You forgot to add the brain and different people's ears to the equation. You can prove that differences exist, but it is another thing if the brain or ear can not perceive those differences.  There are a lot of things in life that can be measured with equipment that a human's ears, eyes or brain...

  How does this affect you?

less than a second.  Just enjoy it

There is no audible difference between WAV and FLAC.  They are both lossless, which means no loss of data to the file.  Use FLAC and forget about it or read up some more on Wikipedia what the difference between Lossy and Lossless is.

  When you say blow them out of the water are you talking about the LG V10 sounding louder?  Did you level match them?  Of course the louder sounding phone will sound better.  That is how are brain works.

  iPods are not limited to 32 gigs.  You can buy one that has 128 gigs.  Granted, they do not have expandable storage.

Oops.  Sorry about that.

Thanks for the comparison! Just a correction Brooko, I am pretty sure the Fiio X3II and X5II have internal storage. 

The cable is fine. It looks good also.

I thought we were moving past the science stuff.

This is just the law of diminishing returns

  I agree that spending money on better IEMs will make the most difference in sound quality.

The thread is over a year old and you still did not give him a comparison :confused_face_2:

  Don't you hate it when a company tries to sell you a $3500 DAP that is sterile?   Wait until you hear the silver version.  The copper one will sound like crap also.