MD1032
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2003
- Posts
- 5,977
- Likes
- 20
Happy Holidays, everyone,
How much is enough? I decided a couple months ago that I have more than enough audio equipment. I’m a senior in college and I have more audio equipment than many working adults that I know, in fact, I’m currently running a roughly $1k headphone setup consisting of my EMU 0404 USB, Head-Direct EF1, and Grado HF-2’s. I also have two very good speaker systems and plenty of other headphones (like 10 others), a spare headphone amp, and an SACD player. Whatever. Bottom line, I usually spend about $500-1000 each year on audio equipment for myself (about 20% of what I make in the average summer) and I came to the conclusion this year that my rig is pretty much as maxed out as it’s going to get for a long time (I might add another headphone, but the other stuff won’t change). Laugh all you want!
Furthermore, I lent one of my friends a pair of headphones over the summer, my iGrados. He enjoyed them quite a I lot, I believe, and while I do use them about once a week and here and there, I didn’t really need them, so I felt bad asking for them back. In fact, the guilt weighed so heavily on me that I decided that I would use the money I would have spent on junk for myself to buy him a pair of headphones, so I bought him a pair of SR-80’s, the first real headphones I ever owned myself. But later, it dawned on me…why stop there? I just spent $450 on a pair of headphones for myself at the beginning of the year (HF-2’s) and I could easily blow another $500 on other junk over the course of this year, so why not just spend it on buying headphones for all of my friends? Let’s just say I have a close circle of friends here that overlap very strongly because we have two things in common: we’re all musicians and we all love to play video games, in fact, we play Halo 3 all the time together. I’ve known these guys for years and all of them have complimented me on my headphones at one point or another. So, over the course of about a month, I aquired seven pairs of Grados:
2 SR-60’s
2 SR-60i’s
2 SR-80’s
1 MS-1
Why Grados? Easy to drive, 1/8” single ended so you can plug them into any laptop or anything, plus they happen to be my preference. Now, the majority of them are used but are in excellent condition. Most of them I bought off people who tried them and didn’t like them or need them, so they resold them here. Kudos if you're one of those people. One of the SR-80’s didn’t come with the original box (I bought them locally) so I bought a case on ebay for him. I still saved at least $100 by buying used, if not double that. Here’s the result:
They arrived at different times, but in this picture, it looks like I just got them!
Sorting and comparing...
My signature-less signature of doom, our beloved website.
Now hide!
Mwahahahahaha!
So, I’ve taped them all up, placed a CD of random but good quality music on the inside, and written a little thingie on the back with their name and a website that will eventually kill their wallets like it’s killing all of ours.
Now here’s the reason I’m posting this: I challenge you all to do the same if you aren't already, and if you are, post your surprise here so we can see it as well!! But hey, if I can manage something like this on a college budget (OK, OK, I admit that internships help), surely there are others here who could be doing the same thing this season. In the end, it’s not about the money and buying all the headphones, it’s about physically sharing the information that you don’t have to listen to crappy headphones! And that information has been more valuable to me than you all can imagine because I get to enjoy this hobby every day and I love listening to hi-fi music.
How much is enough? I decided a couple months ago that I have more than enough audio equipment. I’m a senior in college and I have more audio equipment than many working adults that I know, in fact, I’m currently running a roughly $1k headphone setup consisting of my EMU 0404 USB, Head-Direct EF1, and Grado HF-2’s. I also have two very good speaker systems and plenty of other headphones (like 10 others), a spare headphone amp, and an SACD player. Whatever. Bottom line, I usually spend about $500-1000 each year on audio equipment for myself (about 20% of what I make in the average summer) and I came to the conclusion this year that my rig is pretty much as maxed out as it’s going to get for a long time (I might add another headphone, but the other stuff won’t change). Laugh all you want!
Furthermore, I lent one of my friends a pair of headphones over the summer, my iGrados. He enjoyed them quite a I lot, I believe, and while I do use them about once a week and here and there, I didn’t really need them, so I felt bad asking for them back. In fact, the guilt weighed so heavily on me that I decided that I would use the money I would have spent on junk for myself to buy him a pair of headphones, so I bought him a pair of SR-80’s, the first real headphones I ever owned myself. But later, it dawned on me…why stop there? I just spent $450 on a pair of headphones for myself at the beginning of the year (HF-2’s) and I could easily blow another $500 on other junk over the course of this year, so why not just spend it on buying headphones for all of my friends? Let’s just say I have a close circle of friends here that overlap very strongly because we have two things in common: we’re all musicians and we all love to play video games, in fact, we play Halo 3 all the time together. I’ve known these guys for years and all of them have complimented me on my headphones at one point or another. So, over the course of about a month, I aquired seven pairs of Grados:
2 SR-60’s
2 SR-60i’s
2 SR-80’s
1 MS-1
Why Grados? Easy to drive, 1/8” single ended so you can plug them into any laptop or anything, plus they happen to be my preference. Now, the majority of them are used but are in excellent condition. Most of them I bought off people who tried them and didn’t like them or need them, so they resold them here. Kudos if you're one of those people. One of the SR-80’s didn’t come with the original box (I bought them locally) so I bought a case on ebay for him. I still saved at least $100 by buying used, if not double that. Here’s the result:
They arrived at different times, but in this picture, it looks like I just got them!
Sorting and comparing...
My signature-less signature of doom, our beloved website.
Now hide!
Mwahahahahaha!
So, I’ve taped them all up, placed a CD of random but good quality music on the inside, and written a little thingie on the back with their name and a website that will eventually kill their wallets like it’s killing all of ours.
Now here’s the reason I’m posting this: I challenge you all to do the same if you aren't already, and if you are, post your surprise here so we can see it as well!! But hey, if I can manage something like this on a college budget (OK, OK, I admit that internships help), surely there are others here who could be doing the same thing this season. In the end, it’s not about the money and buying all the headphones, it’s about physically sharing the information that you don’t have to listen to crappy headphones! And that information has been more valuable to me than you all can imagine because I get to enjoy this hobby every day and I love listening to hi-fi music.
