But what about the "audiophile perspective" then? :moneybag:

I bet you've never heard monitors this expensive. They are absolutely amazing.

I have the R70x and both the Shure 1540 and the AKG K371. The K371 didn't get any use since I got the other two, but recently I spent a week with it and I'm honestly surprised at how much I like it still. It's very comfortable on my head, I don't get listening fatigue from it, everything sounds...

I wouldn't really say the R70x has technical drawbacks, not at that price anyway. Also, I can't say it's dark at all. It's warm but it has well-defined highs. It is really close to Harman target curve. It's one of the least shouty headphones I've heard so I think you would be safe in that regard.

I like how exciting and revealing the DT-1990 sounds, I like how well-built it feels and it was very comfortable on my head. But I got fatigued by the treble very quickly. I tried EQ and that made it better, but I still perceived the treble as grainy. While listening to it I was hearing details...

Did you look at the Presonus Clarett 2Pre? It has nice clean preamps for the mic, the headphone amp is really powerful, and the AD/DA is really good for the price. As to the SM7B, you're not going to get it to sing when all you have is 60 dB of amplification. That would suffice for recording...

For me, surprisingly they are my Apple AirPods Pro. Not the best in anything but a very coherent and pleasant experience and the way they do bass is very much to my liking. Most foot-tapping and head-nodding happens when I have those in. If only they would stop falling out of my ears! (About to...

Closed back never has the same soundstage potential as open back. That said, there are open back headphones that lack soundstage, it's not a guarantee. On another note, soundstage is directly related to frequency response in the treble range. Dark, mellow or warm headphones generally have less...

It certainly does my head in

Ah, you have to buy from the US... US prices for Focal are so inflated that I would think twice about that choice! The largest music store in the EU is asking 349 Euro per piece for Shape 40, and 475 Euro per piece for KH80. And personally I think those prices perfectly reflect the technical...

Funny that just now I came across a Youtube review channel that focuses on streaming. Reviews mics, mic preamps and audio interfaces. Perhaps you can find what you're looking for here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Podcastage/videos

When it comes to speakers, I'd advise you to listen in person. I bought the Neumann KH80 blind, since I had some of their (bigger) speakers before. And they are fantastic for mixing and mastering, but when it comes to leisurely listening pleasure I find them a bit lacking. They are almost too...

Just look at the measurements again. Balanced pads do not boost the treble, only the bass and the lower mids. They make the sound warmer, not sharper. They even have a slightly darker treble above 15kHz. Sibilance used to be a term used in audio engineering, where it referred only to "sss" and...

DPC latency is caused by Windows drivers, usually for one of the components on your motherboard. Oftentimes it's wireless network drivers, which is fairly easy to diagnose by just turning wireless off and running LatencyMon again. Turning off advanced power management in BIOS (C states...

Define "better". To my ears (and according to all measurements I could find) the treble peak is more pronounced with the analytical earpads. I mean, the name "analytical" is a dead giveaway. This made it more fatiguing to me, just on account of it being even more upfront. Perhaps that's more to...