Ok guys so I've listened to many headphones... DCA Stealth, DCA Expanse, DCA E3, Aeon closed, AA Composer, Heddphone Two, Final Audio D7000 et D8000.
The Stealth has a breathtaking sound. It has been a transformative experience, but I can't buy them. No way. Because of the fit. I have a little head, and the seal doesn't work correctly on my head. I need to push the headphones a bit for the sub to chime in. What a shame. And furthermore, the sound changes A L.O.T when you position the headphones up, down, left, right relative to the ears. It's not subtle at all for me, it's a constant (unpleasant) rollercoaster. What a ****ING SHAME my god. Because when I had them positioned just right, with a good seal (my hands applying a small pressure), the sound was just so immersive, so right, so resolving, so detailed but not overbearing. I heard things on the the Stealth I don't quite hear on all the other (except the Heddphone Two, that have a ridiculous amount of detail too). It's above all the rest to me. "The Stealth sound is just the plain truth", is what I thought.
Quickly, all the headphones :
Stealth : incredible sound, neutral, resolving, but impossible fit for my small head, and the AMTS makes the sound change too much. The most beautiful HPs I've seen in my life. These are just incredibly beautiful and solid... It's like there's made for space travel with the Harkonnens. Wow.
A Stealth mk2 that corrects all the bad things I've said about them ? I'd buy that.
Expanse : Very good sound, lots of details too, even more spacial than the Stealth, yes, you have a few more meters of depht in the global presentation compared to the Stealth (I don't find that necessarily useful, I prefer the Stealth). But the tuning is not to my taste. I find it slightly "muddy" and it's weird to say that, because appart from the "mud" tuned in, all the rest is spot on, Stealth-like. Nice headphones. Almost but not quite closed. Some passive attenuation. "Semi-open" ?
E3 : Very good sound, indeed... more Slam, that's weird. The voices are pushed forward, upper mid are there, and incredible. Good bass (100hz bump is there, you feel it).
But I have a problem with the unit I tried sadly
... I heard a bass port sound on this track : Max Cooper - Resynthesis. On the kick in the intro. I hear something that craps out at low level. I think it has been documented already, some have heard it. It was there on the unit I tried. If someone has a E3 at home, I'd be curious to know if you hear it on your E3.
The E3 is the improved version of my DT770. It improves on all aspects. It share the same tuning (the slightly hot upper-mids are useful in the studio), but it kills it ten times on details, shear speed, sound fidelity, everything...
I really like the E3. But I can't stand the bass port farts.
Super confortable, excellent seal, stable sound, no matter the fit.
Aeon closed : very good sound too, it's a less mesmerizing E3. Very nice HPs for the price, yes. And no bass port sound I think...?
I've heard it quickly, it's a better DT770, again.
The Composer : very well executed sound. Clean tuning. Balanced. The curve doesn't say everything : this thing has bass. It's hard to fault it to be honest. It's a perfectly balanced, familiar "dynamic driver" sound. Very different from the glassy sounds of the DCA planars.
Heddphone Two : wow, this thing has so much details... I've never heard something like this. And again, the curve doesn't say everything, it has bass too. Not as much as the E3, but yeah... Super impressed. Not confortable at all. Heavy, strong clamp, won't work if you have big ears, as I felt restricted,
and I have very small ears.
I find that the Heddphone are quite complimentary to the E3. The Yin and the Yang. The bass of the E3, the fine granularity of the Hedd (E3 has details too, but on the Hedd, it's on steroid).
Final Audio D7000/D8000 : very pleasant sound, but warm. Tilted. Still, lots of qualities.
So it becomes like swallowing the "medicine" of somebody else as it has worked for him - for a while until he grew immune to it. I didn't catch your full use case but if you want to use it also in a studio etc. comfort, weight and ease of use are very important factors. With that in mind, I think DCAs are very good candidates. I am sure you will be happy with any of them (though I haven't tried the E3 yet). I would also throw the Austrian Audio Composer in the list which is also a very comfortable and well tuned HP that can be easily driven - though I prefer Expanse over it.
