Well yes, if you are boosting frequencies, then you should also enable a pre amp accordingly, to reduce the signal strength before processing it, so as to avoid digital clipping. I guess your program didn't do that.
Speakers tend to have way higher distortion than headphones so lifting valleys in speaker response is more likely to get distortion out of control.
Lifting a speaker's valleys vs reducing a speaker's peaks will result in the same amount of distortion, as long as you match the volume and both additive and subtractive EQ settings result in the same frequency response.
Just imagine Sundara (ultrathin membrane) makes it even worser than Ananda in terms of distortion and group delay, that could be dangerous for Hifiman to further persist.
They've already done this thinness previously with the HE1000 though, it's nothing new. The HE1000's diaphragm is even larger than the Sundara's too
I think the reason for this practice with speakers is that they are not always minimum phase where you have the troughs (especially room modes), so boosting those troughs can be problematical, however headphones are generally always minimum phase across the whole frequency range so you're free to boost & cut all areas. Boosting & cutting makes no difference when it comes to headphones, however sharp boosts or cuts in the high frequencies above 5kHz is inadvisable for different reasons, ie the measurement & your own variation of anatomy can't be trusted accurately enough to do aggressive sharp EQ above 5kHz. Large sharp boosts in EQ can create pre-ringing as I understand, which is a negative phenomenon, so generally if you can help it a smooth EQ Curve is a good EQ curve.....and therefore it helps to choose a headphone that doesn't have really nasty sharp dips away from the target curve.
I have both Ananda and H600 I really prefer the HD 600. But maybe my taste is odd because also prefer my etymotic er2se over my HD 600.
I've got the HD600 and a HiFiMan HE4XX, so I can certainly understand how the Ananda (being HifiMan) could have better soundstage, the HD600 is the worst headphone I have for soundstage, as it's all in your head and not wide or expansive at all.....whereas the HE4XX has better soundstage than all my headphones apart from the K702. That's why the HD600 is my least favourite headphone, but it is the best headphone for me without EQ because it's just so darn accurate, there's not much that needs to be done with it with EQ. The Ananda would also be able to deliver better bass when EQ'd than the HD600....bass & soundstage the Ananda would win, and they're two very important things in my eyes.....I'm sure HD600 would win in all the other areas though.
I happen to have already had mine measured and it did quite well in distortion.
Some years ago I embarked upon modding the Fostex T50RP. plasticine, cotton wool, even heavy damping material used when fitting speakers into car doors. I flatter myself that I ended up with respectable planar ‘phones, on the cheap. But by god they needed power to make them sing!
Do you know what output level these were measured at? Looks pretty darn good, but I'm assuming that's 94dB or under, which again is still plenty loud.
The Ananda and Sundara both claim to have their latest "NEO supernano diaphragm." 80% thinner than previous designs, and between 1 to 2 microns thick. So I think they're the same in that aspect, other than shape. Really just marketing speak though, hard to know if a diaphragm that thin is truly beneficial in any way, or provides truly audible benefits.
If I recall, it was 90dB @ 700Hz that he measures at. For further info, it took 175.4 mV to reach that volume level meaning 105.12 dB/V for voltage sensitivity. Power sensitivity was 92.34 dB/mW.
