>I can get behind an 80/20 weighting of preference to literally hearing different. I'm still holding onto a shard of hearing differently because I don't know how some people can listen to Beyerdynamics (990 and 1990) even after testing headphones with different signatures. They both pierce my soul haha.

As I said in my first post it is not entirely clear how that is perceived by all people. But I know from reading Floyd Toole's book and doing some research, because I also find this rather facinating (Why do people love speakers/headphones with ear piercing highs?). That hearing loss could also be a potential reason why some people seemingly enjoy it, besides what is already stated see here for example noise induced hearing loss 'notches' https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Audiograms-showing-onset-and-progression-of-noise-induced-hearing-loss-First-a-notch_fig3_264555852. Which quite coincedently are exactly around the treble peak of a beyer headphone... With normal hearing loss it also kind of acts like a low pass on the sound making the highs less audible; https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Age-related-hearing-loss-according-to-the-International-Organization-for-Standardization_fig1_338597788