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@NickZ

I’m looking into an open back step up from PortaPro to use with phone or portable dac/amp.

I’d currently choose the HD-58X. I’m using it for phone, portable, and the headphone jack of my guitar amp. The size is medium versus truly portable, but it involves none of that on-ear nonsense. It doesn’t scale much, but starts out above the PortaPro and works with a lot of stuff. The price is $139 at Drop right now.

My impressions and PortaPro comparisons are here:

Massdrop Sennheiser HD58X - Official Thread

I bought a Massdrop (Drop) HD-58X. Here are my impressions, plus comparisons to headphones ranging from cheap to very expensive. Background I’ve owned the HD-600 for a long time – they were my first serious headphones. I’ve used them with at least two dozen setups, and they vary from terrible to fantastic per the amp and DAC. They also improve with balanced setups, as they are prone to generating an awful lot of hissy noise on the wrong setup. In contrast, the HD-58X is positioned as a cheap…