I am always very surprised that people can own so much different headphones.
I bought 12 all in all.
They were all unsatisfactory to say the least.
I even modified all of them. Each time with success. But to no avail. Even after improvements they were defectuous by design anyway...
They were deficient on many acoustic counts. Each one of them on many counts...
Be it dynamic, planar or electrostatic.
No headphone compare to speakers well done in an acoustically tuned room anyway. I knowbecause i created my own acoustic room few years ago. I lost it then i was in the obligation to use an headphone and i disliked all my headphone.
The only headphone who gave me satisfaction, as i already stated here is the AKG K340 but it takes me 6 months of experiments and 6 modifications at the end to set it to my satisfaction .
I cannot fathom or dare to buy any other one. I pay it 100 bucks and i am pretty sure that almost no other headphone will compete.
Probably the Imanis at 10,000 dollars will do...
The most important characteristics of a good headphone is ultra deep bass, good timbre characteristic for voice and any instrument ( naturalness ) an imaging and a sound-staging able to make the original recording distinctive and realistic but more important than all these basic acoustic factor, the ability to give an "out of the head" acoustic holographic impression when the original recording ask for it and make it possible.. ( the soundstage dimensions must be variable and not fixed once for all by design as it is the case in all headphone , the soundstage must be as in the recording, a small studio is not a church, an electronic session is not an acoustic Hall )
I have all that for 100 bucks...
I am even afraid to buy anything else...
Perhaps the Raal Imanis will rival and better mine, after all the cost means something i think...
But i will never know ...
An improvement over my AKG K340 is not enough to justify the 9,900 $ of price difference.
And if i read the cons associated with it in some review :
https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/raal-1995-immanis.27277/
«Cons: - In the end too laid-back vocals for me
- Recessed voices and inability to sound truly intimate
- Neutral sounding, so it does not portrait a spicy rendition, can sound bland with bad recordings
- Price is extremely high »
my AKG created by the physicist and acoustician Dr. Gorike founder of AKG when improved ( vibration and resonance absorption and control and Removal of the grid protector etc) Has no defect at all for me...
I will never use 10 headphones again to compensate one defect by another different defect in a move to change the place of the acoustic pain changing headphone.. Or using different headphones for different styles of music.
Is the AKG K340 can be improved ?
Yes i proved that because i modified it myself...
Could this hybrid design with his dual acoustic chamber with 5 tuned resonators be improved?
Yes it can...
But no headphone company will use this basic genius acoustic set of designs from the start and invest big money in research to improve it using the same set of acoustic ideas...None...
Some headphone big player said to me that creating this hybrid design in the right way and improve on it ask for too much investment and then less profit...
I am too old to see this coming anyway.... I will die with my AKG K340...