Wow, that list is so long. Is it long? Seems long to me.

Nope, it's discrete.

I don't love the wa5. It's more like a good combo unit than a true totl elite thing. The WES, on the other hand, is like the only viable commercial alternative to the BHSE that I know of.

Can you get your hands on some Beyers?

Quote: Arguably the dumbest part about Head-Fi is kids getting in over their heads after they get a shiny new $400 full-size home headphone, then realizing they have like $100 left to try to budget a garbage source/amp. Well, maybe not as dumb as some of the cable junk that people do...

No need to try pairing sources with amps. You should be going 1. best source you can afford 2. favorite headphones 3. amp that matches the headphones The amp is oftentimes optional imo.

Did you hear Ray made a $3k chip amp?

Not this. Quote:     This. Quote:  

Salad bowls/bagels sound terrible, even on their intended phones. Well, the PS1000 is ok except for the bass, but that's $1700 for just "ok". Comfies are kinda bad, probably because they cover the entirety of the driver. I like flats on pretty much everything. Squished bowls are a decent...

We can't measure everything. Even objectivists know that. If someone thinks they can measure everything, then they're just dumb.

  I've heard 701s on some fairly expensive systems and found them lacking as well. The common complaint seems to be lack of bass, which I believe is as much a source issue as it is an amp issue. The bass thing is not all that subjective; most people want good bass. I have heard reports of...

I will heartily disagree with this haha. As much as I like Senn, the only relatively neutral one that comes to mind is the 800.   Quote:     I actually prefer IEMs at OP's price point for amplification reasons. Are you averse to IEMs? Maybe some Etys?   As an aside, I gotta...

To be fair, experienced audio-inclined individuals know that $20k doesn't guarantee much of anything.   Quote:  

A DAC technically doesn't have volume control. The Benchmark USB, for instance, is called a DAC, but it really is more like a 3-in-1 unit. You can actually break up the components of your system however you want. For instance, use a DAC just for conversion, then a head amp as a pre into your...

I don't doubt OP's impressions at all; most 70x systems sound pretty awful. The really good DACs seem to be either unobtanium or prohibitively expensive. Amps not quite as much, but decent ones generally cost way more than headphones. As for the minimum money necessary to make the 701s sound...

I think the K701s are plenty musical. Can't speak for the rest of your gear, though.   I've always wanted to hear an Alessandro, actually. People liken then to more neutral Grados, which would be pretty awesome. They're easy to drive, too, unlike most AKG things.

Doesn't the Benchmark already have XLR outputs and a built-in headphone amp? Why not just feed the speakers through XLR and use the Benchmark as a headphone amp? I thought the functionality was one of the main selling points for that piece.

That's situational. The OP doesn't exactly have a K701 or O2.   Quote:  

No PS1 has audiophile quality. That's just a runaway hype train.

Headphone amps are way overrated on this site, especially the cheap crappy ones. I wouldn't bother.

Proven vintage products are amazing values for anything that's not headphone-specific. Vintage Stax are good values, too. I feel like well-known vintage commodities are even better value than DIY, not counting time investment.   I actually really like the new breed of IEMs, because...

I'm with Erik. Why go tubes? To "warm up" the K702s?   That's really the wrong approach, imo. You want amps to match the phones, not work against them. Getting a cheap OTL amp will simply drop out the bottom end and make the entire system sound lifeless and weird.

What I don't like about the analogy is the emphasis on monetary wealth. I don't think of myself as a noob listener OR eater, and I will tell you right now that enjoyment and preference does not correlate strongly with spending.   World class chefs will still hit up taco trucks, and some of...

I thought high gain was always technically worse in terms of distortion, not taking into account stability.

Ah, that clears things up. Maybe just a bit of random variance? I certainly wouldn't buy a Q over a K, though.