[PrincessLeliana]

I'm just curious what people enjoy. Some nice solid wooden cups? A chrome finnish? Fancy metal engravings like on the meze Empyrean? Whats your favourite and why?

 

[Mightygrey]

Grados for the most part - I love their retro understated-ness. I think the PS500e is the sweet-spot in terms of looks.

 

[blackdragon87]

i love the design of my focal clear. very comfortable to wear as well

 

[pofofo]

Im probably the odd duck here, but I really like AKG K701 (in regular white/silver) and Stax electrostatics (in general). Never owned any of them though.

 

[Redcarmoose]

I’ve owned a bunch of headphones over the years and would guess that the material would be imperative to sound? But the magnesium alloy used with the MDR-Z7 seems to have both a sculpted look at fit? Also the mechanics of the headband and laser etched markings are simply beautiful. IMO

 

[PrincessLeliana]

Grados for the most part - I love their retro understated-ness. I think the PS500e is the sweet-spot in terms of looks.

Interesting! Hadn't met anyone that liked grados yet

 

[Poganin]

Definitely ZMF. I can just look at my Auteur without even listening to any music on it.

 

[PrincessLeliana]

Definitely ZMF. I can just look at my Auteur without even listening to any music on it.

What a wonderful design

 

[SilverEars]

I always found DCA and Meze to have superb design and craftsman skills. I can tell from the way Meze headphones look to be built from the way parts were crafted. Same for DCA.

But, I will say looks do not provide much value as I will not be displaying them around in public, or how great headphones look do people in publice really do care. A lot of what people favor in public has been brand image like Beats. In terms of practicality, I would just take my AIrPods Pro in public. A very small percentage of headphone geeks like us out there.

So, in the end it's about sound quality performance for cost of the headphone. It doesn't make much practical sense to pay for the looks.

 

[PrincessLeliana]

Oh I know looks aren't the be all and end all, id take sound over them. I just like the pretty!

 

[mantsm]

I do love how Fostex TH-900 limited series look. Hope to get my hands on one of them some day.

 

[PrincessLeliana]

Fostex are real purty uwu

 

[Chris Kaoss]

+1 for the Empyrian and Audio Technica L5000
Love the leather suit. ^^

Second place goes to the Pioneer Monitor 5, for me.

 

[The Third]

I love the hd25 aluminium for it's retro look with excellent materials, the silver aluminium cups are sturdy, elegant and almost always cold to touch.
The E-MU Teak is the best looking headphone to exist in my opinion, the beautifully textured orange wood alongside the strong and minimalistic chasis make it so.
The Fostex X00 Purpleheart is always pleasing to behold, the purple wood is magestic.
The original bluecoated Hifiman HE-400 has this mix of old and new school to it, the huge grills on the side are proof that the dual sided magnets of the planar magnetic drivers are in fact huge.
The Soundmagic HP1000 is the tankiest and industrially sculpted headphone I held.
Lastly, the Soundmagic HP100 has this grid over the mirror like reflective surface on it's cups that make it very flashy yet original.
I always wanted a Grado such as the SR80e, just for it's classy looks and praise for rock sound.

 

[SteveM324]

Any of the ZMF dynamics... beautiful custom wood cups.