Headphones you regretted buying the most - Page 72

Brainwavz HM5.  Hollow sounding.  The comfort was OK, but I didn't feel that there was much potential for bass.  Certainly, not worth the $139.00 - IMO.

Audio-technica M-50's.

Had a pair around a month ago, used them for a month far past the burn in. They simply were not comfortable, the treble ceiling was so low. In trance it always sounded like those bright pads were getting cut off. Comparing head to head of my A700 to M50 with my rig, the a700 simply sounded better, both equalized and unequalized. Not to mention how much more comfortable they were.


Sold them and used the money to fund a Motorola Xoom. 

Still love my A700's and my new aviators which are surprisingly fantastic!

Brainwavz beta iem. Neck and neck with the koss dj100

I'm sort of starting to regret purchasing the AKG K518, because it just doesn't fit my head very well at all. The headband is too short, and not padded at all =\.

add padding, problem solved... but seiously, they need to fire the guy who decided this fashion over usability headband.

I found a GE H-22 at a thrift store not too long ago, found it comfortable, and thought "For $9, it can't be that bad." I couldn't readily test it at the time due to its 6.3mm plug.

 

How wrong I was...that thing has no extension whatsoever, and that applies both ways. Quite tinny and hollow-sounding, with a radical V-shaped EQ required to get any sort of balanced sound out of it. It gives me newfound respect for most headphones out there, even things I didn't hold in very high "audiophile quality" regard before, like the Sansui SS-20, Panasonic HTF600, or Audio-Technica ATH-AD700.

 

Also, for a closed headphone, its isolation is poor.

 

I guess to truly appreciate the best, you have to experience the worst.

 

That's why I keep some older pairs around for comparison purposes. It helps to stifle the urge to upgrade when you realize how much better what you have now is compared to what you had then. :) 

 

Because of my job, I also have the "luxury" of checking out some of the more popular mass market brands/models. Some of them are just TERRIBLE (I'm looking at you Skullcandy 50/50s) to the point where I can't believe people actually tolerate them. I tried some Mumford and Sons on the 50/50s with comply tips and it was so muddy and overly bassy that I only made it about a minute or two before I ripped them out of my ears. There was absolutely no detail in the mids or highs, too much bass leading to the male singer sounding chesty and terrible, etc etc. This is, of course, in comparison to my UEs and Klipschs, but I still can't believe that some people actually listen to their music on those things. 
 

I just hope that anyone who listens to those kind of headphones eventually branches out and finds something that does their music/the artists more justice.

For me, it turned out to be the Corsair® HS-1A, one of the first 50mm headsets on the market.  The speakers were decent for low-ohms types, the microphone passable; what did this model in was too-thin cable.  When I lost the left speaker, it had all the symptoms of a bad connection.

 

When I finally opened the left earpiece to attempt repair, I was shocked to find that all the cable's conductors were 36 AWG - the same size I expect to find inside the coils of relays and transformers.  Even Plantronics® knows better than to trust a Gamecom® model to such undersize wires.  Even Corsair® would abandon the HS-1 for a new series, which they title the Vengeance; but they lost a customer with the HS-1A's too-weak cable and gave that customer no proof that the Vengeance has better cables.

JVC Gumy Earbuds (Violet)

Didn't cost much, but I don't have much money to spend. Not even a year and all the rubber on it got all sticky and weird. Dust stuck to every part of it and feels kind of crusty some how, don't know why. Can't comment on how it sounds at a good level, probably not great.

RE-0

sound so boring, so thin, no bass at all, I MUCH prefer my HF5!
 

While I don’t necessarily regret buying a lot of the headphones I’ve had as they have all helped me figure out what sounds I like and dislike, I’d say my biggest disappointments have been:

 

Audeze LCD2. extremely uncomfortable and tight clamping plus a sound that was way too dull and dark for my taste. They didn’t sound “like speakers” - a comment I see frequently around here. they sounded dull.

 

Beyerdynamic DT1350: incredibly hard to find a decent fit. without it, music sounds echo-y and unnatural. once a good fit is there, it still sounds dull and bass anemic.

 

Hifiman HE-5LE. they sound great but they are incredibly power hungry and forced me to max out volume on any amp I tried them on. Plus I never found them comfortable for my head as the cups are installed so low down on the band that the tops of the ear pads would push down on the tops of my ears, no matter how high up I pushed the cups up the rods. I had to bend the headband into a straight horizontal line to raise them up enough to be comfortable (this headband design is the reason i won’t try out the HE-500 even though I figure I would love the sound)

 

yuin pk3: OK sound but one driver broke within a week. shame.

 

 

The other headphones I’ve used are in a list linked in my profile for reference.

 

That's essentially the issue with the HE-400s, the HE-500s and I'm assuming the HE-300s, too.  They have the same fit, measurements, etc.  People with a smaller distance from the top of their head to their ears, will have a feeling of the HifiMAN headphones fitting this way.  By no means, does it indicate the individual has any less brain mass by having a smaller head.  However, I'd think that HifiMAN would listen to some of these comments and make the necessary manufacturing adjustments.  Thus, I can only think that in the country where they are produced, the heads are possibly even smaller - and, drowning the tester with the cups tugging down.  My last sentence wasn't meant to be racial, or single out any special racial group either, but thought it was relevant in my comparison.

 

Yeah, it really seems like an odd design decision. It’s not like I have a  really small head, either. My head is perhaps slightly larger than average. I typically have to bend out Grado headbands a great deal to make them comfortable.

 

If Hifiman would reduce the length of that metal headband by around an inch or so, then the cups would sit on my ears and there’s still a ton of range on the adjustment slides for people with different shaped heads. Plus I’d probably own an HE-500 right now, heh.

Yuin OK2. They were sort of what I expected but I learned the hard way that the much cheaper MX880 did a much better job putting a smile on my face. I'm sticking strictly to fun/more coloured earbuds and IEMs from now on.

 

Fortunately it made a good gift to a friend of mine who took a liking to them.

Ludacris Soul SL300WB- the only headphone I ever owned that sounds worse the more you listen.