Here's another worthless anecdote from me haha:
So, I received my Atom on Thursday, running my Denon DVD-2910 to the Atom, and then to my KEF Space One (original wired model, noise cancelling off as always). I had the Atom set to
high gain, with the volume knob at
12 O'Clock on my classical recordings. Over the past few days, I've been steadily backing off on the volume, while subjectively maintaining impact. Is this my ears/brain adjusting to a lower noise floor than I was used to before? Whatever the cause, by today, I had reached
9 O'Clock on the volume knob,
still in high gain.
So I decided to switch to low gain, and now have the volume knob at 1 O'Clock. Testing again with the Ravel
Daphnis et Chloë recording I used in my first listening session with my Atom. The softest passages are exquisitely diaphanous, rising from a silent background, while the climaxes are still extremely thrilling and explosive, and at lower overall volume than I've ever enjoyed on headphones before, so not only is it an artistic win, but it should be less damaging to my ears as well!
And minimal damage to my wallet, at $99 plus shipping (which is also what I paid on Black Friday for these headphones!)!