You just speak the truth and I'll back you up. (Actually, I won't. I really don't want to get sucked into another Head-Fi conversation. I mostly just wanted to use a Luther gif.)

This should be your mantra while reading anything on Head-Fi! Seriously. Every product you read about should be treated with a great deal of skepticism. I agree with @BS5711: temper your expectations. Don't expect night and day differences between amps and DACs because they likely don't...

It's almost definitely the Vali and not the cable. Maybe the cable is contributing to the problem, but the amp is the problem. If I understand, you tried plugging the headphones into something other than the Vali and the problem went away? That seems like the answer, right there. I have a...

Only in the context of overpriced audiophile DACs is £1k cheap. Or in the context of cars or homes or yachts.

The Apple Lightning/USB-C dongle is my recommendation. Less than $10.

Impedance determines the ratio of voltage to current. Higher impedance requires relatively more voltage, lower impedance requires relatively more current. Efficiency is how loud the headphones get with a given power (I.E., milliwatts). Sensitivity is how loud the headphones get with a given...

Symphinum Audio Titan are the hardest to drive that I've read about: 3Ω and 105dB/1V = 79.8dB/1mW. With that low an impedance it's probably one of the hardest to drive headphones on the market.

If it works for you, it works for you. I can't and won't argue with that. I'm just skeptical that you'll get the results you're hoping for (or maybe I'm skeptical that you'd get results that I'd be hoping for, which are a different thing). I guess I'd worry that so much EQ would require...

You think about this a lot and you pack a lot of your thoughts into your posts... I'll see if I can keep up. 1) Despite what a lot of audiophiles will tell you, the HD 800 S don't need a ton of power. They need 209mW to reach 120dB, which will blow your eardrums to Kingdom Come in just a few...

What EQ do you use? I know you have some AU plugin, but what app does it work with? I haven't been able to figure it out.

I think you need more posts to post in other forums, but you might get more interest in the DIY sub-forum.

You could do a local Buy Nothing group on Facebook. BN also has an app for Android or Apple, but I don't know if it's still somehow linked to FB. Or list it as free on Craigslist. When I want to get rid of something and don't want to deal with all the wack jobs on Craigslist, I do a "curb...

I'm assuming you mean that you want to completely block outside noises, not that you literally want to be deaf? The problem with both IEMs and ANC is that neither blocks the entire frequency range equally. ANC mostly blocks the lower and mid frequencies, IEMs typically mostly block mid and...

Why did the lions have a toilet roll? Did they know how to use it, or did they just enjoy having it? And did they share one toilet roll, or did they each have their own?

"I don't want to quibble about semantics, but there are some very minor discrepancies in the dictionary definitions of the words you've used versus how you've used them, and I'd like to nitpick for a moment..."

By reading about people that have actually done blind tests, and, as so many audiophiles do, by "trusting my ears." I meant buying a cable as opposed to making one yourself.

Mind-boggling? Is that one or two words?

I'd forgotten about the Monster/Blue Jeans debacle and would honestly be willing to pay a premium for that... But $109 still seems a bit ridiculous to me.

I'll rephrase: as long as it's the right cable for the job and not broken in some way, all cables do sound the same. I don't blame you for wanting to buy a cable. I just think $109 is a lot of money for 6 feet of cable (especially at 53¢/ft), 3 connectors, and 7 blobs of solder. Oh, and...

Never mind. I really don't feel like having this conversation/argument. If you're in any way offended or annoyed by my previous post (or if you read this one before I edited it), I apologize. Just know that at least one random person on the Internet disagrees with what you said.

This is complete nonsense.

I've never used Blue Jeans Cable for headphones, but I have had some of their interconnects, S/PDIF, and HDMI cables. I used to think they were a decent value, but those headphone cables seem a little expensive to me. That's probably about $15 worth of materials for a 6' cable. You could...

I've used the HD 650 straight out of Macs since the 2005 Mini. Unless you listen at rock concert levels, you shouldn't even need an amp let alone a stand alone an external DAC.

Eh. I prefer her sister Kim Kelly.

It annoyed the crap out of me that my high school girlfriends would go on and on about how beautiful Leo was... In retrospect, they weren't wrong.