Vérité Open

I'm going to say no based on the following selection of headphones that I own: Dynamic: Verite Open, Focal Elegia, Beyerdynamic T5/3rd generation and HD650, Planar: DCA E3, DCA Noire, Hifiman HE1000 Stealth, Audeze LCD-2f. IEMs: FiiO FH7s, Westone Mach 40; earbuds: Galaxy Buds Pro 2, Galaxy Buds Pro 3, Jabra Elite Active 8, Sennheiser True Momentum 4, Bose QC II, Bose QC Ultra and ANC headphones Bose NC700, Bose QC Ultra, Sony XM5 and B&W Px8.

Like you I’ve found that lower ear gain but decent treble is the real key here. Reduces fatigue but guitars still have bite. My favorite hp for metal is definitely the ZMF Verite Open. Lots of good suggestions in the thread. LCD-X might be just what you’re after.

Verite open

First off. I think if all of your headphones are over $5000 you’re bat shit crazy. Especially if you want 7. That’s $35,000 just in headphones. Stupid money. And most of the summit-fi headphones that are over $5000 are cooked by products half their price. I currently own 10 full size headphones but they’re all over the place in price. I own three summit-fi headphones and they’re probably my least used. I could comfortably live with 5 total and put the money into investments.

Ah. Well if that’s the case I’d still do something similar to what I’ve done. Spend time going through your journey looking for different sound signatures to determine what your ears respond to positively. I’ve owned well over 100 sets across 8 years in the hobby and sold everything but my current roster. It amounts to essentially adding one per year into the collection. Don’t worry about price. Just navigate according to what interests you at the time.

Yeah. In my opinion it's criminally underrated. I think it's the most enjoyable open back dynamic headphone that Zach's made. I enjoy it more than anything else in the line-up including VO & AO. And wild that it's been discontinued because of lack of sales.

Fully with you, although VO is as good to me (just very different). Definitely prefer Aeolus to AO. Think Aeolus is just less well known to the masses due to timing/circumstances - if it dropped now with same tuning and perhaps revamped looks it would be very popular I think. It’s like Bokeh with more nuance.

For sound, the focal bathys seem hard to beat to my ear, especially in DAC mode.  My wired ZMFs are better of course but the Bathys are surprising close while having the ability to switch BT to go wireless.  With that, for travel, the Bose are hard to beat for portability, comfort & ANC, and the Gen 2 adding charging while listening completed the package. Just for the heck though I may try a pair of the Ankers