Personally for me I prefer the least amount of seal with the 1266, it’s really designed to not seal much at all and instead almost float over your ears imo. The Diana is more designed with a partial seal in mind although vented pads so you don’t have to further mod is great. The Dianas had the problem where having the pads rotated where they didn’t fully seal gave the best sq, but it wasn’t as comfortable and felt better to have them more fully seal, which was irritating, the newer revision pads have gotten better but it’s still a headphone that tends to throw people off thinking that it should fully seal when it really shouldn’t lol
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Yep for me too, that is what i mean when i mentioned the seal, i was really referring to breaking it by the correct amount, too much and things get out of control in the bass area, but when you find the sweet spot it is really awesome 
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They aren’t all that similar tbh. Diana TC stage is much much smaller, the bass is less sub like and more normal planar (with bass port), the mids are a bit less wonky on dtc than 1266 as well. Ultimately I prefer dtc to 1266 TC (1266 ,mids are far too fucked for my taste and I find it hard to get good slam/bass speed without too much of a mid ass hump on 1266) but I think they are probabaly a half step down in detail (more inline with something like d8kp than sus)
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By any chance did you ever try the convolution filterset by Mitch on the 1266? I know not everyone likes to EQ but Mitch’s neutral filters combined with the SC cable (this one might be just my brain trying to justify the purchase) do help the wonky mids of 1266 quite a bit. I don’t usually EQ but after spending 3-4 weeks with the convolution filters, removing them was a big change and now I don’t really like listening without them.
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I did not. I could see that working though.
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My 2 cents about EQ is that when done properly it can transform a set for the better, the mids on the 1266 are pretty easy to “fix” for those who don’t like the stock sound.
I am all in favour of using EQ for those scenarios, you have a set which is arguably the #1 technical performer amongst all headphones, you still keep all those good aspects after “fixing” the mids, it sounds absolutely fantastic after some EQ.
I know the theoretical downsides of using EQ, but the fact is that i can most definitively hear the changes i make on its mids, and i can’t hear whatever sound degradation is supposed to be there because of EQ.
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We can absolutely argue on this lol
The TC is great but far from #1
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Which one would you say is the #1 technical performer? Not talking about tonality or anything subjective.
Depending on which technicalities but my vote would be the Shangri LA Sr or X9000 for most stuff or if you think of it as a whole. At least from headphones I personally heard.
Susvara, D8000 Pro LE, Utopia and 1266 TC would be the second tier each with their strengths and much more “reasonable” cost
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I haven’t heard many estats and only heard Susvara D8kp briefly but I have Utopia OG and I think I agree with @orrman that at least Utopia is at par technically with 1266 TC but in many different dimensions I’d say. It would be like if you start giving scores from 1-10 on different dimensions and then add them up, Utopia and TC will probably end up fairly close in aggregate but will score pretty differently.
I really liked how the TC sounded, even without EQ it was a great fit for some of my electronic stuff but I couldn’t wear it for long. It was too heavy and cumbersome and it just sat there when I picked something else almost every time.
I miss its soundstage and sense of grandiose presentation along the punchy in your face attitude but the D8K got my bass itch scratched and I don’t think I’ll ever own the TC again.
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I have never tried a estat and i don’t plan to, my wallet cannot afford them I did have the Susvara and the 1266 side by side, to my ears the 1266 won but i guess the chain plays a big role here.
Personally the 1266 has really soured on me after a few years (then again I didn’t like it at first with the og 1266 but actually wanted to buy one when the 1266 phi came out later), but really they’ve become a one trick pony in my collection and I don’t really find much value in them as I once did. To be clear, they aren’t a bad headphone, and depending on what you listen to and the chain you run them on, I can see why they might be the top for some.
Evaluating their technical level is an interesting one, I’d say they pull ahead of a lot of the other flagships on more entry level chains (and to be honest, something like the quicksilver is fairly entry level for this headphone and bare minimum I’d consider to find them worthwhile, the ferrum stack would be a technically higher tier but less of an interesting and enjoyable match, likely more the higher end of entry or lower end of mid tier for me personally), so if you compare the 1266 to other flagships on those chains, it’s likely going to either outperform or match the technical levels of those headphones. Once you start getting up into the higher tiers of chains though, it quickly falls behind and other flagships begin to meet or exceed the overall technical level of the 1266 imo. The 1266 while power demanding to an extent, actually aren’t as amp picky and demanding as some of the other top headphones, even something more efficient like a utopia.
What I personally found is that they really ride on wow factor and their fun factor with lesser recordings/inorganic material as they’re able to really exaggerate the sense of space and stage, give things fun punch and slam that might not have it, and actually despite it’s cleaner slightly v shaped signature smooth over some nastiness or unpleasant aspects about said music (think it does awesome with metal in general, some of the poorly mastered electronica, and very fun with something like hip-hop/rap at times, among others of course). But I think once you start comparing flagships on more appropriate levels of gear, they start to really take off ahead of the 1266 and the technical problems of the 1266 become a lot more apparent and offputting (to me at least, such as poor timbre, poor midrange overall, general compression and lack of microdynamics, just very surface level headphones, etc), they kinda really start to show the limits of the 1266 when put into context that way. And considering how cheap some of the other options (excluding chain requirements at least lol) can get on the used market, it suddenly makes the 1266 seem like a fairly unsavory value given their used prices that don’t really fall that much in comparison.
An interesting observation I found is that with other flagships, I tend to find myself seeking chains that optimize and excel at the same things the headphones themselves do, but with the 1266 I constantly found myself going toward chains that would try and correct or compensate for the issues I had with them. You can create chains that help offset some of the lack of technical ability, but then the problem becomes that on one hand you make it a better all round headphone but it then falls behind other chains that are designed around optimization of what makes the other headphones good. If you try and make a chain to exaggerate the benefits of the 1266, you end up making the drawbacks even more apparent despite potentially improving overall technical level, and with other headphones in a similar price range, they just don’t have as many drawbacks as the 1266 do when doing the same thing.
But that’s just my 2c, and it’s coming from someone who has just sold theirs as well, so that’s something to note lol.
I still think they’re a great headphone in their own right, and can absolutely see the appeal depending on what you’re after, but for me personally despite what I loved about them, I still found other headphones taking their same role anyways, which was a surprise to me too lol. But then again I’m also basically maxing out chain wise, so I’d say my experience on the extremity of the difference between them is likely moreso than others with more reasonable chains would experience. If I had much lesser chains instead of what I have now, I likely would still have the 1266 and other headphones would have gone instead
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Really interesting take @M0N ! I figured my chain limited the Susvara.
I mainly listen to metal and o got the OOR for the 1266 and ended up using the Quicksilver 100% of the time, go figure
I guess i was lucky to pair the 1266 with the Quicksilver, for me personally it sounds like heaven even though the Quicksilver is theoretically not “sufficient”, when i got the 1266 i never imagined it would play well on the Quicksilver, the HE6 sounds like crap on it.
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Yeah I wouldn’t really find the susvara all that impressive either given your chain lol, it’s such a needy headphone compared to others to where I’d actively suggest people look toward a hekse instead of a susvara if their chain isn’t up to snuff, because imo it offers a more satisfying experience with a hekse on a mid or higher level chain than a susvara on a lower level one
I mean, there’s a reason why I suggested you try out the 1266 on the quicksilver lol, it’s surprisingly good. I also found that most of the amps I liked the 1266m most ended up being like the quicksilver (at different levels) as they would offset some of the criticisms I had with it and make it overall more enjoyable for me despite some of the raw technicality dropoff because of it.
Side note, try an og utopia on the quicksilver if you ever get a chance, great value if you can and it’s a really interesting headphone to own alongside it
The he6 is just a power hog, and it’s hard to satisfy, the 1266 thankfully isn’t that power demanding though lol
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Good timing on the commentary/opinions here. This probably belongs in either the Headphone or Source Gear Q/A threads, but I’ll toss it in here for some relevancy.
I’ve sold some headphones and plan on putting up the D8KP for sale soon (I’d like something a bit leaner with more bass quantity), since I’ve been thinking about either going for a used 1266 TC or a high-end solid-state amp for the Susvara. To add some context, there’s a decent chunk of music that I listen to that favors more v-shaped sound (poorly produced rock/metal and electronic), and while the TH900 was the answer for that for a while; I still wanted something planar. The TC seems like the answer, but I’ve been back-and-forth on Abyss a lot given their criticisms and questionable pricing of certain products.
TL;DR is it worth it to go used TC for my use-case, or is my time and money better spent improving my Susvara chain for macrodynamics to suit said use-case (or the Utopia wildcard, lol.)
Why not the D8KP?
If not then I would personally go all in on the Susvara
EDIT just read your reasons, I think that can be adjusted a bit with the chain but fair
It’s a combination of middling issues like long-term comfort with the pad thickness and that neutralish-dense/(warm?) type of sound signature. Yeah, I’m still early in the deliberation phase for what I’m going to do 
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I listen to a lot of metal (doom/stoner/death/black/prog/djent) and rock (much of it tends to be not highly produced) and 1266 TC is my go to for that genre. I totally get the criticism for Abyss as a company and pricing and I don’t support that (I bought mine used) but separating art from artist yada yada.
What is your source chain like? Both Susvara and TC are pretty demanding and since you already have Susvara, it might be worth improving amp first (something that has good synergy with both Sus and TC) to see if that satisfies your needs otherwise you can try TC and perhaps the same amp can serve you with TC?
Those are interesting observations. By no means do I have your chain and I am much more of a rookie(?) in my journey still but I like the TC so much that I already find myself in a weird position of having to create a separate-ish chain just for TC but I don’t like being tied down to a headphone so much.
I am curious to what these other headphones are because I thought that TCs were unique in their (weird) design and hence were able to create that unique amount of bass which admittedly might be a one trick pony but it is a great trick if it fits the music you like.