General Now that I've descended into the rabbit hole that is high-end headphones, I picked up a pair of HD820s to A/B against my others (Sony Z7M2, Focal Elear, Focal Elegia). Sound-wise, the HD820 are clear winners. The tonality is perfect, the low-end is punchy, the mid range lets guitar breath without sounding too crunchy, and the highs don't seem harsh. The frequency response on these is great for my preferences and listening to heavier styles of music (rock, metal, prog). They also do sound great for other, softer genres. And I like the included...

Two words: Punchy + authoritative. That's how music sounds coming out of this thing. Low end has a nice snappy grunt to it. Highs are clear and concise. Mid range is natural. I listen to mostly prog rock and metal: Tool, TesseracT, Karnivool, etc. And this unit pairs nicely for bringing that stuff to life. I hear no added noise or distortion in the signal. Connected to my Macook Pro via Wireworld Startlight 8 2.0 USB. Most of my music is 24bit/96k AIFF or MP3 via iTunes. This is the first DAC I've used where I can actually hear a difference (for the...