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@donavabdear

You resolved the confusion, when not sure to get active or passive, get both. 😀

That is only partly funny because I did the same thing. Active in my HT and desktop, passive in the man cave. They are all fun, and different.

@brianlucey got me thinking about my next build. I never gave Atmos in headphones much thought. I never gave Atmos and analog much thought. His posts made me think. I think I want to build an Atmos/analog tube based headphone rig as my next "system". Jim Fosgate and Black Ice audio collaborated on a SOA headphone amp that they demoed at CEDIA 2022. Will see what happens once it is released. The FOZ says it is his finest creation, how everything he has done before has led him here. I have never done tubes or headphones seriously, hopefully this will be a good introduction to both.

@kota1 I never took headphones seriously either until Atmos. It's really important to understand that we do not have any releases in this format that represent the highest end of the format.  Early days.  I'm working in the format every day right now developing techniques and what's clear is that great Atmos sounds just like stereo in terms of cohesion ...  but better ... bigger, and more dynamic. 99.999% of what's on the market falls short in terms of cohesion never mind harmonic, distortion and frequency balance.  Early days. 

@donavabdear you bought a brand. Not a great set up. Sorry to say. I’m happy to suggest DAC amp / headphones options given a number. For 8000 you can do better. 

And someone's ego grew three sizes that day. 

@brianlucey That's exactly what I did Naim was supposed to be good and class A but I compare my headphone setup with my personal system and it sounds more like my Genelec system. I think the headphones are good what would be a suggestion for the amp/dac? I definitely think headphones need tube amps just on a guess, tubes sound much better to me and if I need to monitor for accuracy the ss system, but for fun the tube system. 

Also I understand your philosophy of sound but it is self refuting if you think about it, ultimately sound being recorded as accurately as possible rather than sounding better subjectively is best practice. Our brains just like sex are the most important organ in hearing and interpreting music but the standard is nature and real acoustic instruments along with natural sounds we hear everyday. Our brains will always hold real sounds as a base line. I remember the B&K omni measurement mic was considered the only accurate reference mic for many years by a government measurement group.