Honestly, sometimes it's hard to tell what is "good for the money" in these threads and what is a "giant killer". I do own quite a few iem's, and more-than-I-need over the ear/on ear phones. I got into this headphone stuff failry recently, but audiophilia is nothing new to me. I am a long time high end equipment fan (Stereophile, TAS, even did some music reviews for The Audiophile Voice). Actually got into headphones when a friend told me how his Bose noise cancelling phones made lawn mowing bearable. The thing about high end living room audio is that while reading the raves definitely makes one lust for the latest-and-greatest, with price tags $2-4,000 for "affordable" amps/preamps/speakers, once you commit, it isn't so easy to keep changing stuff without major financial losses. Headphones take that restriction away...while dropping $50-$300 is significant dollars, it is not so prohibitive as the big rig stuff. I can buy 10 different $100 headphones, and while it is a significant dollar expenditure, it doesn't come close to the living room stuff. Moreover, if done one at a time, it doesn't feel like your spending much until you look back at everything you've bought and start to add it up (the strategy the phone company gets you to buy a $700 phone, paying much more in total in monthly installments). Still, it's fun being able to try all these things out at home. It has occurred to me I may have been better off (or still be better off) just getting 1 really good set, say the Shure 535 or a custom iem, be happy with it and stop the obsessing. Then again, I bought a Krell amp/preamp and Thiel speakers, and was still able to keep lusting over "better" gear. Audiophilia Nervosa, it used to be called.
