[MattFH]

I think all headphones below a certain price point, including the Sennheiser HD600 (although it stretches its valid pricepoint far too much), the Beyerdynamic DT880, the cheaper Sennheisers, AKG K701 and 712 are fairly bad, each in their own ways and in general, after hearing the Hifiman Sundara... Which unfortunately has a certain "glassiness" to it that holds it back. And I've always been dissatisfied with the aforementioned. And I've grown tired of their signatures, so I don't have a particular fondness to be lenient (which I might even be with a few select others, like the Fostex T50RP). At best, they are all workhorses...

 

[Chidi]

The first gen Beats Solo nearly a decade ago. Might be the worst thing I’ve ever spent money on, period.

 

[penmarker]

I think all headphones below a certain price point, including the Sennheiser HD600 (although it stretches its valid pricepoint far too much), the Beyerdynamic DT880, the cheaper Sennheisers, AKG K701 and 712 are fairly bad, each in their own ways and in general, after hearing the Hifiman Sundara... Which unfortunately has a certain "glassiness" to it that holds it back. And I've always been dissatisfied with the aforementioned. And I've grown tired of their signatures, so I don't have a particular fondness to be lenient (which I might even be with a few select others, like the Fostex T50RP). At best, they are all workhorses...

No idea What you meant by glassiness but I feel you and I agree with that raw feeling that word brings to me about the Sundaras.

 

[Logistics]

This thread seems full of mostly asinine opinions. While there are a few people who mention the rig used in combination with a given pair of headphones, most seem to throw an opinion out there without listing the rig. Perhaps, there are more people out there who don't realize the influence your source and amplification have on the sound of a given pair of cans? Plus, a person's own hearing dictates what sounds best to them, which doesn't yield a qualified result for others.

Sometimes, you accidentally, stumble upon a combination that works. When I first bought a pair of Skullcandy Ink'd Smoking Buds for $9 at TJMax, they were the best thing ever, and i couldn't understand all the trash talk. But i was running them directly off my Soundblaster Live! which I had also replaced the decoupling caps on (10uF lytics) with 0.1uF films. This resulted in a lack of bottom end on regular headphones, but the Skullcandy's were known for being overly bass-heavy so it ended up evening out. Switch forward to today, and I tried those same skullcandy's on my Schiit rig recently, and they are pretty unlistenable due to so much bass.

Seems like a lot of people spend inordinate amounts of money on quip thinking it will cover all woes, but it doesn't! You still have to experiment with hardware combos.

 

[Mink]

I think nowadays it is impossible to hear a truly horrible worst pair of headphones. 8 bucks can get your a pair of Sony earbuds that sound really great. I even found my cheap 1st or 2nd gen (?) Apple earpods (came with my iPhone SE) to sound acceptable. In the last decade or so I never came upon a pair that sounded truly unacceptably shrill, shouty, tinny, without any hint of natural instrumental timbre.
Only the first pair of headphones I got as a kid in the 80s were really horrible. Extemely light, completely made out of cheap plastic, without any dampening. They had volume sliders on both ear cups and the earpads were made of a very hard and rough plasticky material. And even then, as a kid, whose taste and feel for quality hadn't developed yet, I was already aware I was listening to crap.

 

[silversurfer616]

Not worst but always disappointing is my relationship with Grado headphones. Apart from the cheap models, they are in no way worth the money.

 

[Bansaku]

Not worst but always disappointing is my relationship with Grado headphones. Apart from the cheap models, they are in no way worth the money.

I second this. All of the high-end Grado I have heard have all been attached to high-end equipment, and to my ears they are "meh". I must say though, something magical happens when the source is vinyl. The tonality of the medium couple with the ' Grado ' sound have pretty good synergy. IMO, this kind of makes sense given the time period Grado busted into the market. Plus, the lower end models are really really fun to mod!

 

[elvergun]

One of the worst, because they had NO bass, were the Sony Eggos.



I modded mine so many times (trying to squeeze more bass out of them) that I ended up destroying them.

 

[Deolum]

Oh i like this thread. Never saw this before. The by far worst headphone i've heard was the AKG K872. It was the only headphone i've ever heard which sounded completely dark on the one hand and had an unpleasant treble in the other hand. Generally after being such a fan of the Akg 700 series i was really disapponited by the Akg 800 series. The 812 was meh imo but the 872 was just on another level.

 

[jirams]

Bowers and Wilkins P3. bought in 2013 169 GBP from Amazon.
Hellish bass overhang and physically uncomfortable.
After several attempts at modding I actually put on eye protection and battered them to death with a lump hammer!

 

[Roderick]

I've had a lot of bad and disappointing headphones but I'm fine with cheap stuff being bad. Different thing is when expensive headphones are bad. Biggest disappointments starting from the worst. Sorry for people who enjoy these, we all hear differently. I included original msrp's. With actual street prices value factors would change.

1. Flare Audio Reference R1 $777
- Sound was mostly about midrange only, horrible reverbant ringing midrange. Very tight clamp, hard thin earpads, non-detachable cables. Better headphones can be had for $20.

2. Aedle VK-X $649
- Thin and metallic sounding. No better than a decent $50 bluetooth headphones. Some usability issues, not great comfort, technical problems. I opened the headphones and they had made no attempts to deal with acoustic issues with all the electronics inside. For 1/10 of the price these could have been cool because of the nice materials and unique looks.

3. Bowers&Wilkins P9 $899/€899
- I don't think this was downright horrible but not competitive at all with other much cheaper stuff. Bass was bloated and mids horribly recessed. I'm fine with bassy headphones but I think P9 did poorly on controlling resonances within the cups. I like JVC dx1000 so I have no problems with the housing not being perfectly dampened. B&W just did not do it well IMO. Someone described P9 sounding like loud loose farts underwater and to a degree I agree. For a $899 headphone thats not good at all. Build felt like a downgrade from P7, a lot of plastic and dyed leather parts can't keep their color.

4. Beyerdynamic T5p (gen 1) $1295
Treble mess. I know beyer house sound is not for everyone but I think T5p is particularly bad. It would have been different if the treble was even remotely clean which it's not. For original price this headphone was just plain bad. I quite enjoyed original T1's though. T5p's just is not nowhere as good closed headphone as T1 is in the open category.

5. Ultrasone Signature Pro $1299
Not a particularly bad headphone but did not excell at anything. Besides fancy glass on the cups the material and design did not match the price tag. Could have passed for a $300 headphone both sound and looks.

6. Sennheiser HD700 $999
Has same problems as HD800, introduces some of it's own issues and does not really have
whats good on hd800 or hd650. If it were $500 on it's initial release it would have been passable as a brighter more spacious sounding alternative for hd600/hd650. For $999 it's a joke.

Edit: hah! Just realized how anti-european my list is. 3 headphones from Germany, two from UK and one french.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

I like Ipod earbuds, but I like earbuds in general.

Worst headphone ever heard for me is the Grado SR325i.

When I first saw this thread, the first thing that came to my mind was the Grados. I read great reviews about these headphones and so I was very interested in auditioning them. When I put them on my head, the searing treble was so intolerable that I couldn't listen to them for more than 5 minutes. This was the Grado rs2e model too. At that point I realized that not everyone hears music in the same way.

 

[Dubstep Girl]

grado rs2 (dont like these, too shrill and bright, but i love rs1)

grado ps1000 (defective pair, i heard a good pair that was absolutely phenomenal)

 

[elvergun]

When I first saw this thread, the first thing that came to my mind was the Grados. I read great reviews about these headphones and so I was very interested in auditioning them. When I put them on my head, the searing treble was so intolerable that I couldn't listen to them for more than 5 minutes. This was the Grado rs2e model too. At that point I realized that not everyone hears music in the same way.

This is so true. I own an RS2e and could listen to it all day long.

 

[Wiljen]

For in-ear mogco M10 - mud, mud, and more mud.
for Over-ears - probably the old Realistic Nova 20 - Sounded like you put a boombox at the bottom of a well and stood at the top to listen.