2/3. It seems like as you go higher up with headphones, you get better technicalities but there are still tradeoffs. Hence the HD6xx are still so popular. It's not the best on technicalities, but very balanced.
3/3. If this is true, isn't it advisable to - contrary to popular wisdom - build a system around top notch even or balanced electronics and then slowly flavor it with necessarily compromised or "tilted" headphones?
I wouldn't say transducers are inherently more compromised, but... from what I have gathered, talking with manufacturers recently, they are more concerned with "what sells" and "how to set an identity" rather than "making a benchmark" if that makes sense.
Also, from my own personal experience, a headphone that is not tilted, or not significantly tilted in any direction is really... just very boring sounding. The original Orpheus (HE90) measures pretty flat-ish, but it's not the kind of sound that will make everyone go "wow".
@Griffon. Yes, transducers make the most difference, both technically and signature wise. However the variance in signatures as price goes up does not really decrease. On the other other hand, with electronics, I speculate that the variance in sound signatures between different models does decrease as price goes up.
Therefore as you're learning what kind of sound you like, you're better off allocating more of your budget to balanced sounding electronics and slowly adding HPs to suit your evolving SQ preferences. Ultimately you'll end up like many/most, with multiple headphones to suit their different musical/sound tastes.
However if you've invested in good electronics at the beginning, you're controlling for that variable and cost and can just discover and indulge your SQ tastes via headphone upgrading.
@Stuff Jones your option a is built upon the premise that HD6XX (or the HD6xx family) is a competent transducer. With a 3K USD budget I'd rather have a used pair of HD800SDR, get a competent sub-1200, SBAF-approved amp, and a used Gungnir MB. You have a combination electronics that is a.) not far away from Starlett+BF2, and b). maybe even more versatile.
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