I can't take it anymore! I am on a tight budget and have been searching all over this website for weeks now for the perfect setup because I don't have a way to try headphones out and I don't have the money to just "test" over and over again. I don't think I will ever find a pair of headphones that has me convinced because every post I read about some headphone has conflicting data on another. It's driving me insane. I have started threads, searched threads, searched other websites, and made multiple trips to best buy to try out the few headphones they have on display... and I can't take in anymore. I don't think there are any meets in Ohio where I can go try out headphones like that and I can't drive a long ways to get to a meet. I was almost to the point where I was about to sell my xbox and go buy the most expensive pair of headphones I can find. But wait a minute... I can't do that because I want portable. Expensive headphones are usually power whores that need all kinds of crazy **** to make them run. Anyone else feel my pain? It almost makes my head hurt. Do I have some kind of headphone disease? I CRAVE THE ULTIMATE LISTENING EXPERIENCE!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure if you're a troll, but I'll reply assuming you're not. I think you need to calm down and maybe take a few days off of Head-Fi.
 
Don't take reviews so seriously, one guy's "warm and smooth" is another guy's "muddy". Try to find experienced reviewers because those have a good comparison point. Then read a lot of reviews and try to find common keypoints, for example if 4 out of 5 reviews says an IEM is detailed or extends deep, you can assume you'll hear the same. Keep in mind you'll never see an entire community agreeing on anything.
 
As for what you want, I don't really know what you're looking for, and even if I did, assuming you want the ultimate listening experience, I wouldn't know what to recommend. Try explaining what you don't like about your current headphones and move it from there.
 
Remember that usually the flaws people find on things are much smaller than they make it sound. For example, I recently started writing a review for a pair of headphones I'm selling on another website, and when I re-read it, I realized the bad parts sounded way more intense than the good ones. I wrote "deep bass, very textured", which maded it sound just ok, but the small flaws like "mid is a bit recessed" sounded to me like a complete dealbreaker.

The journey is part of the fun.  You have to try them out for yourself and figure out what you like.

Quote:

kimchee said:

The journey is part of the fun.  You have to try them out for yourself and figure out what you like.

Click to expand...

 
Exactly. 
 
I think you should try to relax first and foremost, OP. Try to enjoy yourself. Look around where you live to see if you can find a hi-fi audio store that lets you listen to gear. At the very least Best Buy or other electronics mega-centers have a few models out on display. When you decide on a pair of headphones, buy them from a place like Amazon or Soundearphones or HeadRoom. These online stores have no-questions-asked return policies, so if you end up not liking the pair of headphones it's not the end of the world.
 
There will seldom if ever be any consensus in this hobby. People use different setups, have different tastes, sample different music. Some people don't hear as well as others, some people can tolerate sibilance and treble peaks better than others, and so on and so forth. Just keep reading to get a general direction, and then if possible try it out yourself. Eventually you'll start to get a feel for how things really work, and you'll learn how to filter out all the audiophile BS and hyperbole. You learn whose opinions to trust and which ones to be weary of, how you hear things in relation to others. It may seem daunting but if you keep at it it comes naturally. Eventually.
 
Honestly, the law of diminishing returns strongly applies to this hobby. Making the jump to a pair of $300 headphones is going to open the floodgates, and you'll likely experience your music on another level entirely. However the higher up you go the more the differences start to become subtle. Really I don't think you could go too terrible wrong with most of the $200-$500 headphones people 'round these parts recommend, and many of these same headphones aren't as difficult to run as some may suggest. Yes they benefit from an amp, but just how much of a benefit it is remains to be seen. Ultimately I think you'd be fine with such a pair of headphones starting out, and you can always experiment with amplifiers and upgrades to sources later on down the road.
 
Eventually you'll just need to make that initial leap of faith. It's part of the learning process. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

muppetface said:

Exactly. 

I think you should try to relax first and foremost, OP. Try to enjoy yourself. Look around where you live to see if you can find a hi-fi audio store that lets you listen to gear. At the very least Best Buy or other electronics mega-centers have a few models out on display. When you decide on a pair of headphones, buy them from a place like Amazon or Soundearphones or HeadRoom. These online stores have no-questions-asked return policies, so if you end up not liking the pair of headphones it's not the end of the world.

There will seldom if ever be any consensus in this hobby. People use different setups, have different tastes, sample different music. Some people don't hear as well as others, some people can tolerate sibilance and treble peaks better than others, and so on and so forth. Just keep reading to get a general direction, and then if possible try it out yourself. Eventually you'll start to get a feel for how things really work, and you'll learn how to filter out all the audiophile BS and hyperbole. You learn whose opinions to trust and which ones to be weary of, how you hear things in relation to others. It may seem daunting but if you keep at it it comes naturally. Eventually.

Honestly, the law of diminishing returns strongly applies to this hobby. Making the jump to a pair of $300 headphones is going to open the floodgates, and you'll likely experience your music on another level entirely. However the higher up you go the more the differences start to become subtle. Really I don't think you could go too terrible wrong with most of the $200-$500 headphones people 'round these parts recommend, and many of these same headphones aren't as difficult to run as some may suggest. Yes they benefit from an amp, but just how much of a benefit it is remains to be seen. Ultimately I think you'd be fine with such a pair of headphones starting out, and you can always experiment with amplifiers and upgrades to sources later on down the road.

Eventually you'll just need to make that initial leap of faith. It's part of the learning process. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Click to expand...

I think I will do the amazon thing. Get headphones I think I will like, let em run all night to burn em in. And If I like them then I will just keep em. If not return em.