Thought I’d share a tiny tidbit of experience with the Blessing 2 Dusk and the Variations. Now that I’m starting to go into work, I decided to get some daily drivers for when I’m there.
My headphone listening has been pretty much all desktop for the past 2 years, with Bifrost 2 > Phonitor XE > VC / RAD-0. And I got… used to that. Both these headphones have a really pleasant and neutral tuning, with superb detail, bass, and slam. And I didn’t want to give up too much of this experience when stepping down to IEMs.
So with my $500 budget and after reading reviews, I narrowed it to one of the B2D and Variations. Plan was to buy both and sell / return the other.
I got and tried the B2D first, and I can tell why they’re highly recommended. But while the B2D’s are GREAT for their price point, their warmth and general resolution made a lot of tracks “blend”. In a good way, mind you, since the end product was really cohesive. But I could tell a pretty clear difference in detail. And I couldn’t get used to it.
For example, Chocolate Chip Trip by TOOL is one of my favorites, with different instruments sounds moving all around you at the same time. It sounded fine on the B2D, but I had a hard time picking out all sounds all at once like I can with the desktop setup. It lacked breathing room, somehow.
The Variations has been a much better transition in that vein, and I’ll likely end up keeping these. They are much more neutral w/ a sub-bass bump, and a bit more resolving than the B2D. The tonality also lends itself well to a more spacious presentation of the music, which is a good transition from the current desktop drivers.
Super cheap “review”, but if you’re a detail + subbass head on the lookout for non-kilobuck IEMs, I highly recommend the Variations.