Introduction   For the Sennheiser HD598, or any of the HD series for that matter, there’s almost no need for introductions. Asking an audio enthusiast if they’ve heard of any of the Sennheiser open back series, from the beginner-friendly HD518 to the legendary HD800, is like asking anyone on the street if they’ve heard of Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga or Madonna – they’ll look at you funny and ask you, “Are you crazy?” Of course you’ve heard of the HD598, it’s one of the most popular headphones on Head-Fi for a reason – people love this headphone...

Introduction Panasonic has ridiculously stupid naming schemes for their budget audio products, there’s seemingly no getting around that. When I was snooping around Head-Fi for some cheap over-ear cans that sounded good yet were comfy, the Panasonic RP-HTF600-S were highly intriguing, but I could never remember its model number for more than a week to save my life. That said, I did eventually buy them and it’s now one of my most used audio products. One that I would whole-heartedly recommend despite the stupid model name, due to its very low price...

Introduction I wouldn’t use the word hate (it’s a rather strong word) but I can definitely say that I used to have a heavy dislike for the Shure SE215. At its price, I’ve always felt it simply underperformed in terms of sound. The Audio-Technica ATH-IM70, ATH-E40, Vsonic VSD3S v2, OneMore Triple Driver, the list goes on – what all the mentioned earphones have in common is that subjectively, in my humble opinion, they all sounded leagues ahead of the underwhelming SE215. Simply put, I felt the SE215 sucked for audio enthusiasts. I thought it was...