I enjoy watching reviews and keeping up with new releases and such, but im not shopping for any audio equipment right now. I'm happy with one solid midrange choice that fits my use and preference in each category, open back, closed back, iems, tws. I have everything I need really, so if there's something new i want to buy then there's something else I'd have to sell.

I dissociated to Solar Power by Lorde and Dragon New Warm Mountain by Big Theif almost every night over summer lol. Honestly that feeling of full escape and comfort is a big part of what got me into audio over the past shitty year

i generally listen at lower volumes so my footsteps were literally louder than my music with the stock cable lmao

depends on the use case, sitting at a desk i would take $500 headphones over iems for the comfort over long periods and sound stage every time, but i have a $300 pair of iems that i use almost every day at work where I'm always on my feet and every night in bed where headphones would fall off or get crushed. I love them both, but they each have their niche. If you have neither, I would split and get one of each for $250. hell, good iems are getting cheap so $150 on iems and $350 on headphones gets you into high quality stuff on both sides. I'd just browse r/AVexchange until something catches your eye lol

just sayin rn you can get HD6XX + LetShuoer S12 + Fiio BTR5 for about $450 total and be happy on all fronts

how tf do you go through that many drivers? do you just sit at your desk listening to atomic bomb test recordings at realistic volumes or something?

I have IE300s and ditched the stock cable for a few reasons, mostly bc it was very microphonic rubbing against my shirt or just amplifying my footsteps into my head, and bc of the fiddly earhooks. I got mine for about $200 so i didnt feel as bad modifying the iem shell to fit a standard mmcx cable, basically i just took a razorblade and sliced off the little plastic rings that make the mmcx connection recessed. im not sure if other people had to do this after modding theirs but I had to superglue the new cable on to keep a secure connection (superglue can be dissolved with acetone or just broken with force so again didnt feel that bad).

if you find a nice cable you like more than the stock one and you arent planning on selling them i would recommend the mod, but then again IE600s are like $700 or something so definitely do some more research before slicey dicey. maybe some boutique seller offers Sennheiser iem compatible cables or something idk