@usern, thanks for the help. Experimenting with preamp, both down & up - nothing (don't think there's clipping). Connecting to motherboard instead of amp - hmm, can't get volume up on Ether CX high enough to tell; but can on the z7m2s (seem less power hungry than the Ether CX, even though ~double the impedance?.. guess v=ir; increasing resistance lowers the amount of current needed to reach the same volume, &/or dynamic drivers on the Sonys are more efficient than the planar drivers on the Ether CXs?); only, possibly, a little bit of crackling (might just be staticy noises common in electronic music - which I prefer those musicians didn't add-in; feels/sounds like dirtying the sound!) ~ nowhere near the distortion off of the amp... So, decided to experiment with the amp - low & behold, connecting to the xDuoo's unbalanced output = no distortion! This used xd05 bal amp came with a 3.5mm to 4.4mm-balanced (4 black rings) adapter already in the balanced output; so, I've been connecting into that (rough thought probably along the lines of - "balanced", it must be better...). I believe that the Ether CX has a balanced xlr, but not sure if its included 3.5mm adapter is bal, or unbalanced? Or, if the 4.4mm balanced adapter's 3.5mm side is bal, or not - would I even get both left & right channel audio to the headphones if there was a miss-match? I'm coming from diy speakers experience where banana plugs for speakers, rca - xlr - fiber for inputs, & neutrik speakon for subwoofers; don't remember having to think/learn about balanced vs unbalanced while I was in that realm years ago...
As a preliminary review; I didn't notice that much of a difference in sound quality between these 2 expensive headphones vs cheapo ones. Or, of that much of a sound quality difference between the xDuoo xd05 bal dac amp & motherboard's realtek alc889... However, after listening to them, for a couple of days, the sound quality seems to be improving - maybe this is like turning up the playback speed on video - you have to get used to it; adjust to the higher sound quality to hear the little details that aren't muddled together like on 30/40/50mm driver headphones? When I got these, I immediately didn't like the play in the Ether CX's Hirose xlr connectors - headphones don't draw much current; but still... ~afraid of some plasma arcs with that looseness! Haven't tried the Ether CX's tuning pads, yet, but plenty with eq'ing. The Ether CX is clearly clearer in sound than the Sony z7m2 - the Sony's have a bit of added grain/texture & less separation (though, getting clearer the more I listen - mind burn-in vs driver burn-in) ~ morphing together of sounds like on cheaper headphones; but, get deeper, louder, into the lower frequencies than the Ether CX or cheap headphones. Before I bought these together, I was actually looking at the Ether CX & assuming that they would blow away the z7m2's - with the loser probably being re-sold to recoup some of the cost of buying these as a set - however, it's currently much closer than I thought - I may even be leaning towards the Sonys... for some things; like bass-heavy music, the rumbling depth of the Sony headphones wins. In clarity focused things, like music with vocals (which I rarely listen to), the Ether CXs win. Though, I haven't tried it yet, I have a feeling that the Sonys will sound better for watching movies. The race is close; may take months - if I don't just decide to keep both, like lots of headphone collections loons I see, in signature areas under posts, in these forums
. For comfort; I prefer the z7m2's earpads & clamping pressure, but vastly prefer the Ether CX's headband - though, I keep on having to adjust it ~ probably need to tighten the screws a bit.
