OnlySoMany
Headphoneus Supremus
First, let me start by saying I am not a headphone reviewer. No one has paid me to write any of this, nor would I have done so even if someone was willing to pay me for a story. As you read this, you will probably understand why. I lack the extreme levels of detail, clarity, and use of the English language that reviewers use to suck you into the story and lose you for hours. This is a real story about my meeting Zach and Bevin from ZMF Headphones, and why I have chosen to say that they are the best headphone company in the world, at least to me.
First, a bit of backstory.
I was never really a headphone guy or an audio guy at all. When I try to think back, I believe my very first set of “high-end” headphones was a set of Sennheiser 500-somethings, bought from Microcenter for around $150. To me, this was the best that I had ever heard. I could run it off of a phone, off my computer, and also plug it into my gamepad for playing online. Up until then I never even had a set of headphones except for some random no-name garbage that was a set of small pads on a small wire headband.
To be honest, I don’t remember when I first started pursuing high-end gear. I bought a pair of HD700 and was comparing them to a set of HD800 via reviews online. I bought the 700 instead at the time because they “looked cooler,” and the review process for the next step led me to headfi.
At the time, I was way into building computers and was not looking for another forum to eat up all of my spare time. I was what most would call, a lurker. I would stay up late at night and look at sets of headphones that were absolutely out of reach, many of them well over a thousand, or many thousands of dollars, like “How can they afford to buy those?” Also, I was pursuing a floorstanding setup, and was convinced that would give me what I was looking for. I never thought that a set of headphones would ever be capable of replicating that sense of presence, space, and personality from my music.
I’ll spare you the many steps in between. I have had many pieces of gear that are not listed in my signature. Pretty much every piece of kit that Naim sells, with the exception of the Statement series. Same for Chord. As I moved through my journey, I kept doing research into what worked best for what I wanted to hear, kept some, sold others, and moved on.
Where it all started, my first piece of real hifi!
And the second...
and moving up in the world!
Back to headfi for a moment. On my visits to the site, I kept coming across this name called ZMF, and seeing these amazing sets of wooden headphones with a loyal following. Then this guy named Zach kept chiming in, responding to people in threads with details, and information, always willing to help. Kinda neat. Didn’t realize he was the owner until many years later, but that’s another story.
At this point, you are probably bored with this. I get it, we all do the same thing. We start somewhere, buy stuff, sell stuff, and try to get to our individual “endgame” setup. Why should you care, and what does this have to do with ZMF? I’m getting there.
Let’s skip ahead a few years. By this point, I’m starting to understand my own musical preferences, have spent a fair amount on gear, and have acquired a reasonable number of headphones (at this time, less than 10). To say there were no nights I looked at ZEO's videos and his “wall of headphones” with envy would be a lie. I wanted to own as many cool sets as possible and looked forward to the day that I could walk up to a wall of headphones and “choose my own adventure” in the audio world and the songs I loved.
Picture of the wall as it is today.
At this time I had not ever owned a set of ZMF headphones. I saw a LTD post come up on Headfi, saw a few of the sets, and one, in particular, made me do a double take. It was a set of African Blackwood Verite Open, with a steel grille and rods. The grille was bright, and the wood was deep and full of character.
Now I am a minimalist, but also an artist by trade. This was the first set of headphones I had ever seen that made me stare at my computer screen. When I looked at them, I started to imagine what it would be like to own a set of cans that nice, and to have them as part of my (admittingly small and inexpensive) collection. It had it all, style and class, wit and sass. I had to have them. The then asking price was steep for me, at about $2600 iirc, and this was the most expensive set I had bought to date, but it didn't matter. I had to have them. I’d figure out how to rationalize it to myself later.
The weeks went by, with me waiting to get the email that my set had shipped. It was painful. But finally, when I had almost forgotten about them, the email arrived. My set was on the way!
Again, I’m getting there. Just hold on.
A few days later, the set arrives in a smartly packed cardboard box. I opened it up, and there was my set, made for me, in a wooden box lined with velvet. OMG the thrills. Ang my god the fit and finish!! I went to listen to them, and it was everything I wanted. Space, clarity, bass, and just …music! Happy customer.
This was one of the sets that I used to listen to when my father would come over to my house. He was always excited to see what I had acquired since the last time we saw each other, and was always impressed with my audio gear as we grew up fairly poor without much money to go around, especially for stuff like an audiophile habit. I’ll spare you the details, but we were broke.
My father and I were extremely close for most of my childhood. I still remember his set of Kenwoods blaring away records off his Technics record player and Pioneer amp. Almost always rock, blues, or 80s. Life changed, I grew older, moved over an hour away, and the business demanded half of my time. It was around that time that I also started a family, which took the other half.
During this time, he had fallen on hard times and health. He would still come over, but not as much. I could tell that his health was starting to fail, but we didn't talk about it a lot. He just wasn’t that type of guy. During these visits, I would always take him into my listening room, where I would show him the latest gear that I had, and play songs that he liked. I would always put on some Zepplin, Van Halen, or the like. Since he was never in a position to afford such gear, I could see in his face and by what he said that it was impressive, and he was NOT an easy man to impress. I still remember the first time I put it on my last setup, all he said was “Wow”, and this was using that same of Verite I mentioned earlier, just on better kit as it had been many years.
An earlier version he really liked...
and later on, one of his favorite setups I had. Also, the Blues Brothers was a movie that him and I used to watch together all the time, as my father loved rock and blues music.
About 1 year later, I was working in my office and got a call from a local number. It was the police. At first thought, I quickly thought back through to see if there was anything I had done wrong recently or any parking tickets I forgot to pay. But then they told me that they were at my father's house. They said that a neighbor had called the police after not seeing him for a few days. After the police entered the home, they found my father passed away in his front room. I was devastated. It almost wasn't real.
If anyone has ever dealt with losing a parent, especially one that you were very close to, then you know. I won't go into details, but to this day, it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to deal with. And still is on some days.
Skipping ahead. He left the responsibility to me to figure out the house, and all of its issues, and there were a lot. He lived in a neighborhood that was a bit rough, to say the least. During the time that I had not been up to his house/neighborhood, he had become a hoarder. The sheer amount of stuff that was there cannot be described. It was stuff on top of stuff on top of stuff. And then stuff on top of that. Then when I was not around, some neighborhood punks broke into his house and absolutely wrecked the place. It was a very difficult time for me indeed. Here is an idea of how bad they had trashed it.
Bit of backstory. My father was an artistic person. Not in the same way as painting, but he was extremely handy and creative. He would build cars, engines, sheet metal, wood, pretty much anything. He could also fix anything. Due to this habit, it was one of the reasons the house was such a disaster. He never threw anything away as his thought was, “I can use that someday” or “That looks interesting, I’ll keep it just because.”
After digging through the mess that was a cluttered life, I came across a piece of wood that my father had been saving. It was a bit of an odd shape and had some interesting lines about it. It reminded me of an old conversation that my father and I had about something that he had wanted to build. He mentioned he had this neat piece of wood he found and said that it would be great to make something out of it. A table, a carving, and that he was going to get to it one day. As it turns out, that day never came.
First, a bit of backstory.
I was never really a headphone guy or an audio guy at all. When I try to think back, I believe my very first set of “high-end” headphones was a set of Sennheiser 500-somethings, bought from Microcenter for around $150. To me, this was the best that I had ever heard. I could run it off of a phone, off my computer, and also plug it into my gamepad for playing online. Up until then I never even had a set of headphones except for some random no-name garbage that was a set of small pads on a small wire headband.
To be honest, I don’t remember when I first started pursuing high-end gear. I bought a pair of HD700 and was comparing them to a set of HD800 via reviews online. I bought the 700 instead at the time because they “looked cooler,” and the review process for the next step led me to headfi.
At the time, I was way into building computers and was not looking for another forum to eat up all of my spare time. I was what most would call, a lurker. I would stay up late at night and look at sets of headphones that were absolutely out of reach, many of them well over a thousand, or many thousands of dollars, like “How can they afford to buy those?” Also, I was pursuing a floorstanding setup, and was convinced that would give me what I was looking for. I never thought that a set of headphones would ever be capable of replicating that sense of presence, space, and personality from my music.
I’ll spare you the many steps in between. I have had many pieces of gear that are not listed in my signature. Pretty much every piece of kit that Naim sells, with the exception of the Statement series. Same for Chord. As I moved through my journey, I kept doing research into what worked best for what I wanted to hear, kept some, sold others, and moved on.
Where it all started, my first piece of real hifi!
And the second...
and moving up in the world!
Back to headfi for a moment. On my visits to the site, I kept coming across this name called ZMF, and seeing these amazing sets of wooden headphones with a loyal following. Then this guy named Zach kept chiming in, responding to people in threads with details, and information, always willing to help. Kinda neat. Didn’t realize he was the owner until many years later, but that’s another story.
At this point, you are probably bored with this. I get it, we all do the same thing. We start somewhere, buy stuff, sell stuff, and try to get to our individual “endgame” setup. Why should you care, and what does this have to do with ZMF? I’m getting there.
Let’s skip ahead a few years. By this point, I’m starting to understand my own musical preferences, have spent a fair amount on gear, and have acquired a reasonable number of headphones (at this time, less than 10). To say there were no nights I looked at ZEO's videos and his “wall of headphones” with envy would be a lie. I wanted to own as many cool sets as possible and looked forward to the day that I could walk up to a wall of headphones and “choose my own adventure” in the audio world and the songs I loved.
Picture of the wall as it is today.
At this time I had not ever owned a set of ZMF headphones. I saw a LTD post come up on Headfi, saw a few of the sets, and one, in particular, made me do a double take. It was a set of African Blackwood Verite Open, with a steel grille and rods. The grille was bright, and the wood was deep and full of character.
Now I am a minimalist, but also an artist by trade. This was the first set of headphones I had ever seen that made me stare at my computer screen. When I looked at them, I started to imagine what it would be like to own a set of cans that nice, and to have them as part of my (admittingly small and inexpensive) collection. It had it all, style and class, wit and sass. I had to have them. The then asking price was steep for me, at about $2600 iirc, and this was the most expensive set I had bought to date, but it didn't matter. I had to have them. I’d figure out how to rationalize it to myself later.
The weeks went by, with me waiting to get the email that my set had shipped. It was painful. But finally, when I had almost forgotten about them, the email arrived. My set was on the way!
Again, I’m getting there. Just hold on.
A few days later, the set arrives in a smartly packed cardboard box. I opened it up, and there was my set, made for me, in a wooden box lined with velvet. OMG the thrills. Ang my god the fit and finish!! I went to listen to them, and it was everything I wanted. Space, clarity, bass, and just …music! Happy customer.
This was one of the sets that I used to listen to when my father would come over to my house. He was always excited to see what I had acquired since the last time we saw each other, and was always impressed with my audio gear as we grew up fairly poor without much money to go around, especially for stuff like an audiophile habit. I’ll spare you the details, but we were broke.
My father and I were extremely close for most of my childhood. I still remember his set of Kenwoods blaring away records off his Technics record player and Pioneer amp. Almost always rock, blues, or 80s. Life changed, I grew older, moved over an hour away, and the business demanded half of my time. It was around that time that I also started a family, which took the other half.
During this time, he had fallen on hard times and health. He would still come over, but not as much. I could tell that his health was starting to fail, but we didn't talk about it a lot. He just wasn’t that type of guy. During these visits, I would always take him into my listening room, where I would show him the latest gear that I had, and play songs that he liked. I would always put on some Zepplin, Van Halen, or the like. Since he was never in a position to afford such gear, I could see in his face and by what he said that it was impressive, and he was NOT an easy man to impress. I still remember the first time I put it on my last setup, all he said was “Wow”, and this was using that same of Verite I mentioned earlier, just on better kit as it had been many years.
An earlier version he really liked...
and later on, one of his favorite setups I had. Also, the Blues Brothers was a movie that him and I used to watch together all the time, as my father loved rock and blues music.
About 1 year later, I was working in my office and got a call from a local number. It was the police. At first thought, I quickly thought back through to see if there was anything I had done wrong recently or any parking tickets I forgot to pay. But then they told me that they were at my father's house. They said that a neighbor had called the police after not seeing him for a few days. After the police entered the home, they found my father passed away in his front room. I was devastated. It almost wasn't real.
If anyone has ever dealt with losing a parent, especially one that you were very close to, then you know. I won't go into details, but to this day, it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to deal with. And still is on some days.
Skipping ahead. He left the responsibility to me to figure out the house, and all of its issues, and there were a lot. He lived in a neighborhood that was a bit rough, to say the least. During the time that I had not been up to his house/neighborhood, he had become a hoarder. The sheer amount of stuff that was there cannot be described. It was stuff on top of stuff on top of stuff. And then stuff on top of that. Then when I was not around, some neighborhood punks broke into his house and absolutely wrecked the place. It was a very difficult time for me indeed. Here is an idea of how bad they had trashed it.
Bit of backstory. My father was an artistic person. Not in the same way as painting, but he was extremely handy and creative. He would build cars, engines, sheet metal, wood, pretty much anything. He could also fix anything. Due to this habit, it was one of the reasons the house was such a disaster. He never threw anything away as his thought was, “I can use that someday” or “That looks interesting, I’ll keep it just because.”
After digging through the mess that was a cluttered life, I came across a piece of wood that my father had been saving. It was a bit of an odd shape and had some interesting lines about it. It reminded me of an old conversation that my father and I had about something that he had wanted to build. He mentioned he had this neat piece of wood he found and said that it would be great to make something out of it. A table, a carving, and that he was going to get to it one day. As it turns out, that day never came.
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