[bagwell359]

Well, it's a fair comment, that user of HE1000 series will feel many many other headphones out there have deficiency in treble quantity. I can't stand their bright treble at all.

The HEK v1 and SE were too hot for me as well. The v2 was closer. The Stealth has the bass timbre and impact above all of those, so its actually quite close to the Harman - but it is quite bright in the 5-6k area, and again around 12-16k. If I had them, I'd never run them without a PEQ.

There is no "OG" Elite. What you heard perhaps Empyrean? The lesser version with darker tuning than Elite.

Let me clear that up - the Emp is dark - by ear and FR graph. The Elite with the Hybrid pads is also below the Harman through large portions of its range per Crinicle. The Alcantara pads look to be a well better match, but I never heard them.

 

[Tanalasta]

Focal Bathys. It is very forgiving of your source. It's bluetooth after all.
It's TOTL ... for a bluetooth ANC headphone. #Justtrolling

Something not too hard to drive ; and tolerates compensation for source deficiencies... perhaps LCD 4Z or LCD5? The LCD 5 will play most genre of music well. I don't like the Focal Stellia that much but the I'll be controversial and say the Utopia 2022 scales ; but works well with what I've plugged it into so far.

I assume headphones does not equate to speakers or IEM's.

 

[greenhorn]

As someone who has pretty much no experience with any TOTL offerings other than a few minutes with the Atrium Closed, Verite Closed, DCA Stealth, and HE-1 at CanJam Chicago, it seems that in general the consensus is that TOTL headphones will naturally be less forgiving of sub-optimal recordings than less resolving headphones.

I'm curious which TOTL headphones, if any, really place an emphasis on musical engagement regarding of recording quality (of course recognizing that better recordings will be optimal on nice headphones) rather than technicalities. For example, it seems the Atrium is more forgiving than the Verite or Caldera. It seems like the Meze Elite might fall in the more 'forgiving' category too? Are there any others?

Bowers & Wilkins P9, P7 are « forgiving » headphones.