The problem is that they keep putting out similarly priced, similarly sounding, similarly featured DACS and amps on an almost monthly basis. It's pointless.

I follow the Arya thread, as I've owned all revisions, as well as watched Resolves review. And my findings vary wildly with yours. As far as I remember he never called them mediocre, only saying that going from Arya Stealth to Organic wasn't worth the upgrade tax, which is fair, but he actually...

Really? I've seen nothing but praise for both of these.

I bought my V1 a little over a year ago and they came with a balanced XLR cable, and a XLR to 6.3mm adapter to be used with SE amps.

Enjoy them my friend! they're a tough headphone to beat once you find the right pad/amp/EQ or a combination of the three :)

I would take it even further and say no more pointless SMSL DAC releases please. I would much rather see something different and more interesting from them. A cheap R2R. An FPGA DAC. A DAC with swappable op-amps. Anything that isn't the same chips on a different chasis over and over again.

Yeah, I can't recall exactly but I have a vague memory of it being announced as a limited number of units as well, but I guess they went back on that decision. But yeah they've been shipping with Sundara pads for a good long time now so If you bought them recently, and they're brand new, you're...

Unless you have an early production HE6SE V1, the pads that come stock on HE6SE V1 now are the same as the Sundara/HE6SE V2 pads.

Why not?

I'll give it a go with different cables/equipment later today and see. I suspect it's the headphones themselves however. I put them on backwards to rule out my hearing being the problem and the same driver was still louder at 3khz. The result is that vocals are noticeably panned to the left at...

Did they send you a brand new pair in return? I'm afraid they'll just send me an Open Box back if I do return them. They've done it before...

I had it at 10 o clock on high gain, which was waaay more than the organics needed so I was adjusting the volume further digitally on my player.

Received Organic today and lo and behold, there's a channel imbalance at 3khz on this pair too... I'm starting to think Hifiman stopped giving a f and doesn't bother matching their egg shaped drivers anymore. Maybe that's where the corners are being cut with their recent price drops lol. First...

I've never heard the Heddphone, or any ribbon/amt headphone for that matter but from what I've gathered they seem to sorta be microdynamic kings? They also cost the price of a good GPU more than the Arya so one would hope they're less compressed lol

Lol, I don't think you're crazy. I hear that exact same difference between USB and SPDIF with even my humble Modius too. The blacker background, and clearer sound when on SPIDF. USB sounds a tiny bit hazy in comparison. Mind you, I'm using an SMSL PO100 DDC to go from PC>DDC>SPIDF>Modius, so...