Not just the one‘s at shops but also at shows! I (17) got basically ignored at the chord booth at the „Mitteldeutsche HiFi-Tage“, probably because I look like can‘t afford chord, I mean, I do but I planned to buy when I can afford it an M-Scaler and now I won‘t.
Probably Audeze Euclid
It‘s absolutely enough. IEMs are the easiest thing to drive, if asked big planar headphone the answer might change
Shitty comparison 3 cables with the USB type C connector. The apple cable is a Thunbolt 4 cable which is rated for a lot higher data transmission than the other 2 regular USB 3 cables. Just as a side note thunderbolt has transmission rate of 40GB/s a second while USB 3.0 has only 5GB/s. Imagine comparing a cable for its shielding and insides if their spec the use don‘t line up.
*neck part
Do you have a preference already? If so go for it. You don‘t? Buy one and never listen to something different or find a way to listen as much different sounding headphones you can be that at Hifi-show like Can-Jam, a retailer (as example Hi-fi im Hinterhof like or any other HiFi-shop that has headphones), find the sound that suits you best and go for the endgames
No, it‘s only Hi-Fi if it‘s an HE-1. Don’t stress about what other say Hifi is no clear „begins here and ends here“-term. Hifi is subjective for one its everything over a HD560S for others everything past DT1990S. I would say this fits very well into the hifi category
I use at home 16bit/44,1khz FLAC and on the go 270vbr MP3