[bigshot]

Finding the right headphones for you when it comes to sound, comfort and features is the goal. They can be expensive or cheap. Price doesn’t reflect whether they’ll work for you. You just need to define what you want in cans, and then search for a set that ticks all the boxes.

 

[castleofargh]

I recently got a Lenovo alarm clock, to replace the ancient battery powered no make one I had used for years. The Lenovo comes with google assistant, my first experience of that. The music i can get it play from YouTube is surprisingly good. I think frame of mind is important. I do not expect much from a Lenovo alarm clock, so when it plays OK music, I think great. My AKG K44 headphones, too uncomfortable to wear for long periods due to the horrible pads, are like that. My frane of mind states for cheap headphones, where I do not expect much, they sound great.

When I got a loan of the Hifiman, I was expecting a lot, and was a little disappointed. They sounded different rather than better than my K702s. They did sound better than the K44s, as it was like I was now infront of the music, rather than listening from behind a curtain that muffled the sound. But I also get that with the K702s.

I worry that with very expensive headphones, I expect lots and are likely to be left disappointed, whereas with cheaper headphones, I expect less and an often plesantly surprised. Maybe it is just me and how I am. But, I don't get the same issue with cars or motorbikes. The more expensive ones are not just different, they are better. My Jag S Type was better in every way than the Vauxhall Astra I owned. My Versys 1000GT is better in every way than my KLE500. I just don't get that with headphones.

That’s also how my brain works. I see so many people making up qualities about expensive gears, and here I am getting overly frustrated by the smallest issue because IMO, that expensive stuff should never have those fixable issues.
But give me a cheap crap with the same problem, and here I am thinking that for the price it's absolutely fine. The big price tag raises the bar of my expectations and demands.

Now there is obviously a limit to what I can or cannot accept. Missing bass and treble on a crap alarm clock playing mono, that's completely fine by me. I can and did spend hundreds of hours listening to that TBH. But give me pushy 4kHz or loud background hiss and I throw it out the window after 10mn.
Same if the sound is fatiguing(for whatever reason). When that happens I just send the gear back and forget it exists.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

I’ve been comparing headphones since 1975. I have owned many pair with my first nice pair in 1982. Gradually the sound got better. But not in a linear fashion. The Sony V6 I had in 1990 was still too treble like. Later around 1998 I purchase the MDR-CD-870, that was special as it transformed the way I understood bass. It wasn’t really bass-centric but had something? When I go back and give that a listen it seems way to rolled off now (rolled off in the treble)? Later I tried the AKG-701 and found it interesting but really not totally my cup of tea. So really that CD-870 was my favorite for about 10 years. I even took it to my first Head-Fi meet in 2009. There; at the Head-Fi meet I met someone who was selling a pair of Denon AHD7000. I tried a number of headphones but fell in love with the Denon sound. So I can say that 2009 was a big move forward in sound. In 2018 I purchased a pair of MDR-Z1R, that was another advance? I truly believe that as time progresses I find better sound? Since then I have moved more toward IEMs but again the sound has improved.

Also I agree there is many ways of sidestepping progress, but I feel there has been true advances made in the way I’m listening to music. Has the headphones always costed more? No, but my Sony CD-870 were under $200. They had issues except I didn’t know they had issues as I never heard anything better? Could I have stayed locked into 1998 headphones for my entire journey? I don’t think so?

I have owned plenty of older headphones, dating back to the 1980s and even the most high end AKG K340 electrostatic dynamic just sound different, not better, than my modern day headphones. The biggest change has been the interchangeable jack plug and lowering of ohms, so headphones can be driven by ipods and phones. On holiday I was taking some Sennheiser PX200s, which I lost (then later found) and got some Bose SoundSports at the airport, for use with my phone. Again, they are different as opposed to better, mostly because they fit so differently to my normal around ear headphones.

The only headphones I never got on with, are the noise cancelling ones I got many years ago, make and model I cannot even remember and goodness knows where they ended up. They sounded so dull, even with the volume up rather high. I was not convinced they could cope with only being driven by an ipod.

 

[bigshot]

I don't know why people buy headphones with bizarre impedances and then haul around a bunch of black boxes to make them work with their iPhone. To me, that seems like the audio equivalent of a hair shirt. Just find cans that you like that don't require amping.