He1000 stealth or Dharma d1000?

Hello im stuck between these 2 headphones, what do you think?
I have a audio gd 28.38, my musical genre are rock pop 80s, new wave, retrowave, synthpop, dreampop, sophisty pop
I actually have a 660s but i dont like the dark veil of this hp, and also the small soundstage
Let me know what could be the best hp for me, thanks

 

Oh! The "veil" gets lifted on 660S when JAR-modded: https://superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/f-s-eta-mini-s-jar-660.14928/#post-445128

I would try this and see if it shocks you with the amount of change. Otherwise, there are lots of options but I worry about you over-correcting and getting pain from 80's sharp/bright recordings. JAR660S might just be the balance you are looking for. Canada to Italy, not sure about customs and taxes but...

 

Also it may actually be more affordable to experiment with different amplification/DACs to see if that helps any. I only ever tried the HD660S in demo settings so cannot comment too extensively on how it sounds, but the HD660S2 stages more expansively than either the HD600 and HD650 (sometimes to its detriment TBH). No idea about the Dharma headphones but the HE1000 Stealth and the V2 that I've gotten to try have certainly staged very largely, just that everything was disappointingly indistinct on that stage and the lack of treble refinement was annoying.

Barring that though (if the rest of your system is keyed in just the way you like from a functionality standpoint) the JAR660 seems a significant uptick in every performance category over stock form based on multiple people's impressions and measurements so could maybe well worth looking into.

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/jar660s-impressions-thread.12691/

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...ar-headphones-measurements-impressions.13129/

 

As a former owner of the HE1000 Stealth, I will urge you to steer clear of HifiMan. The Stealth does initially impress by sounding incredibly wide and open, but the splashy treble eventually grew annoying even while using an Yggdrasil LIM and Mjolnir 3, neither of which are exactly known for being bright.

Even more to the point, HifiMan's build quality is dogshit. The "leather" headband on my $1300 pair fell apart in less than 6 months, and when I ordered an $80 replacement direct from HifiMan, they sent me the black one from the HE1000SE and Susvara instead of the brown Stealth headband I had ordered... and it was equally crap. Their older models (HE-6 6-screw, how I miss thee) sound great, but with the terrible build quality and generally scummy premium pricing, no one should consider anything but their budget models IMHO.

I would echo @Lyander above and suggest that your DAC/amp combo is probably not giving you the full potential of the 660s, as Sennheisers in particular seem to particularly and synergistically benefit from the imaging properties of tube amplification. Or @CEE TEE with his suggestion of modifying your Sennheisers into JAR660s. You could almost certainly do both for less than the price of a new pair of Stealths and have something with better sound and infinitely superior build quality.

 

which hp you use and you like?

 

Audeze LCD-X 2021. Built like a tank, excellent detail and extension, but Audeze can be somewhat closed-in sounding which might not suit your preferences. RD-X mods address this, but I haven't decided to do that myself just yet.

 

n.b. I am extremely heavily opinionated in some things (as opposed to only being slightly opinionated about everything as a baseline ) but I think dynamic headphones just present a more immersive headstage than do basically any planar that I've heard so far (I have not heard any of rhythmdevils's modded headphones): planars tend to push things very far out which is very fun, but it often feels to me as if there's no substance and depth to the sonic "images" thereby presented, less clean separation of things on the headstage. That's the main reason I feel you could be better served by sticking with your HD660S and instead changing other things in your chain out, though you have to keep in mind that other folks might not have the same preferences as you with respect to the same criteria.

Also your DAC will matter-- you might be able to find an AKM 4490-based one for pretty cheap because that's an older chip now, and the stage that DACs I've heard that have used that chip tended towards being very big and wide (mainly the Modi 3+ which I lived with for a few years, IIRC it's supposed to have a less AKM-y sound even then).

The Modi 3+ had slightly softer bass than I preferred, but I think the main issue could be how much air and sparkle that DAC has-- it's more upper treble compared to e.g. the iFi Zen DAC v2 and the Modi Multibit 2. I don't remember the HD660S being very shimmery sounding but again, it's been a few years since I heard that so please verify for yourself if you can demo before committing to a purchase. To its credit though I remember that it was very resolving of detail.

But yes changing your headphone will always make for the most noticeable change in a system. I'm just scratching my head at the HD660S being described as closed in sounding because I don't remember feeling that way about them, though again it's been a while since I demoed one.

 

I'm also one who took a shot on the JAR660S and it's absolutely shocking how much the JAR mod improves the 660. For chains where an amp-agostic (mostly) headphone is required, I wholeheartedly recommend the JAR660S. The slight bump in efficiency and more benign impedance makes it quite easy to drive.

 

For chains where an amp-agostic (mostly) headphone is required .......

What do you mean by amp-agostic?

 

An amp-agnostic headphone means it isn't super fussy with needing the right amp and plays well with most typical amps.