N9 Hybrid

AKG N9. Comfort is great imho, ANC is at least very decent if not good. "Look" is always a matter of taste but I like it. Great sound and no touch controls...

Maxwell > Bathys > N9 > Momentum, XM\*

Go for AKG N9 Hybrid. Its an ANC Headphone with Bluetooth and comes with a 2.4ghz dongle for low latency audio as well high definition listening. Its perfect for gaming, music and whatever you wanna do. The dongle uses usb-c conection that you can use with pc, smatphone and equipments that do not have bluetooth. Those headphones were made to be definitives.

My favourite 'in ear' are sony xm5 I used to have the xm4 but the right (powered more) earbud failed after 18 months on the battery Xm5's have better sound quality than xm4 I've tried Sennheiser which were also nice I also tried Jabra elite 10 and they were total garbage Over ear I used to have beata products years ago but they are overly bassy and used to hurt my ears especially the metal over ear beats frames - I then switched to Shure. I've gone through lots. Best ones I have right now are AKG hybrid n9.. (I tried most of the popular brands and didn't like them especially not bose or bower and Wilkins)

I just bought the AKG N9s and they are brilliant. One of the big benefits is that they have a dongle stored in the left headphone, so when you game it will have a dedicated connection. Especially useful if you have other Bluetooth stuff connected so they dont fight over the bandwidth. They also sound fantastic.

From the best to the worst, all still very good for gaming. Arya Stealth + warm amp HD 490 Pro + warm amp HD 660S2 + any amp Ananda Nano + warm amp DT 900 Pro X + warm or neutral amp Those above all are wallhack tier for gaming, I tried all of those myself for my own dime. Below are also very good headphone, almost wallhack tier. - HD 560S + warm amp . Then a good tier: - HD 598 + any amp - PC 38X + any amp - HyperX Cloud Alpha (Valorant and CS only) - AKG N9 (open world like Fortnite, Apex etc) - SteelSeries Nova Pro . For amps I can recommend: Warm: - Ifi Zen DAC V2 or V3 - EF600 - FiiO K11 R2R . Neutral: - FiiO K9 Pro - FiiO K7 - Topping DX5 II I tried all of those myself for my own dime, as I always chased my new highs. You could probably go HD 560S + Ifi zen DAC v3 and that can be your end game for gaming. It would lack some bass for music though even with built in bass boost. Then if you don’t mind treble you may enjoy HiFiman or Beyer, for me it was too much and I in the end ended up on HD 660S2 + K9 Pro, which I then switched for Ifi Zen DAC V2 with bass boost for music. (Only sold K9 Pro cause after AKM fire it was worth a lot, a lot).

Haven’t tried Topping DX1. But Topping DX5 II is top tier headphone amp/dac, when I gave it a go, you could hear higher fidelity / resolution of it vs Zen DAC II. I just preferred Warmer sound. It all depends on what sound signature you enjoy, if you want everything to sound big, like explosions for immersion. Then either go for HiFiMan options or Philips X2HR from cheaper options, but the latter will be mediocre for competitive gaming.

If you don’t have issue with high treble, then DT 900 Pro X. They are good for every genre. If you do, 560S, but for me the latter sometimes had bad results in front vs left and right imagining in CSGO. Don’t know if they improved that in CS2 engine. Otherwise those were good, step below DT 900 Pro X for CS and Valorant. Then tier above would be 490 Pro and 660S2 for me, over the DT Pro 900X. All of those you can drive straight out modern day laptops or desktops PC motherboard amp. The latter 2 could struggle from a phone or console controller though. Can only recommend going for an dedicated amp down the line.

Beyerdynamic sound signature are one of the most airy headphones in existence. They are the opposite of flat. I could not listen to them for a second, even the least airy of the bunch DT 900 Pro X is stilly pretty much little bit airy and sibilant for me. If you ever want truly flat headphones try the HD600 (recessed bas) or HD490 Pro (raised bas) or AKG Q701. Otherwise AKG signature brand sound is considered flat and following Harman Curve. I can recommend AKG N9 and those will follow harman curve perfectly in their Studio eq and they have amazing resolution with the dongle for a wireless headphones. They can be had for 150-200€ on promotion. I own them alongside Momentum 3, Momentum 4, AirPods Max and they have best resolution with the dongle from those. While sounding very studio like.