[afton]

I'm curious, do you guys try the headphones before
you buy them, or you just buy them based on
recommendations/reviews?

 

[unclejr]

trusting YOUR ears is the only way, but some aren't so fortunate to have dealers nearby for stuff they wanna try. Enter reviews.

 

[robm321]

Most of the time. The GS-1000 I bought without hearing and still have them.

 

[Fing]

Bought my L3000's without hearing. No regrets yet

Edit: Actually I can't remember 'testing' a pair of headphones yet. Bought them all based on the stuff on this website. Weird.

 

[Duggeh]

Bought all my headphones blind.

 

[rhythmicmoose]

Nah, I let everyone else do all the work.

Seriously, though, there aren't many good places to try out headphones, but the reviews here can be extraordinarily helpful, especially when people compare stuff to gear you already have.

 

[nibiyabi]

Meets are probably the best way for most of us to try anything beyond decent.

EDIT: I guess I should say that I made all of my purchases blind save for the hand-me-downs (K701, RS-1, and the since-departed Micro Stack) from my friend who introduced me to Head-Fi.

 

[Rav]

Auditioned my SR-80's in a high street retailer, HF1s and RS1s were blind.

 

[M0T0XGUY]

Everything was blind; though I can't say I disagree much with how Head-Fi reviews of most of my gear.

 

[krmathis]

Mostly buy blind.
Of those I own the SR-007 are the only one I listened to before I bought.

 

[OakIris]

I have purchased all of my headphones based on reviews from folks here. It would be so much better to be able to hear them before buying them, but there are no retailers in my area that sell decent headphones, so I have had no choice.

As nibiyabi posted, head-fi meets are a great way of getting to check out different amps and headphones - (some of which you may never be able to afford like, at least for me, the R-10s that were at the recent Colorado meet.)

Holly

 

[bunbut]

Bought both phones and amps just from reading here.
I usually buy them used, and sell them if don't like

 

[Mrvile]

Even though I should, I don't. I just buy whatever looks nice. If I don't like the sound, I can easily resell it without losing much money.

 

[Gladcow]

Yea i bought my k701 blind. after endless hours of reading reviews and opinions though, like motoxguy, i feel i got what i was looking for based off of them.

 

[upangel180]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duggeh /img/forum/go_quote.gif Bought all my headphones blind.

That's how you would need to!

I bet you build them that way too!

Anyhow, I bought all of mine blind as well. Not a lot of places to check out cans that don't frequest the racks at the local BB or CC.