Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue with 'military-grade' is that anyone in the military will attest it translates to: Cheapest possible thing that gets the job done. Audiophile grade at least has roots in high fidelity.
> Audiophile grade at least has roots in high fidelity. Does it though? Audiophiles generally seem to eschew fidelity in favour of something that sounds subjectively nice , including the psychoacoustic effects of spending a lot of money. Eg. they seem very fond of "warmth". If you asked me to make something sound "warm", I'd be applying some soft clipping and dampening the top end, not eliminating sources of distorti…
And some are all about accuracy and measurements.
For instance, I use Sennheiser HD600[0], which I strongly recommend, attached to Topping DX3 Pro (old model)[1], which I cannot recommend, as the v2 model shipping now is garbage[2], a consequence of a redesign to work around high fault rates. Mine is fine as problem units fail within weeks, and I've had it for years.
[0]: https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/hp/sennheiser...
[1]: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r...
[2]: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/m...