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.

About 9 headphones in, many of them high end. Not until I started listening to IEMs did I find my preferred sound, circa Thieaudio Monarch MK1 and Campfire Solaris. MDR-V6 (reference for years) HE-400i (mindblowing. first planar, first open back, lean bass, but decent when EQed) LCD-X (First time hearing dark, recessed mids. first time hearing planar bass.) LCD-3f (dark tuning. First time doing A/B comparison ) HD-800S (a must-hear for the diffuse soundstage. lean bass) Empyrean OG (muddy upper bass/low mids. First time being able to correlate freq response graph to what I was actually hearing) 99 classics (muddy upper bass, then swapped in Yaxi pads changed the sound dramatically) HEDDphone (realized the difference between sub-bass rumble and mid-bass thump. Treble performance is a standout. First time a headphone weighed too much for me) Verite Open (First time with holographic soundstage + OTL tube amp. Sadly, recessed mids for female vocalists, a huge component of my music library) Verite Closed (First time hearing a closed-back sound open. First time being fatigued by treble) Abyss AB-1266 TC - Finally understood that an overall balanced tuning and ease of use are more important than a two-trick pony kind of headphone. Bass cannon, and hyper detailed treble but my God what is that midrange. Realized that amps, DACs, cables cannot fully save this headphone's inherent flaws. Now I REALLY love my Meze 109 Pro and DCA Stealth. The tunings are perfect for me and different enough to coexist. Looking for a well balanced open back planar that does nice subbass AND bass impact. Have heard good things about modhouse tungsten DS.