Mr. Ando ate them every day and lived to be 96!
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The first headphone I owned that I believed was good was the Sony MDR-V6 purchased in 1986 or 1987. I used them in college while doing a lot of engineering homework. In retrospect they weren’t very good (I certainly no longer like the V6 or 7506). I still have them. I consider them so bad that I won’t sell them. Plus age has deteriorated the foam on the baffle around the drivers so they’re pretty much done for.
The first headphone I owned that are good are the HD580 purchased in 2000 from HeadRoom. It was purchased when Sennheiser was doing a package deal with the HD580 and the DSP Pro amp. I still have that HD580 and the DSP Pro. I used the HD580 with a Pioneer A-9 integrated amp. Which in retrospect was not as good as I thought it was at the time.
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Many years ago, I put on the Sony MDR V6 at a record store listening station, thought they were hot stuff, and bought a pair. Uninformed fairly young person that I was, I wore them while rowing, ruined them with sweat, and only then learned about sweat-resistant earbuds and so on. Sadder but wiser.
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(nice idea for a thread!)
My first really satisfying headphones were the Fidelio X2s. Thy wiped the floor w/stuff I tried earlier. Liked the X2s so much that it propelled me into my 1st good amp acquisition (Lake People G109-A). The first time I plugged the X2s into that…huge smile (“so this is how headphones can sound”). I still have them both & use periodically, with each other & other gear. Have upgraded in many ways since then, but that was the start of it for me…
And my 2 cents on the humble Porta Pro: hell, yes, those count! After years of using cheap over-ear headphones for my daily runs/walks, the 1st time I heard the Porta Pro was a paradigm shift in mobile audio (“so this is how mobile audio can sound”).
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Still have my first step to the world of proper headphones. Have not had them that long, but trusty ATH-AD500x still do the daily work, may need new pads soon though.
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6XX were my first good headphones, everything else up until that point that I owned were not at the same level. I still have my 6XX, and have thought about selling them multiple times but every time I do, I need only listen to them and be reminded of why I fell in love with this hobby in the first place.
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Yeah, don’t sell you’ll only regret it. 
. I did this with my HD650’s and more or less immediately regretted it and bought another set within a month. 
. Lesson learned. 
.
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I’m considering re-buying a set of cans that I sold about 4 months ago. But I’ve bought and sold about a dozen sets in the past year, so 1 of 12nis pretty good I guess.
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Haha, yeah. The buying and selling goes with the territory I suppose. It’s just I can be a little impulsive sometimes and have made mistakes before. Best of luck.
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I still have my first good set. It is the AKG K240 (mid-ninties). I had run through quite a few pad replacements on it before I realized there was a big world of quality headphones all around which I new nothing about. Now the poor things site in a cabinet collecting dust.
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This is soooo well timed. I’ve still got my first set, some Grado 325’s, that have stayed with me for some 25ish years. I almost never listen to them, don’t really like them - they just sit there serving as conduit to some rather nice memories. I’ve probably gone through another 30 different sets - I limit my collection to 12 pairs - and this evening I have been thinking about finally giving them away to make room for a new addition.
After reading this thread I think I’ll keep 'em.
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The “thing” that got me into this hobby in the first place was my father’s Stax ear speakers. That was in the late 70’s and yes he still has them and uses them on occasion despite hearing loss issues. The first cans I puchased myself were Akai affairs that looked like flying saucers and sounded like flying saucers. I was forbiden to touch Dad’s beloved Pioneer SX-1250 monster so at 14 I was stuck with a poorly performing 16wpc Sanyo receiver in my room and saw no logic in wasting money on decent phones like Grado SR60 if they were to be driven by a brick. I gotg the sr60 when I fninally mowed enough lawns to pay for a Pioneer SX-650 a study, beautiful 30lbs silverface receiver with plenty of swing to drive just about any headphone thrown at it. The 1010 and the 50 series that followed were Pioneer’s finest hour, even Mac techs were impressed at how well designed the larger ones were, with their modular, clean built. They were heavy though.
I have no idea where the Akai can ended up an I don’t care. Still have most of the others in my collection. It took decades before I finally stumbled upon my first “Ooh!” can, the Hifiman 400i, then followed the “Ahh!”'s HE650 and “Wow!” Sundaras. Audeze had too many comfort issue to elicit such enthused noises. All my Focals just leave me speechless. What this proves is that it can take a very long time before one finally meets his match but the wait can be worth it. The excitement over new cans is still the driving force behind the collection/audiophile hobby. The Holy Cans are those that make you want to revisit all your music collection
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I am really glad I got most of the gear I wanted before this crisis started, any buying for me right now is out of the question without selling. I couldn’t sell the 6XX they have a special place in my heart.
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Well said my friend. Stay well and stay safe, that goes for everyone.
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still own my Beyerdynamic DT 770 80 Ohm. - I don´t sell hf, DACs or Amps.
My first contact with the model was in 1997, while I worked as a camera assistent and had to monitor the recording microphones. I was blown away by the clarity/details and the big sound/staging. Really thought this is super pro equipment, back then.
I did connect it to the RME ADI 2 last week just for fun. Played around with EQ and enjoyed it the last days for some Netflix and movies.
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Before I was injured I was a heavy machinery operator/18-wheeler driver and after being put on disability for life (I have to take medication that could impair my ability or so they say) quite often I missed my job because for one it paid a lot of money due to overtime. For example during winter pushing/blowing snow sitting in a monstrous 600hp loader it was the kind of work that allows a man to sit comfortably in an executive-style seat wearing jeans and t-shirt and spending the hours driving the vehicle while thinking about life and philosophy and listening to soft jazz on the cab’s audio system (they all have one now) and bring home $2000 at the end of a triple shift. On the job I felt safe in the knowledge that the fierce weather outside can’t touch him,that the loaders sheer weight made it impossible to bog it down and that apart from those damn half-dozen dizzying yellow beacons flashing on top of the cab he has 4,000 watts of lights up front to alert him to any obstacle (I did eat a car once though but it wan’t my fault. There was nobody in the car that some idiot had left parked in the middle of a giant shopping mall’s parking lot during a blizzard, I hit him at about 4 am) this man, I was saying. was a happy camper. He was especially happy when police cruisers were forced to back up when coming face-to-face with me on small roads or alleys when there was no room for them to turn around. While I was idling inching at them always facing forward in my revolving cab until they got hopelessly mired. At that point one of the cops would come to my cab with an embarrassed demeanor " please sir, if your tractor is strong enough could you pull us out back on the road… could you please"?
If my tractor was strong enough. Surely they were kidding. Come on now, it had 350HP engine and was about the size of three police cruisers and six times the weight… 
most surreal stuff came out of them. But even more surreal were the rewards: six-packs of fresh donuts from Dunkin’, gallons of coffee, candy bars, subs, pops, orange juice… One even handed me $40 once saying it was cheaper and faster than a tow. Perhaps he should have been taking a closer look at what I was doing down there exactly. Once the chain got messed up with the flex pipe and as I was lazy that night I didn’t bother to use the winch. Recipe for disaster: I hoped into the cab and threw the stick backwards all the way down not even bothering to check which gear(s) I had engaged. Turned out to have been Low 2, one of the strongest gears aboard. The machine literally leaped backwards, pulling the whole exhaust system from underneath the police car. Uh-oh. But they were like "sh1t happens, and you’re obviously exhausted, just go fimish your round and head to bed. Head to bed? The guy must’ve been a joker: it was snowing so hard that even with all lights on I could barely see 50 feet ahead, and those are powerful lights!
Well today I don’t miss my old job because I can potate on the couch listening to Ode To Joy with my very rarely used Utopias enjoying every tiny detail except for deep bass (Oh Elear My Dear Where Art Thou Come Steal My Mids So We Can Play Tonight).
As for the potating I am 5’11" and weigh 155 lbs so I can potate if I feel like it. 
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Me neither. Collectors have an inherent personality flaw; they grow attached to material possessions.
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I simply hate selling stuff on ebay with so many idiots out there.
So I prefer giving my stuff away for free to family and friends.
Problem is, no one in my inner circle is into headphone audio the way I am.
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I know these feels, I currently have a couple of items I should sell…but I truly hate selling things online…so they end up just sitting in my audio cabinet all boxed up. I guess this week I’ll work on creating a for sale post for some of my audio gear… =(
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I hate selling things, especially online. I end up giving stuff away.
Interestingly, I give my unused audio gear to my best friend who’s a doctor. And I’m the ‘poor’ one. 
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