Loud music is fine as long as you don't listen to it for prolonged periods. Especially true for music with high dynamic range.     Why would you listen to quiet music at high volumes? Your're listening to music, not signal reproduction.

Compression rates are at about 50% with flac so the payoff is pretty good. Also, the tagging issue with wav is a dealbreaker in itself for most people. I'm not sure what kind of people you are talking to that claim lossless isn't lossless. A quick look with a program like Audacity will show...

I'm afraid I can only say which recordings they aren't. I will comment that they are performed a tad on the slow side. You also have the opus numbers mixed up.   I will recommend the Alban Berg Quartet or Quartetto Italiano, the latter being more on the gentler side if you prefer that kind...

  Quote:   Not where I live. Although they raise the wholesale price to circumvent this. As a result, it's difficult to find anyone selling them in such countries. Few can turn a profit, and the ones that can are better off not selling them and directing customers to something that will...

Quote:   Many instruments produce harmonics louder than the fundamental, including the cymbals sometimes (frequently?).   I do agree with you. Using audacity on a few clear and simple solo acoustic tracks, I didn't find any peaks above 15kHz that were significantly less than 15 dB...

Looking at the HD 600 (old) and 650 (new), and leaning to the latter. I'll be using it 99% for classical music. If anyone has experience with both of these headphones and with actual live music to compare it to, I would appreciate your input; the decision is driving me nuts.

Quote: I see a lot of conflicting opinions for this too. It doesn't help having different versions of the same headphone. Is the new 650 more suitable than the old one? How does the HD 600 compare?

Quote: It's worse in Australia.   They expect me to pay $30 for a usb cable when I can get one on ebay for $1, which is more durable than the one I got from apple. Similarly, it's usually cheaper to buy and ship a CD over 15,000 km (literally) than it is for me to buy off iTunes as...

Quote: I hope not. The price difference is too much from the models below it. I was looking forward to this.   Why not release some new mid to mid-high range cans ($400-700 range)? How old is the HD 600 now? 10 years? 650 is getting a little dusty too. Still great headphones but I'm...

Quote:   No. Frequencies above ~1-4 kHz (I forget, and there is some overlap) use differences in volume for localisation. Below that is phase difference as you have described.    Quote:   Speak for yourself. Okay, I didn't mean that, I'm sure your hearing is fine. But...

Not very compelling posts for pro-cable:   #1 (Pithy remark 1) #2 (Pithy remark 2(1)) #3 "Your FACE is an ad hominem"   At least address the OP.

Unfortunately classical music doesn't work well with conventional tagging. You can choose whatever tagging system works but be consistent. Using custom tags and a media player that can read them (eg foobar) allows for more freedom. I use 'ensemble' and 'soloist' tags. I throw everything that...

You can store anything you want in ID3 tags.

Quote: See kids? This is why we don't use google translate for communication.

I don't think there is an inflection point. Cost versus quality seems purely exponential to me.