I just recently bought these 2 months ago and listening to them out of the box was not bad but not great… I played pink noise through them for 24 hours at 85% volume and it actually made a pretty huge difference to my pair and they sound fantastic, No EQ change as I found it changed them too much and made them a little muddy… just a 2.5mm balanced cable and a BTR5 and to me they are worth every penny $329 Australian dollars… wouldn’t pay $1400 AUD though lol…