Yes, different driver types sound different and it's obvious - definitely not "audiophile BS". One key feature of planar drivers is that the bass combines the volume of a dynamic driver with the quick decay of a balanced armature; as with everything preference related neither is "better" and either you'll like it or you wont, and if you've never heard a BA this description wont mean much.
As to what tuning you want that would depend on what you want to listen to. Most popular music is mastered badly and if you listen to it on "HiFi" IEMs/speakers you can notice distortion and it can sound lifeless (note the yellow line showing more volume in the frequencies of most instruments) while well mastered music can sound too bassy when you crank the volume as is required to listen to it on "consumer" gear. Check some of your favourite artists here, anything below an 8 is not good and less than 6 means it will probably sound bad on any quality speaker/IEM. There isn't a huge difference in the two tunings going by the graph so unless almost all of your favourite music is 8 or higher I'd go for the balanced option.
As an aside note how almost all of the vinyls have high score, this is a big part of why people say vinyl sounds better - because it does. They could use the same mix (compensated for the vinyl pre-amp) for digital but stupid standards dictate music has to be loud (low score) to get noticed on the radio.
Thanks so much for the explanation.
I'll have to check reviews for the score, because pretty much none of the bands/albums I listen to atm are on that list.
)
I do plan on getting a vinyl player at a certain point - because yeah I've heard that they sound better, and that doesn't surprise me one bit.
Mostly I listen to metal(not really picky about genres, I l isten to what sounds good to me) a little rap & hiphop and progressive rock, that type of stuff. (yeah I'm all over the place, I know).
Also I have a tiny eq hooked up to the setup (schiit loki) which hopefully will help with evening out the sound.
Alright thank you very much, I will go with the balanced option. I don't doubt that many albums as mixed/mastered terribly. Maybe that's what happens when basically anyone can make an album in these digital times.
Oh, tp4 drinks plentttty of koolaid... but lesliann said something about iems/ headphones reducing circulation once, and Tp4 thought, hrrm.. scientifically speaking, cell hypoxia causes healthy cells to become cancerous, so theoretically iems and headphones increases the probability of cancer of the head area, difficult to surgically intervene/ amputate, and since then, tp4 has gone back to speakers.
Kewlaid. !!!
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Sure you keep drinking the koolaid, I'll continue enjoying my life as long as it lasts. :P
