[JMT]

- Koss Pro 4AA, then they died, or I killed them.
- Nakamichi SP-7, they lived for about 15 years....then they died.
- SR-80s, then all hell broke loose....

 

[gerG]

<takes pipe out of mouth and taps it on the table>

I had a couple of different cans in the 70s, but I didn't really get hooked until the portables came out. The original Sony walkman had crappy phones (thus the trend was born). When I upgraded to an Aiwa cassette portable (HSJ02, I think) it came with better portable phones, but still lacking any bass or warmth. I took them apart to see what these new lightweight drivers were all about. The drivers were stainless steel with mylar diaphragms (typical of most of the stuff we see now). They were about the diameter of a quarter, and I quickly discovered that they would slip right into my outer ear. I resoldered the cord and wrapped the foam earpad around them such that they formed a flat teardrop shape with the cord coming out of the bottom. They sounded great, and no headband to deal with. Ultimate portability and comfort, and plenty of strange looks around campus. That was when I got hooked. Mind you, this was 1981. CD players were still in the development stage. Cassette tapes were the portable norm, and they weren't that highly evolved yet. Earbuds came along years later, but none of them could match the sound of my direct coupled drivers (the foam gave them a pretty good seal).

I do not consider those the good old days. I prefer my Etymotics to anything that I heard back then.

 

[aos]

HD580, 2 years ago. They were gathering dust for 8 months because they sounded worse than earbuds out of a receiver or their DSP-Pro. Then, in the spring, I run into HeadWize by a chance, built CMOY amp within a week and the world changed

.

 

[coolvij]

Koss KSC-35.....then 888s......then Sennheiser 495s.

Next? I dunno.....

 

[Vertigo-1]

Ahh, good old Sony 888s, at a mere age of 15. They made me realize what good sound was, back when I was a total dum-bass...

 

[kerykeion]

Quote:

Originally posted by Moonwalker Really first were some PAN-AM (after flight throw away) headphones I got as present from old friend. - thanx to him for starting this way of still-better 'phones searching! It's so fine...

Ha.. me too

I think that it was back in 1988 that I used those PAN AM headphones.

 

[tangent]

The first phones I bought as a consumer making a conscious product choice was the Koss TD-60s. I thought those were the bomb. I bought two or three pairs while I was a teenager, as they kept breaking. Then when I started listening longer here at work and the TD-60's supra-aural design and somewhat cheap build began to bug me, I bought my Senn HD-525s.

The 525s were a wonderful improvement. I thought they must be the best phones on the planet until I bought my HD-570's, but now I get impatient while listening to the 525s. They're strictly spares at this point. Sigh...The litter of our lives, it builds up...

 

[Xevion]

The first headphones I got that I really liked are my Sony MDR-V200s. In reality, they were complete crap. But I thought they sounded good, and went along thinking it for a while.

Then I got some HD500s. I loved them even more. But - I thought they were bright! Yes, the V200s made me think the HD500s were bright.

Then I demoed the HD600, and realized how crappy the 500s were. They were my first good headphones.


Thinking back, I had a pair of $30 cheapie Sony spura aural headphones, they had 1 cord going into them and IIRC they did sound better then the V200s by quite a big margin. If I could only hear them today (I traded them with a friend for crappier headphones and some money, who knows, maybe they were one of the better values of the time, or maybe they sounded like dog crap and I couldn't tell.

 

[sapphiremodena]

Well...only about a year ago, I thought that my $15 CDN bottom-of-the-line replacement Sony mdr-e818lp's were fairly good....What the hell was I thinking?!?!?!!!

Then, after stumbling upon HeadWize, thanks to the link from HeadRoom, I decided to go for some Sennheiser Mx-400's (they don't have 500's -or much of anything really- in Canada)
Unfortunately for me, they didn't fit my ears right. -The right ear fit fine and sounded pretty cool, but my left ear is a bit too small for the other bud. So I ended up sadly returning them.

I wanted something that looked good, I wear them to school afterall, and so I was in the Sony Store ready to buy some e848's, they were sold out, I came back a week later with $95CDN and got some ex70's and boy am i glad I did over the 848's.

I dunno if you can classify the ex70's as real good headphones, but they are levels above my older sony earbuds, and they never distort, which is the thing that I really hated about my other ones.

Can't wait til I can afford Ety's! [or hd580's] (It will probably be like a year away or so...hopefully)

 

[BenG]

7506 5 years ago(I thought phones sucked before that) - they made me think there was always something wrong with my speaker stuff. Then after listennig to bunch of other stereos and alot of live sound, I realized I was right.

 

[Hirsch]

Koss Pro 4AA many years ago. I had almost forgotten about those, until JMT's post in this thread reminded me. I cannot for the life of me remember what happened to them.

The next cans I bought were about 20 years later: Sennheiser 560II, which I'm still using.

 

[pigmode]

75' vintage senns with the yellow pads. I went through a bunch of those pads; they would disintergrate after a few years. Must be the air here in Volcania.

 

[rickcr42]

Back in the 70s when I was in AIT the only source of music for me was to go to an on post library where they had turntables with KOSS PRO4AA headphones.I WAS HOOKED !
Sounded way better than any system I could afford at that point in my life.I purchased a pair.
Next was the original Sony cassestte walkmans.The first to my knowledge efficient headphones,able to be driven with little power.
"Music To Go" was born and i have never looked back.The headphones probably sucked but they sounded like heaven to me back then.The real revelation came with my first pair of Grado SR-60s
The rest is history

 

[pigmode]

AIT?

 

[rickcr42]

"A"dvanced "I"ndividual "T"raining.The next step after BCT (basic combat training) that determines you MOS (military ocupational specialty),your actual job in the military.For a cook it would be cooks school,for me it was infantry school,kinda like basic gone mongo-same **** but more "hands on" weapons and blowing **** up