do they all sound like shit when volume is over halfway cranked?
mine does.. sounds kinda distorted, especially on the low frequencies
which is an issue because when i produce i like the beat to be loud in my ears, but its no fun making anything when it sounds like crap
most of the time i just deal with the distortion then when i bounce from sp i turn the volume down to a little over halfway.
perhaps i need louder headphones...

my 404 sounds clean cranked up. if your headphones sound good with other sources (mp3-player etc.) they can't be the problem.

yes the phones work fine with my 303
its the 404, guna have to suck it up, perhaps rig up a way of amplifying post 404

the 404 og sounds good at full blast, it is a bit decieving though, if you import normalized samples you will need to turn them down individually, when tuning your subsonic, you should turn down the master volume, resample it then turn your 404 back up. it gives you maximum juice, if thats what your after, this is just an old school technique all the heads i grew up around used. I also use the half way volume style sometimes, but something doesnt make sense to me to have the samples juiced up and the sampler turned down. however it can be dangerous to have the sampler maxed in live situations without the limiter on. also, watch out for the low ends when compressing with vinyl sim at full blast, you will almost always need to cut the lows significantly to get a comfortable sound.

yo this happened to my 404 og over time, i used to play it full blast then it just got shittier sounding after a while... a good way to deal with it is if you have an interface/daw, just use the rca's and headphone jack in the computer