was also listening to the the hd600 on the same store, I immediately thought the hd650
(on vocals alone) doesn't sound good. I normally have no problem with dry and analytical sound so honestly,
not sounding good is an understatement. It sounds like
crap considering the hd650 retail price is $500.
Now when i go to the 2hours + 4hours store... their hd650 sounds normal. By normal i mean good.
So based on my limited experience on the hd650 with termination (and cable) change, and hd650 with stock cable it does sound different.
Cable change does make the hd650 sounds different. The cable change i listened to, It's just sound worse.
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Above while i said liking sound system is a hobby, liking music and the
rush and emotion associated with listening to music is universal.
I'm on the opinion that average people don't need a top of the line audio-chain for that. Which is why, on Grado Fan Club thread earlier today, i posted that sr325e direct to fiio x1 is equally as good to hd650 + WA3 OTL tube amp,
to my ear, for female vocals, on my music collection.
Another user replied that
while normally they don't argue with the taste of others, they pointed that i'm dead wrong.
Well, in strict sound-system hobby world, i know that on "the headphone sound quality", it could be considered wrong saying sr325e is equal to hd650 plugged to OTL tube amp.
However, in addition to listening to the quality of sound aspect, i also judged my headphone from my own
universal aspect. I call it
emotion-invoking aspect. I focus primarily on female vocals, and seek both how much micro-details from vocals is conveyed by the headphone, and on the opposite spectrum, how much emotion i feel while i'm listening to them.
On that aspect, i can see the POV of people experience that hd650 + synergy OTL tube amp is magical. I can hear the magic too.
But that's also why on the grado fan club thread i said "it's equally as good, depends on preference". Well I prefer sr325e to the hd650. I'm biased because I'm a grado person, but
soul level is inherently bias. And all three, hd650+otl tube amp / hd600 / sr325e is to my eye equally as good on the
soul aspect, to me.