Excerpt from my post 5999 - "The reason I have practically never posted on Head-fi is because I do not consider myself skilled enough to describe audio sound character differences. So please don’t ask me for such. That said, the reason I recounted my audio history above is as testimony about my life-long exposure and quest for terrific quality audio."
But since you did anyway
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The BHSE/Chord Hugo/Stax SR-009 combo as anyone would expect - outstanding. But I so much prefer the lighter weight and lighter clamping pressure of the Senn HD800 and HD-800s < I've had both. And of course, the portability - to be able to walk around or lie back in bed or in a recliner vs being shackled by a long cord to a stationary rig. Having not had the BHSE/Stax for a few years, my recall is dim as to exact differences to DX320. Plus my 74-year old ears unfortunately do not hear the high's as when I was younger, though I have been careful to avoid exposure to sustained "Loud" in order to minimize hearing degradation.
Of course, audio via a well-configured speaker system is much different than thru any headphone rig. I love my surround sound SACD's and Blu-ray music concerts in my media room on a 16' wide screen with extremely immersive sound and perfectly calibrated dual SVS SB-3000 subs in a carefully acoustically-treated room.
My DX320/Senn HD-800s combo will never deliver the bass slam of my media room. The Senn HD800s is known to be somewhat bass modest. I sampled successive Audeze headphone versions for their touted bass delivery, but sold them off because they felt too heavy and clamped too hard for me = fatigue. I can listen to the Senn HD-800s for hours and hours without fatigue. I sample many genre's - rock, pop, classic, jazz, new age - but sample fav's are Alison Krauss and Union Station and Steely Dan.
I love the DX-320 / Senn HD-800s combo for the comfort, and the exposure to the intricate detail of headphones vs. speakers. Such a different perspective than via speakers. Senn HD-800s mid-bass delivery is adequate for me. The rest is just awesome with stock Amp 11mk2, but the Amp 11-MUSE-XF simply somehow enhances
everything - dynamics, details, musicality. I expected to prefer Amp 13 or 14 over stock 11mk2, for their tube warmth, but slightly prefer the AMP 11mk2. I swapped all 4 of my Amp modules in and out for this past week to contrast, but I keep wanting my Amp 11-MUSE-XF back in my DX320 - it has IMO, the best characteristics of all 4, but greatly heightened! Improvement is not subtle.
I've only had one pair of iem's - Dunu SP6. I didn't care much for the "feel" of the tips, maybe because I have small ears. So I sent off ear impressions to 64 Audio for a12t ciem's and am 5 weeks into the 7 week production time estimate. I expect, I'll use these on airplanes mostly. It's been fun getting back into headphones. The technology and offerings have advanced so much since I last hacked around with such 10+/- years ago!
