Movies require binaural sound simulation to give proper immersion with headphones.
And they've got the surround sound with spatial information as source for HRTF.
Dolby Headphone was actually designed for imitating movie theater's sound using headphones.
In case of music it depends on how it's been recorded and mixed.
Some are good straight, while others have strong articial inside one ear feel without at least crossfeed.
Though for headphone listening music should be binaural recording:
That's the natural way we hear things and was actually in use in audio before all this "stereo" hype:
https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/12/...ural-immersive-vr-sound-times-square-new-york
https://hookeaudio.com/blog/binaural-3d-audio/the-history-of-binaural-audio-part-1/
I'm using Sound Blaster ZxR (got second hand some five years ago) and Objective2 headphone amplifier.
(actually assembled two O2s to be able to use two different impedance and sensitivity headphones simultaneously)
Sound cards of the time didn't have that good headphone outputs, including TPA6120 hyped by Asus:
Because it has slew rate more fit for radio transmitter than audio use and requires output impedance rising 10 ohm series resistor to guarantee stable operation into all loads.
Have been considering getting external sound card with direct control for disabling/enabling processing and customized Super X-Fi HRTF would certainly be nice for games/movies.
Sound Blaster X3 is just lower than year ago released Sound BlasterX G6, so going to wait little if there are new Super X-Fi using models. (there's certainly product position open below old SB X7)
Creative did stupidly in releasing very expensive Sound BlasterX AE-7 and AE-9 with only old fixed HRTF and should have delayed their release.
It's like their right hand didn't know what left was doing and vice versa.
For headphones I have Beyerdynamic DT990, bought to replace crumbling after 2½ years fashion design bling bling plastics HD595 Sennheiser and couple years ago second hand bought AKG K702 for neutral reference (would be absolute top choise for competive gaming) and K712 with DT990 like above neutral bass.
After using mostly K712 in past years have lately used mostly DT990.
AKG simply can't touch comfort of those Beyer's velour pads and lighter pressure.
Because of that "automatic" adjustment AKGs rely also on pressure to keep ear cups positioned.
Except for binaural cues human hearing system is pretty much trash as any kind absolute measuring instrument and doesn't know anything about accuracy.
What we consciously hear is simply only small part of actual data received by ears and heavily filtered and processed.
Because that was evolutionary advantage:
Like being able to "tune out" continuous background sounds, but notice changes of it, or some momentary sound which might have meant approaching enemy/predator.
Also expectations affect to how we perceive things and human senses are very easily fooled. (that's what magicians do lot)
And in general who would want to admit of having been fooled to buy something useless/totally overpriced.
All which is good encouragement for brain to be creative.
Because of that all testing should be done blind without knowing what's listened to avoid psychological biases.
And suddenly all those hyped differences might not be there...
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733-19.html
Really good example in this after three minutes.
So if there are actually hearable differences, for which proof is very slim, there's zero guarantee for those meaning more accurate sound.
Except for some opamp models which are each other's clones/copies all have some differing characteristics. Needing circuitry and PCB design fit for those to guarantee accurate operation/best performance.
Hence random swapping of opamps without actual testing using measuring instruments is as likely to just worsen signal quality than increase it.
Especially opamp's slew rate is big factor and too high slew rate is easily like oversteering driver, who at worst case gets car to swerve and otu of road even in straight road.
That TPA6120 being good example, requiring that "speed limiting" output resistor to keep it stable.
And "discrete opamps" are own chapter.
In integrated audio opamp all parts of its circuitry have been designed to work with each others.
They can even use custom design transistors etc not available as discrete components.
Also with all parts being on same piece of silicon they have identical temperature behaviour.
Meaning it's lot easier to achieve stable operation at different temperatures.
While it's possible to achieve same precision with discrete components, that needs huge amount more work.
From design and component selection all the way to even matching of individual critical parts during construction.
And then there's same old if it works well with rest of the circuitry/PCB design.
So there's plenty of scientific reasons to be sceptical about all the clames of "audiophiles".
And as usual it's good to remember that the bigger moneys are involved in something, the more there are lies around it.
I wasn't sure if I've figured out all the button combos.
