Recent content by Dro

Because of how the pads touch when the headphone (Stealth/Expanse/E3/Aeon) is not in use, one thing that you can do is put a piece of paper between the pads over night, which will absorb most of the skin oils and smell. I have used the pads on on my Stealth for about 11 months now with this...

In popular belief hi-fi, your choice of DAC and amp is the bass and treble control.

If my wireless provider told me that I couldn't use my perfectly up to spec phone because it is not "certified", I would change providers, not phones.

You can still get the Asus Zenfone 8 or 9, which have the 3.5 mm out. Biggest downside is that the Zenfone 8 won't go beyond Android 13 and the 9 likely won't go beyond Android 14. But at least they are rather cheap for flagships.

The EARS measures pretty reliably below 2 kHz, above it gets a bit spotty. But my EARS already has been sold elsewhere. Unfortunately, you cannot edit posts here after 24 hours. Reed R8050/R8090 still available.

Active noise cancellation also tends to reduce harmonic distortion, at least in bass and lower mids. Example: https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/bose/qc35-ii/

MiniDSP EARS: Affordable headphone measurement jig. Bought in 2018. Condition is very good. The silicone has yellowed a bit, but is still very flexible and tacky. The metal at the top has a bunch of tiny spots where the black coating went off and one slightly larger chip. I put some black tape...

Aeon price dropped to $250 due to the pads aging. The pleather has started to tear and flake.

Not anymore. I can probably get a better price elsewhere for them. I wish we could edit posts older than one day here, but we can't... The Aeon is still available for 290.

Only if you have a US address for me to ship to or can pick it up here.

I have an Etymotic ER2XR and also the Truthear Zero. The ER2XR have worse Harman tracking, but sound better to me. I think the IEM Harman target has overdone its bass shelf and treble boost.

Mostly just in front of my head. Soundstage width is the same for me, going from IEMs to an HD800.

Maybe a bit more than other planar magnetics. Pretty much like the DCA Stealth going by my volume settings. I listen around -20 dBr on my ADI-2 DAC. That gives me about 85 dBA while using Replay Gain without any pre gain. So hitting around 105-110 dBA should be possible on the ADI-2 DAC.

Both still available as of now.

I think the different target bass levels are the explanation. I also noticed some higher treble. I would say the Zero sounds like a DCA Stealth with some loudness applied. I also don't think the sound is bloated yet, due to how the bass shelf is primarily boosting frequencies below 80 Hz, but...