[treyath]

I am currently using an older 2011 iMac, streaming through services like Apple Music and now Tidal.
I have a Hifiman Edition X V2 paired to an IFI IDSD Black label as my DAC an a Woo Audio WA6 as my Amp.

Now that I've gotten my equipment and source out of the way, I am experiencing what sounds like distortion on some notes in songs and I don't understand why. For example listening to Travis Scott' "SICKO MODE"in around the 3:21 mark the bass note seems to be what sounds like distorting/clipping. Also in the songs outro at around 5 minutes the bass note once again give my ears the same impression.

Is my setup just revealing an imperfection in the recording? Or could there potentially be something wrong?
Any suggestions would be of great help!

 

[audiofil]

The bass line after 3:20 and 5:00 sounds to me intentionally distorted (on the 3 headphones I tried it with). If that's the only song you experienced this, you have nothing to worry about. your headphones are fine, you just aren't used to the level of detail they're extracting from music.

 

[MindsMirror]

It's in the track, either intentionally done for artistic effect, or an unintentional side-effect of making it too loud.

This is one of the bass notes at 3:21. The flattened peaks show that clipping was added at some point in the mixing/mastering of the track.

This one is from the outro where the effect is more obvious.

They are not perfectly horizontal like you normally see with digital clipping, probably because they had other effects applied after.