Hello! After reading the last 250 pages in 2 days, and about 1500 pages in a month or so, I must stop, or my head might explode. I want to share more info about the HTC M8s and HTC 10, that I have been using and comparing extensively. The M8s is a legend for me - one night, I was using it for navigation in the dark, somewhere on unknown French highways, and a pothole has caused it to fly off the handlebars at 20 kph and I ran over it with my road bike...that is a total of 100kg!!! The camera and calls stopped working, but the navigation did not stop, and I managed to get home. Otherwise I would have spend the night on unknown roads... I payed a bunch of money to restore it with little success, and now I keep it in a drawer - it is a veteran. Audio-wise, I had compared it for days with the latest Dragonfly Black, using Focal Spirit Classic headphones. At first, I thought the sound signature was similar, but I still gave the edge to the M8s - literally everything was a step up. One year later, I auditioned Oppo HA-2 with the same setup, and the Oppo sounded digital, artificial, and very different. I tried all gain options, I tried everything I could think of - I just did not find it musical at all. The treble was detailed, yet thin, but not bright. So, when I bought HTC 10, I auditioned it for one year with FLAC up to 24/192, and Focal Spirit Classic, Focal Spirit One S, and Sennheiser Momentum M2 G Ivory, and the el cheapo Beyerdynamic Byron (all wired). I confirm most of the praise this phone gets. For more serious listening, I have compared it to the Yulong D200 with all above headphones. I use Furutech USB cable and a $ 30 power cord.
The D200 is jaw-droppingly detailed and neutral, as one can expect. Even playing 20-year old games gives stunning detail. Bass is just not there... The player is Foobar, with either WASAPI or ASIO, Windows 7. One strange thing is that the Momentum M2 sound awful with the D200, but fantastic with the HTC 10 and the paid Poweramp full version, 2.0.10 build 588. THE TRICK IS TO LISTEN AT UNUSUALLY LOW VOLUMES, otherwise, the M2 sounds aggressive and unbalanced, like if you listen underwater. D200 sounds way more musical than Oppo HA-2, but still...it is ESS-based, after all.
I visited Cobra.fr stores quite a few times and auditioned dozens of high-end headphones. I tried them all on the M8s, and later repeated everything with HTC 10, and I cared to make a Personal Audio Profile with it for each headphone. I also tried each one with, and without the profile. TLDR: Beyerdynamics and Sennheisers were all a joke - thin, not musical, unbalanced. I had high hopes for Amiron and HD800s, but... Then, I tried Focal Elear, and later, Focal Clear. The latter was a dream. Many people claim that one must hear for himself just how better it is than the HD800s, and I confirm that. The Clear clear-ly deserves a higher end source, but the HTC 10 drove everything perfectly. Then, I had the rare chance to audition Focal Utopia with the HTC 10. It was quite a step up from the Clear, and this is where I wish I had a higher end source like my D200. The HTC 10 is musical and balanced, and detailed, but it has sufficient bass, and the D200 does not. Same can be said for Focal Listen wired. If I want critical, analytical listening, I just plug it in the D200. Having auditioned Samsung Galaxy S6 and S7, and some Xperias, I am was not impressed with them.
A local big chain of stores was selling out the HTC 10 with multiple discounts. I managed to buy 2 brand new ones with 24M warranty for just 170 EUR each!!! Is not that a heck of a deal...And for a similar price, I can get a few more, brand new imported, no warranty, to stock my supplies for a long time. I do not care about cameras, as I am a pro photographer and I always cary a Sony A6000 with some premium lenses. There is no smartphone on Earth with even a decent camera, just a bunch of lies from manufacturers that use photos from pro cameras as marketing and claim they were taken with smartphones. LMAO...
