I am not saying you are wrong. But I think you hit the head on why Audiopilia as a hobby tends to have a lot of snake oil issues. There is a lot of Emporer’s new cloths going on even not counting the straight up miss information. A lot of what makes a lot of Audiophile headphones sound so good, is straightup the tuning and as much as I am not a fan of having to worry about getting the perfect EQ and finding a way to make sure I have it on every device I am using and probably for lets say 3 headphones (1 TWS, 1 Over the ear, and 1 IEM). But once you hit a decent responce graft everything after that is pretty much diminishing returns.
But that is where I think you fall out of being an audio phile. If its not about getting more out of your listening and not just geting away from bloated, veiled, tinny run of the mill headphones then you are missing a lot of nuance. For most people that is probably fine. But there is something to soundstage, there is something about detail, there is something about a driver (or drivers) that can capture the nuance of all the components of the audio when you get to a really full part. There is something about different headphones and what changes to the tune do to make your particular track pop in a way that it wouldn’t with another headphone. Sure some of that can be recaptured by an EQ, but now you have to store and swap between not only different outputs, different headphones, but now also different eq’s for the niche you are listening to.
So not trying to gatekeep. But getting a good tune out of your headphones even the cheapest of the cheap is part of the game, the most important part of the game, its not all of it.
Also just for an anecdote and this probably goes away well before people think it goes away. Before getting into this hobby, I was fine with my old TWS. Then I got some Jabra Elite 85s as a present. They were miles better, as my old ones were bloated and muddy. I couldn’t even eq them to sound as horrible in comparison if I tried. Then I sought better, probably rose from the ranks a little two quick. Then one day I was listening to Dan’s Audio reviews with one where he was comparing the Chu, a professionally tuned, economy priced IEM ($20). The tune being very comparable to their more expensive units like the Aria or Kato. But you could tell when listening to it, that the driver was struggling that it couldn’t keep up even if its frequency was in line with more expensive headphones. That doesn’t mean more expensive is always better or even the driver configuration matters as much as the mfgs imply it does, but it doesn’t mean you can get away with getting the absolute cheapest and it will sound like whatever you want it to with an EQ. Also some drivers are more accepting of a EQ then others.
I am not saying you are wrong. But I think you hit the head on why Audiopilia as a hobby tends to have a lot of snake oil issues. There is a lot of Emporer’s new cloths going on even not counting the straight up miss information. A lot of what makes a lot of Audiophile headphones sound so good, is straightup the tuning and as much as I am not a fan of having to worry about getting the perfect EQ and finding a way to make sure I have it on every device I am using and probably for lets say 3 headphones (1 TWS, 1 Over the ear, and 1 IEM). But once you hit a decent responce graft everything after that is pretty much diminishing returns.
But that is where I think you fall out of being an audio phile. If its not about getting more out of your listening and not just geting away from bloated, veiled, tinny run of the mill headphones then you are missing a lot of nuance. For most people that is probably fine. But there is something to soundstage, there is something about detail, there is something about a driver (or drivers) that can capture the nuance of all the components of the audio when you get to a really full part. There is something about different headphones and what changes to the tune do to make your particular track pop in a way that it wouldn’t with another headphone. Sure some of that can be recaptured by an EQ, but now you have to store and swap between not only different outputs, different headphones, but now also different eq’s for the niche you are listening to.
So not trying to gatekeep. But getting a good tune out of your headphones even the cheapest of the cheap is part of the game, the most important part of the game, its not all of it.
Also just for an anecdote and this probably goes away well before people think it goes away. Before getting into this hobby, I was fine with my old TWS. Then I got some Jabra Elite 85s as a present. They were miles better, as my old ones were bloated and muddy. I couldn’t even eq them to sound as horrible in comparison if I tried. Then I sought better, probably rose from the ranks a little two quick. Then one day I was listening to Dan’s Audio reviews with one where he was comparing the Chu, a professionally tuned, economy priced IEM ($20). The tune being very comparable to their more expensive units like the Aria or Kato. But you could tell when listening to it, that the driver was struggling that it couldn’t keep up even if its frequency was in line with more expensive headphones. That doesn’t mean more expensive is always better or even the driver configuration matters as much as the mfgs imply it does, but it doesn’t mean you can get away with getting the absolute cheapest and it will sound like whatever you want it to with an EQ. Also some drivers are more accepting of a EQ then others.