Did you use the PIC at all? If so, what did you think? I usually keep mine at neutral, but will definitely turn it on for old recordings where the vocals are off center. I dislike an inside the head sound or an off balanced sound, so PIC it's probably higher on my priority list than most listeners. I'm one of those wierdos who try for speaker like sound stage.
After trying both the DA11's PIC, a Phonitor, and several crossfeed softwares, I'm not sure you'll succeed much in that endeavour. I've always felt there was "something wrong" I couldn't exactly pinpoint with them all. On the Phonitor for example I felt it was related to a loss of body / dynamics / warmth / musicality. Everything sounded a little flatter, a little more boring.
If you want a speaker-like soundstage, well, I'm afraid there's a rather strong chance only speakers will do. And even then I'm not sure any pair of speaker in any kind of room with no specific hardware or software treatment is convincing !
No doubt, the keyword being try
. I prefer speakers and listen to them often. Just because I can't replicate their sound stage 100% doesn't mean we can't get them a bit closer, and I am happy to trade off very small amounts of tone and quality for better sound stage. It is just a trade off I'm personally willing to make because I get fatigued and annoyed by music that doesn't sound like speakers in my head. I know most people aren't like that, so my personal headphone setup priority will always be a bit different.
My setup for a while was a da11 -> phonitor -> h800. I've since replaced the phonitor with a super7, so I too, am well aware of how much you can get out of crossfeed and PiC. I know I can't get full speaker sound, but if it doesn't sacrifice quality
too much, I'll take partial speaker sound if it helps my dumb brain listen longer.
