ericarthurblair

I've made some progress. Firstly, this conversation is not new: Secondly, the headphone output is 63ohm so according to this, the headphones need to be 200-600 ohms to sound good. All of my headphones are low impedance. If I send the sound through my audio interface (scarlett solo) and plug the headphones into that, the sound is much better, despite the extra D/A A/D conversion. With my POD 2.0 the opposite was true (sound was good with headphones in the POD, less good via the audio interface). The scarlett solo headphone impedance is 10ohm, which is a better match for my 32ohm headphones.

That matches a lot of my experience. My Audio Technica's sound very dull and boomy compared to my desktop speakers (music speakers, not monitors). And I too have experienced that whatever I adjust for one is awful through the other. All of that I expected. What I didn't expect is that I can't get a decent sound out of my good headphones. It's not just different EQ, its just bad. It's always fizzy. $20 iphone earbuds are much better. There, the difference really is mostly EQ. It sounds like people can get nice sound with the DT-770s and HD650s. Its just a lot of money to gamble to fix a problem that nobody else seems to have.

Hi, I love the sound I get through my desktop speakers, but I can't stand the sound when listening through heaphones. Instead of nice smooth overdrive the sound is fizzy and nasty. I've tried ATH-M50 studio headphones, open grado headphones and basic iphone ear buds. Of the three, the iphone headphones are by far the most usable. They have too much high frequency but it could be corrected with EQ. I've seen people say certain headphones work well, but I don't want to make a big investment in fancy headphones just to find they are the same as the ones I already have. Any ideas? Thanks!