For me, the best value lies around HD600 and Edition XS.
For getting close to the TOTL experience for reasonable amount of money, I like HE1000 Stealth. For $1400 brand new, I think it goes a long way.
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HiFiMan HE-400se. Excellent sound quality from a legit planar-magnetic for $100-110.
Sennheiser/Drop HD 6XX. Reference mids for $200. Seriously, there are cans with inferior mids that cost 10 times more than the HD 6XX. I also donāt know why anyone buys the HD 650 at full price, either. Theyāre the same cans as the 6XX.
7Hz Salnotes Zero. Extraordinary sound in a $20 IEM. Does it beat a quality $200 can? No. But youāre still getting audiophile-quality sound for the price of three drafts at a local microbrewery.
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Best value headphone is easy. Sennheiser HD600/650. Its still one of my all-time favs. I also listen to the HE400SE from Hifiman all the time (including right now).
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This is probably a cliche at this point, but Hifiman Arya. Itās amazing. Can you get better? Absolutely. But you will pay exponentially for anything meaningfully better.
That said, if you take the cost and average it out over years/hours of enjoyment, I think you will be hard-pressed to find anything that offers better long term satisfaction than Focal Utopia. Is it cheap? No. But if history is any indicator, it will be a LONG time before there is anything better.
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Since the beginning of Covid I owned 39 different headphones and counting.
My favorite headphone for the lowest amount of money of all of those I tried so far is easily the Sennheiser HD560s. When this goes on sale, as it often does, it is just silly goodā¦in the end a little clampy on my head but for pure sound for the $, great headphone. Sennheiser seems to really know what they are doing and bring it to the table for great value. The 560s is a little crispier in the treble than the 6xx etc, but as an old guy I do not mind thatā¦
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I am the least qualified person in this forum to suggest TOTL (Top Of The Line) performing headphones since I have never listened to TOTL performing headphones. However, in the spirit of those that have offered budget headphones that perform at a much higher level than their msrp would suggest, I am capable of offering suggestions along those lines from the headphones of my collection.
TOP TEN open back headphones tremendous for the $:
Koss KSC75
Koss Porta Pro
Fostex T50RP MK3
Monoprice AMT
Monoprice M1570
Grado Hemp
Sennheiser HD-600
Hifiman Sundara 2021
ZMF Aeolus
HiFiMan HE6se V2 (caveat: when paired with $600+ amplifier)
The closed back headphone that performs worthy of the $:
Audeze LCD-XC
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You raise a very good point. Headphone performance is highly dependent on source, DAC and amplification.
Another metric which has been suggested in this thread is relative value of the cost per hour of use. All of us have a headphone that we naturally reach out for instinctively, which may be driven by our mood or listening location. Both of these may factor in our assessment of relative value.
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Under your (Torqās) proposed premise of cost per hour of use, historically the Koss KSC75 takes first place hands down from my stable. Which calculates to almost $free per hour.
cost per hour of use Yesterday: Monoprice AMT
cost per hour of use Past week: Sennheiser HD-600
cost per hour of use Past month: ZMF Aeolus
cost per hour of use Past year: ZMF Aeolus
cost per hour of use 2022: HiFiMan HE6se V2
cost per hour of use 2021: Monoprice M1570
cost per hour of use 2 decades ago: Beyerdynamic DT-880 (2003) or Sennheiser HD-280 (original)
cost per hour of use All-time: Koss KSC75
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If I used this metric, my ābest valueā would be the cheap 1990s Sony back-of-neck headphones that I wore before I knew anything about headphones:
Scratchy treble. Ouch. At a cost of $0.001 per hour they would still not be a true value, as they made my ears ring.
The HD 600 can be awful on a bad (or incompatible) amp. All the sound goes to the treble half and the low end is very weak. IMO thatās what led to the rise of the HD 650 in popularity ā bad mainstream headphone amps or playing it from random 3.5mm consumer grade sources.
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I had a pair of these, and the frames hurt my ears so badly that I couldnāt stand it.
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Iām going to have to say for me itās between the HD6XX, the Elex (thank you headphones.com for the lower price) and the Arya Stealth. I paid $1299 for my pair, and at that price they were amazing. At the prices now, they are a no brainer.
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HD-600 is a great headphone on OTL tube amps and SS amps that offer lots of current at high 300-600 ohma.
As a side note, while I really like and own Custom Cans cables, the copper ring mod for 6** cans ruins the 600 (said to do better on the other models). How? It increased output at 3k and 6k which is the last thing they need. Depending on the foam used - they lose bass, or have too much mid bass. Together those two changes warp whats best about them which is timbre accuracy above 70 Hz. The mod is also essentially not reversible. If you want a bass cannon get some cheap closed back with excess bass, or if you want realistic bass that goes to 20 Hz, then the HE-6 SE (on at least a 4 wpc @ 50 ohm amp). The 600 is simply not capable of dynamic hard hitting bass under 70 Hz (go ahead and set the EQ to +8 at 30 Hz and see what you get - not good.
I used to have 11 headphones, now down to two - the 600 and the 6 SE (which can be PEQād and modded to near TOTL performance - except soundstage and harmonic richness in the treble) and the 600 for mid tonal purity. Next and last can will likely be either a Rall CA-1a or HEDD 2 or similar 2-2.5k can, or if the $ isnāt there - a HFM HEK Stealth - the absolute killer of everything else under $2k at the moment IMO (except bass under 50 Hz lacks rise time impact, and the stage is too big sometimes).
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I have owned the: 5LE (built 2009), HE-500 (built 2012), HE-400i (built 2016), HE-4XX (2018), HE-400 (2013), HEX v2 (2017) Ananda Stealth (2021) Ananda 1 (2018), HE-5XX (2021), HE-5 SE (2018), HE-6 SE (2018)
Thatās 11 - three of them over 10 years old, and the only physical problem is the fake leather of the HEX v2 flaked off and degraded starting in late 2022. Now Iām not crazy about the sonics of the round cup pads and all of the cables, and carelessly designed rear screens (round cups - too restrictive), but my experiences with HFM has been stellar.
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ZMF Bokeh & Auteur Classic are the best bang for the buck as far as what I own.
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HD650 and HD580 for me. Hands down the best bang for the buck off my chain(s). Thing scales like crazy.
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I never found the HD-580 to scale. Sure it sounds better with adequate power, but the $59 iFi GO-Link is enough power. Beyond that level, I donāt find much difference. Maybe the Dragonfly Cobalt.
But no real improvement beyond that. Have had mine since the 1990s and have tried it on everything from an Airhead amp to Sabaj A20d, to Bifrost 2/64 with Lyr3, FiiO K9 Pro ESS, and the L&P W4.
The HD-650:is quite a different story.
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I feel it needs the right tube amp to scale well but I think the 650 does scale a bit better.
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What do you mean by āscaleā here? In concurrence with @pennstac, my HD-58X does not scale in any way. It sounds very good for the money, but always has a coarse binary/digital character on any amp Iāve tried. Itās not meaningfully different between a cell phone and a full-sized desktop amp. The HD-600 and 650/6XX clearly scale, per changes in bass depth, treble clarity, smoothness, harmonics, sense of space, etc.
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We talking about the 58X or the 580? If you mean 58X then I agree. I had the 58X and thought they were quite grainy compared to the 660S that people compared when they both released. Ended up selling both tho because I preferred the 650.
My black screen 580 scales probably as good as the 650 but I think I prefer the 650 a little more.
Scales, meaning gets better with better gear.
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