Hi, to preface this, I’m am not an audiophile and entirely new to the concept of HiFi audio.

I’ve owned a pair of Philips SHP9500 for a while now and am satisfied with the sound. They sound good to the point that I can’t imagine what a better sounding pair of headphones would sound like. The music is clear and detailed from what I can tell. My pair of qc35 has more bass but I would say sound similar, although I’ve never listed to them side by side.

I’ve done a 128 bitrate vs 360 bitrate vs lossless audio test and to be honest I can barely tell the difference between 128 and 360. In a real world scenario I would Never notice if my audio suddenly switched between the two.

Anyways,

This holiday season I decided to spend some money on nicer headphones and ordered Sennheiser 6XX with a Topping DX1 amp/dac.

They haven’t come in yet but I’ve been looking around the internet trying to gauge the difference in the listening experience that I am going to have (if any) but I’m not really finding anything. Both headphones have good reviews and according to rtings.com, the 6xxs have comparable characteristics, if not worse in certain areas. Even some extremely expensive headphones that are apparently known for their sound, have very similar ratings.

My question is: Is hifi audio purely down to preference? Will the average person have any chance of distinguishing higher quality audio? Was there any point in me upgrading my headphones?