Buggs1a,
I fear you may be suffering from a GIGO problem. What comes out of the headphones or IEMS cannot be better than what goes into them. The iPhone 6 is well... an iPhone 6. Not the world’s worst source but, certainly not befitting the quality of headphones and IEM you are talking about. A great many of the headphones you have mentioned are really fabulous (when fed a balanced diet of clean 96/24 etc.). I have LCD-XC, Elears, se535 and others. I have listened to them (usually in a duress situation) on my iPhone 6 and if blindfolded I wouldn’t know they were the same ‘phones I hear through my regular sources.
It does not take much money to get a very decent source. Onkyo has its DP-X1 (which I and others on here have) and now a less expensive DP-S1. The S1 is under $400 ad the DP-X1 is around $500 from some places. It can hold 400+GB of music with added SD micro cards, while not the smallest, will fit in your jeans front pocket— but importantly, has an excellent DAC and an amp that will power many if not most of the ‘phones you mentioned really nicely. Not like a Bryston BHA-1, but really nicely. I think many here will agree that if you were spend $500 or so on a source like that you will find that $500-$700 headphones and IEMS in your list will sound many times better than the $1500-$2000 ‘phones on your iPhone. The Onkyo is not your only choice. I also have A&K devices as well but for the money, you can’t beat it and the Onkyo is two DACs and fully balanced so whatever good ‘phones you ultimately decide on you can make most of them better by later recabling thm to be balanced. I even have balanced cables (Moon Silver Dragon) for my Shure se 535s. The 535s are great, but balanced they go another full step farther. And lots of places sell the Onkyo. If you don’t like its style or form go for Pioneer or Questyle or Astell & Kern. But really, you are doing yourself (and the headphones you are trying) a huge disservice by sticking with the iPhone. I’ve gone on long enough. Continued god luck on your search— hopefully I’ve helped find you a shortcut on your journey down the audio yellow brick road.
Robert
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Office/Music Room
Dynaudio Heritage Special. Uptone Audio EtherRegen Ethernet Switch. Akasa NUC 10i7 with Roon Rock. Bryston BDP-3 Digital Music Player (with 4 Tb Internal SSD and Synology DS920+ NAS)-->Holo Audio May Kitsune Edition DAC-->Shunyata Sigma USB—>Gryphon Diablo 120 Integreted Amp w Transpatent XL PC. Oppo BDP-105D and BDP-203. Power: Shunyata Hydra Sigma S12 PD. Additional Cabling: WW Silver Electra PC, WW Electra PC, Shunyata Venom 3 PC. Digital: WW Starlight Ethernet, WW Gold Starlight AES-EBU, WW Platinum Starlight USB. IC and Speaker: WW Eclipse 8.
Bedroom System
Ipad with MusicStreamer App-->Schiit Jotunheim DAC/Amp—>Audeze LCD-XC, Focal for Bentley Radiance HO, Massdrop E-MU Teak HP. AK SE 200 DAP.
Mobile Survival Kit
Astell & Kern SP1000M. Noble Kaiser Encore IEM with Double Helix Balanced cable, Westone W80 IEM w ALOaudio Ref 8 cable, Westone W60 IEM, Shure se535 Ltd with Westone Bluetooth Wireless cable-amp. Mark Levinson No. 5909 Wireless HP.
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