Switching from the Heresy to Magnius/Modius remedied the issues I had. Smoother experience now and the fatigue is mostly gone!

I keep it on low gain almost always. I tested it on high gain at 9 o'clock and it didn't make a difference. And yeah Hifiman at least acknowledge and address their QC issues. Reading all the Focal horror stories is pretty deflating.

Appreciate the response! Hopefully the issue doesn't persist with a different setup for me as well... Also I was the opposite and had issues with the Sundara, which put me off from sticking with Hifiman. Their customer service was great though and they did replace my defective pair. If my...

Didn't have any issues with my other cans with the Heresy. Issue is purely with this combo at the moment. I'm more inclined to think the amp/dac is the problem though.

Not sure if anyone else had a similar issue, but I've been dealing with a lot of fatigue/pain with the Clears with a Schiit Heresy/Modi 3. First few weeks it was running flawlessly and sounded amazing, then out of the blue I started getting pain in my ears. Tried running the Clears directly off...

After a few more weeks of listening, my current take is the 560s is about 80-90% of the performance of the Sundara. The Sundara definitely has crisper/tighter bass and more clear in the treble region. I prefer the midrange and overall tonality on the 560s and I feel the timbre on the 560s is...

You'd be correct, the 650 has the most natural timbre followed closely by the 560s. The Sundaras are last in timbre but still avoids sounding unnatural to me. 650 still excels in mid/vocal focused tracks bringing liveliness to vocals while the Sundaras sound excellent with string instruments...

I have both as well and your impressions were pretty much in line with how I felt about them. I don't really use EQ so the 560s tonality was more enjoyable for me personally. The Sundara definitely still wins in resolution and technicality so I'll be keeping both cans and use one or the other...

If people enjoy using EQ that's up to them to decide. I don't personally use it myself but everyone enjoys their own cup of tea. We all have different ears and our brains perceive sound differently.

For what it's worth, one of Oluv's comment responses in the video: "The HD560S is perfect up to 2khz, you just need to reduce 5khz by 5dB and 7khz by 3db. IMO like that it sounds better than all other headphones costing 3-4 times as much."

Just got my pair (pre-ordered on Sep 24th) and out the box they're already better than the 650 and 58x for my tastes. The bass was a pleasant surprise. Quite a bit tighter and cleaner than the 58x's bass. Vocals still sound "full" without being overly shouty like the 650 and 58x can get at...