As someone who had only a handful of headphones, and a couple of demo-sessions, I kinda know what kind of sound signature I am looking for, but I am not really well-versed inside of the audiophile territory so I wondered if someone could help me figure out how to properly define my preferred sound signature. I will try to be as descriptive as possible, but apologies if I am using incorrect terms or not enough terms to properly explain everything.

The headphones that I used and what I (dis)liked about them:

  • HD599: from memory - they were very warm headphones. The warmthness drowned out a lot of the vocals/instruments for me. I guess I could call the whole experience “muddy”/veiled sounding. I also found the sound to be very “boxed in”.

  • AD500x: from memory - completely flipped the script and was the first headphone I thoroughly enjoyed. Mids/instruments were pretty forward I believe, but it felt incredibly smudged together. Very little detail and clarity. It was fairly bass light, but not much of a concern for me given that bass is not of importance to me.

-HD560s: current daily driver, EQ’d to harman target. These headphones “wowed” me given the detail and seperation I experienced compared to the AD500x. People call them “neutral-bright” and that is also how I perceive them (both with and without EQ). It doesn’t have much bass, but the bass that is there is pretty nice. The treble seems to emphasize some smaller details in recordings that I like quite a lot, but it doesn’t sound as fatiguing as a Beyerdynamic headphone. The midrange just felt… neutral. Not very recessed nor very forward to me. The EQ helped to remove some shoutiness that happened around the 5k Hz range I believe. I do miss a bit more vocal and instrumental presence.

  • Ananda V2: was one hell of an upgrade, but I unfortunately had to return it due to QC issues. The vocals/instruments felt a little bit more pronounced, and the music sounded a bit “fuller”, as if it had more body, although I am unable to pinpoint what exactly did that for me. Seperation and detail was even better than the HD560s. It didn’t feel muddy, veiled or boxy at least.

So TL;DR is basically:

  • I am not a big fan if a (overly) warm/bassy sound. It makes me feel boxed in. Warmthness is more in the upper-bass and lower-mid range, correct?

  • I want a bit more vocal/instrumental presence than the “neutral” sound of the HD560s.

  • I do like a good presence of treble too. I noticed that treble gives me that hint of “detail” and “clarity” which I like a lot. Too little treble and I feel like those little details are getting lost. I guess that a “dark” sound signature is not my style.

But the thing I am confused on is that I have seen some people mention that the Ananda sounds a bit V-shaped/U-shaped and even a little bit on the warmer side, which I believe goes slightly against what I am refering to in a few instances, especially with me experiencing a more fuller/forward presence of instruments and vocals.

So… With my description, me liking the HD560s, and significantly liking the Ananda V2 more, what is the proper definition of the sound signature that I seem to prefer? Or are there conflicting opinions going on here?