I agree, I have had many cheap guitars and expensive, and the difference, at least in terms of playability and sound, isn’t that much.

I feel like there are dimishing returns and also elistism where a person who normally buys expensive stuff would be perfectly fine with how a 500 dollar headphone sounded if they did a blind test and didn’t know the price.

There is a lot of confirmation bias and also a brain bias when spending money. I’ve heard great audio at 300 that rivals 2000+ because I listen with my ears, not my eyes or bank. Plenty of people claim (with no measurable proof) that something is better than something else.

This falls under the technical performance (measurable performance) vs. prefered sound signature ( subjective performance).

Mines is a permanent hissing sound that I only notice when it’s silent, luckily.

Makes me quite sensitive to high frequencies, though sadly. I still listen to music, though. just use open headphones.

But yeah, if it’s sudden random tinnitus, then there might be something wrong.

Shithouse, there are literally no stores that sell iems near me. I have to buy all iems/headphones online blind

Did you read the whole thing?

Think of it like a mattress. (Sub 100 dollar iem) Cheap ones are usually pretty bad, but you get some okayish ones here and there,

Then you spend a bit more and get a ($100-250 iem) and there are definitely already good improvements but still could be better.

So you try a bunch ranging from cheapish to expensive ($300-800 iem), and you find there are improvements here and there, but find that the 300 dollar ones are about 90% of the 800 dollar ones.

So you go all out and try an uber expensive, highly praised one (1000+)

And then you realise how big the shortcomings of even the 800 dollar one were. And you are kind of baffled by how good the more expensive ones were.

Or you could try a $100 one and go eh its okay and try $1000 one and go, huh? An extra $900 for this?

Very

Most reviewers are getting paid to encourage you to buy the product they are reviewing unless you go to a small channel.

Many haven’t heard enough headphones or auditioned them long enough to give you an honest review.

This might be obvious, but any youtube video title that ends as a question is clickbait and probably going to give you misleading information. For e.g. “Is this the best headphones for 200!?” Why avoid these.

Reason 1: The best is purely subjective Reason 2: unless they have heard everything for 200, how would they know Reason 3: They are really so great, then just say, " x headphone is great value for $200 bucks"

I’ve been in this hobby for about 10 years or so now. And have spent (wasted) a lot of money chasing the best sound. The only way to know is to demo yourself and see if you like it if you are unable to, then i suggest you compare multiple reviews to get a broader opinion as well as learn how to read frequency response curves and find the curve for a pair of headphones you like, this will act as a base for comparison.

For E.g, your headphone measures with a lot of bass, and you enjoy it. If another headphone measures almost no bass, you probably won’t. It’s an oversimplification, but you get the idea. However, fr curves aren’t everything they are a rough idea of how it will sound not if you will like it.

Best of luck.

A 3000 dollar amp will not magically make your headphone sound any different (unless it’s doing something wrong)

A decent 2-300 dollar amp that has the plugs (inputs/outputs) you need and measures with low distortion will suffice.

Tube can sound slightly different due to higher distortion numbers and a tendency to roll off the bass and treble, making a slight warmer sound.

It’s not worth it, shure 840s would sound better.

as long as your headphones are loud enough and the amp has low distortion at loud volumes and doesn’t colour the sound, that’s all you need. the cheaper you can get that with the features inputs/outputs you want, the better. people chase synergy between amps and headphones, but unless one amp is colouring the sound, it’s just a placebo.

People like fancy expensive things, and so they convince themselves its worth it. But if they did a blind test between an expensive and a cheap one, I doubt they would hear a difference or guess the more expensive one correctly and consistently.

Now, let’s say you can guess correctly consistently, I’d have to argue the difference you are hearing would be hard to notice without trying so is the 1000 or more amp really worth the premium over a 200 one, in this scenario where you struggle to hear a difference?

And if you are someone who has magical ears and finds it super quick and easy to notice the difference between the cheap and expensive amp then I kinda feel bad for you, as you will probably have to waste more money, chasing sound.