I personally don’t use eq but that is a fairly good eq to try out, almost as a starting point
I also picked up the Adorama sale version, and after unsuccessfully trying to run it off of my lesser sources, I found my 1974 Marantz 2325 was the best option for me. I use the speaker adapter off of it, but when I’m feeling lazy, I even enjoy it from the headphone output knowing full well that it’s not giving me everything it’s capable of. I’m usually never so picky that I EQ unless I feel like something is totally broken, and both options seem to do the trick for me. The Marantz really deepens the bass and gives it almost a tubey sound quality I don’t get from anything else in my arsenal
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Going back to the discussion of how amps effect sound and the average qualities of headphones for a sec. I found that zeos review on the stellias were half right tbh. They are heavily amp dependent in a way I was genuinely surprised to find out for a set of 32 ohm cans, but they’re not limited in what you can listen too. I found the low end heavier and more present if you have a high quality amp running in high +8/9 db gain. The little extra juice feeds into the bass real nice. Sounds great testing with Igor and Watch the Throne. I found out most of my problems listening on them was caused by replaygain in audirvana.
Also the focal listen professionals are like 400 cad and are really good. I recommend them.
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What is they say about high end sport cars. You gotta feed them high octane or they’ll die on you. I can see why the stellias would sound like crap on zeos’ 789 but great on his cayin.
I dont know to be honest why it’s like this. By all accounts power is power but I guess it’s a matter of how that power is handled in the headphone amp and how it affects the sound
haven’t owned/used an eq since 1978. But my 6SE has about a 10-15 db peak at 4 kHz, and I can’t enjoy the can that way.
Marantz 2325 nice piece. I had a SAE 31B back then, then a pair.
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I haven’t looked at any FR curves, but I definitely don’t hear anything that spiky on my pair. 10-15db at any range would definitely be the thing I would call broken that would make me want to dust off my Equalizer APO skills
I personally think it’s a power/amp thing as well, very picky
I have seen one graph with +15 db relative to 500 Hz and another +13 relative to 1 kHz and +11 relative to 500 Hz. I can’t say for sure it’s +10-15 w/o measurement, but it has to be at least +7. It leaves behind earaches worse than the HE5LE (killer ringing all over the place), and an unmodified HD-800.
Basically my listening seems to support use of 4 cans; I’ve got 3 in place, the 6SE is supposed to be the 4th.
HE-500 (mods) warmish mid centric with very nice bass and treble
HEX v2 cohesive, gentle, great early morning & late night can
HD-600 timbre king, classical king
HE-6SE truth telling with impact - but at least 40% of my listening is female singers - so that peak, no good.