Hey @Nuance nobody on this forum is going to tell you you’re wrong about this until, as you point out, you’re already at your endgame - high-end endgame - headphone. I might also point out, to those new people who are about to go down the rabbit hole, this thread:
One of the things about this forum is that we have a range of buyers here. I’m at a place in life where I can afford an expensive system, but my personal choices have been to stay under about $1000 list for a headphone and under slightly less than that for DAC and AMP (except for my used STAX amp, but that was special temptation). Only after about 50 years of listening to headphones and speakers and live music am I considering doubling that on a headphone.
And yes, I listened to the range of STAX phones in 1985 before buying middle of that line. And to high end phones again in the late 90s before getting a Sennheiser HD-580 back then. After joining here, a few months after the forum started, I caught the bug more. In the 10 years or so before this forum, I’d followed the forum (occasionally) hosted by Headroom, that made some amps. I had one of their portables. Maybe I didn’t catch the bug more. Maybe I had it all along, and my wife’s instance that I might bother the neighbors if I played the stereo too late or too loudly just provide a fertile substrate for the audiobacterium headfonus curiositum to flourish.