[Whitetriton]

Thank you for all the work you did Kayandjohn.  I had a blast going through your charts. 

 

[jazzman7]

This is one of the best posts on head-fi; it should get a front page mention at a minimum IMO.
 
Some small suggestions:
 
1)  Break out statistics by headphone size (full-size vs. earpad) and headphone type (open vs. sealed). Once this is done, it is clear that top-ranked headphones are all full-size open models.  Sometimes, owners want different types of headphones, so here are the rankings for some of those designations:
 
 
Full-Size Sealed Only (Name [Count] Score)
 
Fostex TH600     [11]    6.9
Fostex TH900     [13]    6.9
Sennheiser Momentum     [20]     5.7
Denon AH-D7000    [12]    5.4
Denon AH-D2000    [19]    5.4
AKG K550    [13]    5.4
MrSpeakers Mad Dog V3.2    [13]    4.9
Shure SRH840    [12]    4.5
V-MODA M-100    [10]    4.3
Audio-Technica ATH-M50    [29]    3.6
 
 
Earpad Only (Name [Count] Score)
 
Beyerdynamic DT 1350     [10]     5.2
Grado SR225i     [12]     4.8
Sennheiser HD 25-1 II     [10]     4.8
Sennheiser Amperior     [10]     4.7
Grado SR80     [13]     4
Grado SR80i     [13]     3.9
Koss KSC75     [11]     3.6
Sennheiser PX 100-II     [10]     3.4
Koss Porta Pro     [18]     2.5
 
 
Earpad Sealed Only (Name [Count] Score)
 
Beyerdynamic DT 1350     [10]     5.2
Sennheiser HD 25-1 II     [10]     4.8
Sennheiser Amperior     [10]     4.7
 
 

2)  Incorporate Price and Price/Performance statistics:  This is obviously harder as prices are always changing.  Also, the metric of performance may need to be adjusted because pure rank does not take into account pure performance (i.e. a score of 8 might mean a much higher performance than 33% greater than a score of 6).  Even so, based on current prices, there are headphones that seem to be "go-to" choices simply because of the order they appear in the list and their price.  Those are, in order of best performance:
 
Sennheiser HD 800
HiFiMAN HE-6
HiFiMAN HE-500
Philips Fidelio X1
AKG Q701
 
These were found by taking the street prices of the headphones and discarding those headphones that were lower-ranked and had a higher price than a higher-ranked headphone on the list (which removes any problem of performance scaling so long as it remains monotonic).    The list was clipped at a score of 6, as at some point ranking by price/performance has less value due to the fact that the ownership threshold is so low.    
 
Cool stuff!

 

[elvergun]

kayandjohn,
 
Wow...incredible thread. 
 
 
Thanks for the work you put into this.

 

[ruthieandjohn]

  This is one of the best posts on head-fi; it should get a front page mention at a minimum IMO.
 
Some small suggestions:
 
1)  Break out statistics by headphone size (full-size vs. earpad) and headphone type (open vs. sealed). Once this is done, it is clear that top-ranked headphones are all full-size open models.  Sometimes, owners want different types of headphones, so here are the rankings for some of those designations:
 
 
Full-Size Sealed Only (Name [Count] Score)
 
Fostex TH600     [11]    6.9
Fostex TH900     [13]    6.9
Sennheiser Momentum     [20]     5.7
Denon AH-D7000    [12]    5.4
Denon AH-D2000    [19]    5.4
AKG K550    [13]    5.4
MrSpeakers Mad Dog V3.2    [13]    4.9
Shure SRH840    [12]    4.5
V-MODA M-100    [10]    4.3
Audio-Technica ATH-M50    [29]    3.6
 
 
Earpad Only (Name [Count] Score)
 
Beyerdynamic DT 1350     [10]     5.2
Grado SR225i     [12]     4.8
Sennheiser HD 25-1 II     [10]     4.8
Sennheiser Amperior     [10]     4.7
Grado SR80     [13]     4
Grado SR80i     [13]     3.9
Koss KSC75     [11]     3.6
Sennheiser PX 100-II     [10]     3.4
Koss Porta Pro     [18]     2.5
 
 
Earpad Sealed Only (Name [Count] Score)
 
Beyerdynamic DT 1350     [10]     5.2
Sennheiser HD 25-1 II     [10]     4.8
Sennheiser Amperior     [10]     4.7
 
 

2)  Incorporate Price and Price/Performance statistics:  This is obviously harder as prices are always changing.  Also, the metric of performance may need to be adjusted because pure rank does not take into account pure performance (i.e. a score of 8 might mean a much higher performance than 33% greater than a score of 6).  Even so, based on current prices, there are headphones that seem to be "go-to" choices simply because of the order they appear in the list and their price.  Those are, in order of best performance:
 
Sennheiser HD 800
HiFiMAN HE-6
HiFiMAN HE-500
Philips Fidelio X1
AKG Q701
 
These were found by taking the street prices of the headphones and discarding those headphones that were lower-ranked and had a higher price than a higher-ranked headphone on the list (which removes any problem of performance scaling so long as it remains monotonic).    The list was clipped at a score of 6, as at some point ranking by price/performance has less value due to the fact that the ownership threshold is so low.    
 
Cool stuff!

WOW!  Thanks for taking this to the next step!  I had thought about putting together a compendium guide for the 37 headphone models I focused on, including a picture, price (both list and current on amazon.com), and type (closed/open, on/over ear or IEM).  But you actually did it for some of these.
 
Thanks for your wonderful words about "one of best posts on headfi.org!" And thanks for your analyses!!
 
I'd really like to get folks on the forum more knowledgeable than me (nearly everyone) to help me collapse the various models... out of lack of knowledge, I have separated out each model or modification that people ranking headphones have given, and since I concentrated on only those headphones that occurred 10 or more times, ignored them.  If I could post the set of "1 of a kind" models that I have and get feed back from other saying "Oh that is just the same as "X", I could combine them and have better data.
 
Let me know if you are interested, and I will post the (500+) list of headphones that were one of a kind.

 

[Lorspeaker]

Kayandjohn should get a title like Statistico Supremeus straight away...

 

[Claritas]

Kayandjohn should get a title like Statistico Supremeus straight away...

I concur. Hear, hear!

Except it doesn't take into account his humorous threads. I think my favorite is the Beats insignia mod.

 

[ruthieandjohn]

I concur. Hear, hear!

Except it doesn't take into account his humorous threads. I think my favorite is the Beats insignia mod.

Thanks, Claritas, for your comments on the Beats thread!  Since I *love* Beats, I don't feel a bit bad in satirizing them (and audiophiles responses to them)!
 
For others who wonder what we are talking about, it is this thread:  http://www.head-fi.org/t/709045/spank-those-celebrities-cans#post_10344094

 

[Claritas]

For others who wonder what we are talking about, it is this thread:  http://www.head-fi.org/t/709045/spank-those-celebrities-cans#post_10344094

This too.

 

[jazzman7]

 
WOW!  Thanks for taking this to the next step!  I had thought about putting together a compendium guide for the 37 headphone models I focused on, including a picture, price (both list and current on amazon.com), and type (closed/open, on/over ear or IEM).  But you actually did it for some of these.
 
Thanks for your wonderful words about "one of best posts on headfi.org!" And thanks for your analyses!!
 
I'd really like to get folks on the forum more knowledgeable than me (nearly everyone) to help me collapse the various models... out of lack of knowledge, I have separated out each model or modification that people ranking headphones have given, and since I concentrated on only those headphones that occurred 10 or more times, ignored them.  If I could post the set of "1 of a kind" models that I have and get feed back from other saying "Oh that is just the same as "X", I could combine them and have better data.
 
Let me know if you are interested, and I will post the (500+) list of headphones that were one of a kind.

Glad to give you kudos!  Some time back, I tried marching through the ranking thread (with software tools, of course) to try to get at this type of data, mainly because I was curious.  I ran into the problem you describe:  Merging the various descriptions and dealing with the one-of-a-kinds.  You made it much farther than me, I think. 
 
I have some suggestions, so if you want to continue, we can do so via PM.   

 

[ruthieandjohn]

  Glad to give you kudos!  Some time back, I tried marching through the ranking thread (with software tools, of course) to try to get at this type of data, mainly because I was curious.  I ran into the problem you describe:  Merging the various descriptions and dealing with the one-of-a-kinds.  You made it much farther than me, I think. 
 
I have some suggestions, so if you want to continue, we can do so via PM.   

Thanks jazzman7... sending you a pm.

 

[ruthieandjohn]

jazzman7 has been performing some analysis to extract a ranking statistic for these headphones, and in doing so, found a few values in the matrices I had neglected to copy from the data... the two matrices in the original post have been updated and an extended footnote enumerates the changes.  Thanks, jazzman7!

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Thank you, kayandjohn, really interesting work. 

 

[ruthieandjohn]

Thanks, Tyll!

And a reminder to all... I'm happy to run any custom comparison lists for the less popular headphones than what I included in the table. Just post the two headphones you want to know about on this thread. Several examples (e.g. Stax 009, NAD VISO hp 50) appear earlier in the thread. (Of course, sometimes there won't be any data because no one has both of the headphones in question,me.g., Sennheiser HD 800 AND Beats Pro!).

 

[(gregor)]

This is incredible work, and VERY informative. many thanks. Another cool application of this data is starting place recommendations for newcomers, not just amazon-like recommendations. The number of people who have owned and compared headphones like DT880 and HD600, to many other headphones certainly stands out.
 
The DT 880 seems to be at the floor of the moneybags concentration (implying the cash kings still keep it around?) while the likelihood that you have owned HD600 and any other headphones is impressively high (only 7 on the list have never been compared to HD600).
 
That doesn't necessarily mean that these two are MUST HAVE headphones, but that experiencing them probably increases literacy within the forum: a common point of comparison.

 

[PFULMTL]

amazing!