No, you listen at more like 40-45dB lol, and I listen at 85-90dB. For low volume listening, I never recommend the HD800. It needs to be cranked a bit. I recommend planars like the 009 or even the 002 for IEMs if you don't need isolation.

I just think dynamics are cheaper to produce in general so you just have more bad ones that range a wider price point scale. Are there $20 e-stats? How about $100? $200??

Also, on balance in the speaker world, I'd say I've heard more resolving dynamics than I have e-stat speakers. There might be like two decent planar speaker companies in the world?

Actually the housing is gimping the HD800 a little here. Doesn't have the latest mods.

I too like the old top down look for comparisons. 

It's true lots of cheap headphones are dynamics, but come on, you know I'm not referring to the cheap general pop stuff.  I'm talking about headphones that get attention in our hobby (which admittedly, can be cheap ).  Even then, an entry level Stax isn't nearly as expensive as people think for whatever reason, and I think they're WAY more resolving than dynamics in the same price range. 

I think dynamics make way more sense in the speaker world than the HP world.  Don't get me wrong, there are some really great dynamic headphones out there, especially once price/convenience are taken into account.  However, taking those two large factors out of the picture and solely focusing on ultimate performance, electrostats seem like more of a no brainer for HPs than for speakers as long as certain parameters are met.  The big negatives for electrostatic speakers are: early bass roll off, limited volume level before arcing air, and beaming treble.  Good estat headphones take care of these issues: a sealing, non leaky pad gives you flat bass response; the proximity to the ear is close enough that arcing is very unlikely at listening levels; and headphones point right at the ear anyways, so beaming isn't an issue.  The biggest sound quality negative remaining, based on what I've heard from other members, is bass impact, but I'm pretty sure I know how to fix this a bit.  I'll show you at the meet after this summer meet.

The HD800 housing can be improved upon, as evidenced by your and others' mods, but it's still more advanced than a leather earpad is all I'm saying.  Leather is a little reflective...the CSDs can be cleaned up a bit by lining the inside of the Stax earpads with felt or some other absorbing material.

Add a Pioneer Monitor 10 to the mix. Of all headphones why this one?

The reason is simple. That headphone in good condition is one of the flattest sounding headphones you can find. Low listening volumes are no problem due to its isolation. I would check with Takato.

Who's listening at 100dB? On one hand, you're telling me most people only listen at 60dB including yourself, which I doubt. So -60dB is irrelevant. On the other you are saying we should look at 100dB for accurate interpretations? I'd say that's nice headroom to have but I think at these distortion levels the relative difference is small and insignificant compared to what the CSD's are doing. So yeah, I agree with you, it's probably not THAT relevant to plankton.

The CSD reverberation is though - even at -36 dB the resonances are audible.  They are generally coming from the earcup and pads and not the driver itself with a few exceptions... At a typical 50 sones (or ~60 dB) this nets about 30 dB background "reverb". Just barely audible, but more than equivalent noise level. -50 dB we can start talking about pristine.

And of course the speed of the initial decay - if the CSDs are properly synced they will show it. Overly long decay obscures detail in transients.
Modded HD800 is very good in this regard, almost as good as IEMs. Similarly HD650. "Ortho wall" might be an important flaw here, likely a resonant mode caused by sudden clamping force holding the membrane, causing a reflection. Dynamic driver conical design makes this force increase gradually, plus it attempts to emulate a point source rather than planar source.
This is a speculative cause of the plankton difference though.

On the other hand, IEMs, esp. balanced armature, have obvious resonant peaks. In BA, you get a main mechanical resonance of the armature somewhere in the lower highs, 3-7kHz range, which cannot be removed. In dynamic IEMs, you might be spared it, but they are more vulnerable to shell and acoustic tube design instead - plus damping.

I think you don't quite know if you are hearing the headphone, amp or source when comparing the two. You're using unfamiliar gear at meets. With more experience you'd be able to tell. We'll compare notes and talk about it this weekend if you have time and we can see what's what. I'll just leave this here in the meantime.

www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,593.msg12271.html#msg12271

(graphs truncated since I don't wanna make the response take up more space)

Yea... I need to hear moar gears, and get familiarized with moar gears. Each time I have heard the SR-009, it was always out of different setups, and it's kinda hard to tell.

Same with HD800.

But what's apparent to me is that the HD800 in all of the different setups always sounds like it has an oversharpen filter (6KHz peak?) that stands out, whereas the 009 doesn't exhibit this "behavior". 009 always sounds more relaxed to me, though not necessarily smoother.

So I hear these 2 headphones as such: HD800 bright and sharp but smooth, SR-009 more relaxed, cleaner, clearer, and yet something sounds like it's missing up top. Not necessarily grainy or un-smooth, but more of a "huh? I thought I missed something" kinda feeling for me.