true, the pietus could be a hard sell, it depends on how long you want to wait.

if you can't hear a difference with that gear, a headphone upgrade won't help. sell the one worth the most.

monoliths, they look nicest in my opinion

maybe, dynamics do have a wider rear dispersion, maybe better for cancelling incoming waves?

nope, i was thinking the S3 was anc, there must be a reason that they don't make them surely?

my my bad. edifier made a anc planar i think

don't they? i thought maxwell had ANC. my mistake:)

I bought a Hip Dac as my first foray into the headfi world, I bought it on a runout sale from Addicted to Audio, with some birthday money from my grandparents. originally bought it to use with my Fiio JH3 IEMs, and Sennheiser Momentum headphones. now I use it to drive everything from Elegias to...

passive noise cancellation relies heavily on the shape of your head, of the earpads don't seal perfectly then passive cancellation has little benefit. if you are not a fan for hifi listening then that's fine, but, as mentioned many times already, ANC provides the best compromise between sound...

i would tend to agree, even ANC headphones from flagship companies like focal and audeze are sold at a relatively low price and marketed at the consumer market, rather than the audiophile one

the apple start up noise

Fiio X1->Sennheiser HD4.30 = Settle for Nothing, Rage Against the Machine.

thanks, i've never actually heard the celestee, as i said. i was just going off reviews i've read.

depands on how cheap the celestees are, i've heard (and read) that they are a significat upgrade from the elegia.

I like the Sennheiser Momentum models for movies, great soundstage (especially for closed back) and bass.

I would suggest listening to some pairs at your nearest hifi shop, rather than buying blind. if you want a similar sound I would say try other models from Audio-Technica, as most of their consumer models are tuned much the same.

thankyou for calling me out on that, i don't want to give people the wrong idea.

thanks, i should clarify better, what i meant was, if you wanted to try iems purely for sound quality, and not convenience, ANC, etc. then you are better off wired. i did not mean to discredit bluetooth, it is pretty incredible these days.

wired IEMs or headphones which cost less than half as much are still better for sound quality than these models, even being massively improved over the previous ones.

a subtle 4dB Boost at about 85Hz is a nice way to boost bass without muddying the rest of the frequencies. any more than about 5dB then you could get Harmonic Distortion issues. i would recommend Equaliser APO, Peace EQ

eq is an easy and free option, you could always try EQ first, then upgrade if it doesn't do what you want

if you wanted to get some wired iems that are an upgrade, you wouldn't have to spend more then $150 at most, a lot of the cheaper Fiios sound really good. that way if he doesn't like them then it won't metter so much

i saw some Sivgas in a hifi shop in NZ a while ago, they look really nice, good to see some moderately priced cans that both sound and look great!

there is some merit to meaurements, but not solely as a way to judge what a headphone will sound like. it is useful to be able to compare measurements of two headphones, if you have heard one of them, for example, if you have heard the HD600, and you have the measurements beside those of another...