Foobar has an ABX plugin you guys might like to use.   I certainly can't tell the difference, but it might be different on a hp that has highs like the HE-560. Even then, I'd imagine it's pretty minor and only obvious if you really listen for it and know which sections it is more obvious in.

It's more likely to be the music you listen to.

Erm what? Have you heard the HD 800s? I demoed them for an hour listening to violins (mainly) and my god they were beautiful...

  This x10. It's the reason why, as a scientist, I have nothing against amps introducing distortion - because all we want it for the end result to sound better    It could be that using graphene we can make diaphragms so light that a "perfect" hp could be achieved - but that's a while away...

Music is odd, because it has peaks (duh) that are very short. A pure sine wave requires about 3x more energy than music with the same peak (iirc, don't quote me on that). But ideally an amp should never be pushed to it's absolute limits, because that's where distortion will be worse.   So...

Try http://bs2b.sourceforge.net/download.html - and once installed use the J.Meier preset. Barely touches the sound but it makes listening a hell of a lot more comfortable.

True, but when paying $900 it is reasonable to expect a perfect product. I can say for sure there are very large profit margins on these, eating into it a few $$ for quality control would definitely be worth it.   I believe the LCD2 also cost ~$900, and I'm pretty certain Audeze customers...

You're seriously going to change that wood veneer now...   But damn does that look nice 

Wrong, it's science-driven.   Most amps just quote their opamp's specs, not their own.   They can do because some amps have a lot worse distortion.   I'd be pretty happy if you could point me to this DBT rather than just saying it exists.   Correct, it's more than possible for others to...

Sounds like the HE560 is the shouty one - probably because of the treble peaks. The other amps could have rolled-off treble, or perhaps they have more second-order harmonic distortion, which sounds very pleasing to the human ear.

Just going to weigh in from the Science side on the whole mod/eq thing... You can eq a headphone from any FR to any FR - within reason. That being, no stupidly rolled-off frequencies. Theoretically possible with high voltages, but you'd just damage the headphones in reality.   That said, there...

Dear lord.   It's simple: if it has the power to drive the hps without distortion - i.e. can put enough voltage across and voltage through the hps then it doesn't matter. An O2 could drive this happily.

I have had excellent results with this, and highly suspect you guys will love this: http://bs2b.sourceforge.net/download.html   This is a crossfeed plugin for foobar2000 (which I imagine many of you already use). Try the J.Meier crossfeed setting, and please post your impressions.   I use...

http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm <- an interactive page showing frequencies of various instruments and where sub bass/bass/mids/treble start/end. Well worth a look if you haven't seen it already.

Just to point out, on Headdirect the HE-560 is said to be 50+/-8 ohms - http://head-direct.com/Products/?act=detail&id=197

In Europe they are definitely more expensive, but it's true in the US that they are similar. I have cousins there so I wonder if it's worth it to get from them.   Sounds good! Really looking forward to comparisons, but from the sounds of it it will be a tough choice. I think I may go for...

  The best headphone for a track is one that makes the track sound as good as it can, regardless of mastering. The best headphones are the ones that make the best masterings sound their best.   It's more a case where you can't blame a headphone for poor mastering, but you can praise a...

A full comparison would be greatly appreciated, especially as the HD6x0s and the HE400i are big competitors in their price range.

"i" believed it stood for the idea that these can be run out of portable devices, which was why the standard offering comes with a right-angled 3.5mm jack.

HE-560 was meant to imply between HE500 and HE6.   There was, before, a HiFiMan rep who said the HE400i was probably misnamed, as HE450 would have fit better, to imply between the HE400 and HE500.

$90 is too much, get the Chroma. $27 is a far more reasonable price for a USB cable.   The whole point of digital is that noise doesn't matter, but if you have a very noisy USB and a USB-powered DAC then a galvanic isolator could help improve SQ. 

The believers are beyond saving. Us "disbelievers" can only try and save those new to cables to save their money for things that improve SQ.   Anyway, "speaker stuff" logic isn't applicable to headphones. The cable lengths are much longer (and thus, sometimes, actually significant) and you...

A well made adapter should literally be just really short wires with negligible resistance. Nothing to worry about.   What I do find worrying is that people need to remove the cables to fit the HE560s in their travel case, especially considering what was said earlier about these connectors...

It's pretty easy to objectively measure a DAC. All you need are ways of measuring how faithfully it reproduces the original audio signal. If you look at the ODAC's release page there are lots of measurements of it.   That said this only really helps comparing DACs which claim to be 100%...

A HiFiMan rep (iirc) did say they mis-named the HE400i - it should've been the HE450 to suggest the blend of HE400 and HE500 it really is, like how the HE560 is a mix of HE500 and HE6.