That falls apart rather quickly. You wouldn't expect a regularly mastered flac and a dsd file to actually be identical.

The first few units of the L30 had issues, Topping recalled all of them and permanently fixed the problem. The L30 II is just a minor upgrade so you can get a L30 if it's cheaper without worry.

The FiiO K5 for example is kinda bad. In general, FiiO doesn't always make the best products, although plenty are fine.

Any technical improvements between something like the BTR3 and a "better" one like the Qudelix disappear thanks to Bluetooth compression anyway. They are very, very minor at the best of times even when wired.

As far as IEMs go, something like the Moondrop Blessing 2 will blow your SE535 out of the water and provide a significant upgrade.

If you would use measurements you wouldn't say things like

>the bass is incredibly neutral and flat

Because it clearly, objectively is not!

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/fosi-audio-k5-pro-gaming-dac-amp-review.40047/

That's why "subjective" reviews so quickly devolve into audiophile voodoo. You might hear them as "flat", and I'm not saying that you're lying or anything, there are many reasons why you might think that. But at the same time it should be clear that there is no reason why this review should reflect some sort of "so I can talk about most peole would hear as well.". It's not flat and you talk about being flat.

And that's just one example.

I mean, that's a low bar.

How about your phone?

If you don't have a headphone jack on yours, the Apple 3.5mm to usb C dongle is cheap and very good.

Otherwise what you're looking for is generally called a "DAP", which just means digital audio player. They basically all should have the features you're looking for.

A Xudoo X2S for example does the trick just fine and costs little money.

https://shenzhenaudio.com/collections/portable-player/products/xduoox2s-hi-res-lossless-dsd128-pcm-128gb-oled-portable-music-player

Some other decent ones:

https://www.linsoul.com/products/shanling-m0?variant=28357067112548

https://www.linsoul.com/products/xduoo-x3ii

https://www.linsoul.com/products/shanling-q1?variant=32883010732171

https://www.linsoul.com/products/hidiz-ap80-pro-x?variant=42268983034073

No measurements whatsoever, instead talk about how the bass feels.

..is this what "normal" audiophile journalism looks like? Because frankly this is just weird.

Get another working headphone jack. You can cannibalise a cable you don't need or just buy one on Amazon.

Get a soldering iron, many cities also have stuff like makerspaces or something like that where you can borrow one.

Also, maybe get some heat shrink tubing.

Snip off the end of the cable, solder on the new jack, done.

Even if you were to buy a new soldering iron off of Amazon this entire thing is doable for like $20. Also, soldering really isn't hard even if you have never done it before.

That's really not how that works. If you want more bass, get an EQ.

That's still a perfectly good price. If you want something better than the E10K you usually need to spend $200 or above.

>Some people say ALC1200/ALC1220P is actually fine for 80ohms

Those are just audio chips and tell us nothing about anything else relevant going on on the motherboard.

>and is the E10k really that good?

It's pretty decent. Considering that you can buy it for like $40, it's excellent.

It's very much possible that your output is just bad.

>I'm currently using MSI B550M Mortar, it's using the 5+ Optical S/PDIF (Realtek® ALC1200/ALC1220P Codec). Is the codec good enough?

Sadly this says basically nothing. Tells us nothing about the specs that matter at the very least.

Anyway, this could definitely be an issue with your audio hardware. I would get a cheap amp and see if it helps. The FiiO E10K is pretty good and can be had for very little money used.

No they aren't and I really hope it stays that way.

Headphones get traded all the time, headphones stick around for years and years all the time. People have well over a decade old HD600s, Beyers, etc.

The vast majority of wireless headphones are inherently disposable garbage. Once the battery is dead, people throw them away, and even if you could replace the battery, with different levels of effort, a lot of people won't bother.

I really don't like things that are made to be disposable and I'm not going to buy wireless headphones because of that.

There's no real reason to assume it would make one. The odac is a fine enough DAC.

Well if at all possible I would recommend going to a store and trying some out in person.

That said, the Sennheiser HD6XX or Hifiman HE 400 SE are pretty good. Hard not to be warmer than Beyers tbh

The 900 Pro X are excellent for the money.

But honestly, the biggest caveat is that sound is subjective and ultimately only you will know what you like. It's definitely possible that other headphones in the same price bracket will blow you away way more. I would rather try that, maybe some Sennheiser or Hifiman headphones, than jumping to the 1990 straight away.

Although if you generally like the 900 Pro X, the 1990s are definitely a good choice.

Obligatory comment.

They are the same.

Headphones can sound very weird if you're not used to them. You really need to use them for at least a week or so for your brain to adapt.

I honestly can't tell if this is a joke or not. Memory jitter reduction?

Anyway, the short answer is, none of this really matters.

The long answer is found in the following link. Windows actually does some processing and if you want to be really anal about things you can disable that stuff.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/ending-the-windows-audio-quality-debate.19438/

It's unlikely that the perceivable improvement goes beyond placebo though.

Ok, why should other people looking at FR impact his enjoyment?

Cheaper headphones generally have more "punch" simply because the bass is louder. Louder in relative terms, so to the detriment of everything else. Audiophile headphones strive for more balance, which usually means they aren't as bassy.

>Would you not agree that 250ohms would sound thin under powered when used with an inadequate dongle Dac?

Ohms are literally only half of the equation. It's impedance and sensitivity that determine the power demands.

For example, the popular Beyerdynamic DT 990 comes in a bunch of variants, the 32 Ohm and 600 Ohm variants both need the same power because the 600 Ohm one has higher sensitivity.

>I started to worry that I was not careful with them enough and they simply don’t have the same quality anymore, but I don’t know how to check if that is the case.

Headphones don't wear out. Not to any degree that matters. The only thing that does wear are the pads, and that's just through use. You should replace them periodically.

>However, how it happens with all addictions, I start to feel like it is not enough and my headphones sounds not as great as I thought. I started to notice sharp sounds in lyrics, missing details, kinda like “flat” sound in places and so on.

Step #1 would be to stop overanalyzing. Your listening experience can be influenced to a huge degree by your own perception. If you want to think there's something "wrong", you'll most likely find something, even if that something is entirely in your head. So try to chill out a bit on that front.

Beyond that, the biggest thing you're missing as a beginner is experience. You need some reference to know what stuff sounds like and what you personally enjoy. The easiest way to do that is to check out a hifi store near you if possible.

Then just don't?