at least you guys have a top forum with cool members to sell stuff on.
my german hifi forums are no nice place to be, so I have not used them and have no trusty following
I could sell stuff regional in munich for pick up at my place - I am way to lazy. Which is the main point 
The last thing I sold this way was my 660s and the price I got was a joke, at least enough for my 6xx
What if we organize a forum.headphones.com spring cleaning/garage sale? Get a bunch of people to list their stuff at the same time and announce this in a few places ahead of time (I’m thinking Reddit, places like that).
Same here. In my case that would even be an understatement.
That’s like, instant undergrad engineering PTSD for me even just mentioning that food. Shiver
For me I guess the first cans I really liked among the first few, HTF600S, MDR-V6, and 280 Pro was the 280. Sold it long ago and I don’t really regret that at all. K371 has far surpassed pretty much all of those under 200 closed backs, although I did repurchase an older DT770 80 ohm and I’m never selling that again lol
Hard to recall the path I took. Something like this, order of purchase, no order of what got sold/swapped/replaced;
Senny Headset > Senny HD180 or something > AT AD900 > Beyer T70 > HD558 > Beyer DT250 > Beyer DT770 > HD600 > Allessandro MS Pro > Fostex TH610 > Aeon Closed > HD6XX > Focal Elegia > Sony Z1R > Verite Open
Having typed that out I can see I have forgotten a lot, definately more models in there I’m not currently recalling.
Don’t know why this thread was missed and popped up now. I thought those old Rat Shack Veritas headphones were good, but of course they weren’t.
But yes, I still do own the first three good headphones I bought. Audio Technical ATH-1, a proto planar-magnetic, as mesohippus is to the modern horse. 1972, about. Next my STAX SR-5n, and finally an early Sennheiser HD-580.
My first pair of good cans was the HD 598 - I remember spending months (literally months), researching and asking on forums what the best cans under XX$ were, I was mainly active on Tom’s Hardware (or Tom’s Guide)… unfortunately those forums got updated and I just stopped using them because of the modern look.
Well, I have already decided in my mind that HD 598’s were the sh*t and that they were the first contact with the audiophile world. One day they were on a discount, I believe I grabbed them at 150 euros.
Still have them, still love them, they are still my #1 for gaming. I still love their cable & build quality, and the “warm” sound (that became less warm after I finally could pair them up with an amp)…and their “boring” bass response.
I think many people’s introduction to the audiophile world was thanks to Sennheiser, especially in the 00’s.
I bought a pair of AKG 240’s in 1978. I thought the treble was very colored, and the bass was weak, but the mids weren’t bad, and they made great cans for checking out my cartridge/arm VTA (adjustable during play) which I used them for until the 90’s when I got a Souther straight arm. They sat for years, but I used them again around 2014, but finally put them down because of the strap disintegrating. Outside of a few Stax and other exotics there was hardly anything good generally available until 2010 or so.
First “good” headphone was Stax SRD-34, purchased in 1984 from a local stereo store going out of business for $75 IIRC. I still have to this days and they are still used regularly but I’ve modded them to use HifiMan size round ear pads since the original stick on ones didn’t last very long and were quite uncomfortable after a short period. Even with many of the other headphones that I have this one is still one of the better sounding ones to me.
The Koss SP/3 was 1958, and the SP/3X was 1960. That model was good enough for Tony Bennett and Les Brown.
The Koss Pro/4 was introduced in 1962. I had friends in freshman year in college - 1972, that had Koss Pro/4AA. That was certainly not a bad headphone.
The Sony MDR-V6 was pretty mainstream in 1985, and not a bad headphone.
Here’s a review in Stereophile from December 1994 of the Sennheiser HD-580
Yes, STAX were the first headphones that gave me the Oh Wow moment. Local stereo store that I frequented. I was looking for a decent sounding headphone, and had heard the Koss ESP-6 back in college. It sounded great, but was very heavy and had strange, uncomfortable earpads. I think they were filled with some fluid or gel.
Greg, the owner steered me to a STAX display. My budget extended only halfway up the wall, that was the SR-5N. Below it were the “baby lambdas” and the SR-3. Above it was something else and the Lambda Pros. It still gets used, although there was a time that I had issues with the SRD-6 that came with it, finally got another, then a couple of years ago I found this forum, which led to me looking up @spritzer (no longer here) and getting a modified SRM-T1S from him. Which finally led to my Hive Nectar for something to plug in the pro bias side… But I still listen to those STAX - super light and comfortable, fast as can be, still sound that can be compared to modern phones.
I agree that the 580 was a good can. The 600 is better. Never liked that Koss 4AA. No idea about the old Koss’s. Never liked closed backs either.
I think the HD-580 was earlier than the 600, which is why I mentioned it. I know Beyerdynamic was an early innovator, but never heard their older designs.
The Koss ESP-6 was freaking awesome. It made you want to keep your head in a 15 kilo vise grip, wondering if the rotating knives were going to come through that disturbing earpad. But sonically? Very very good. It would have been an Oh Wow moment before STAX for me, if the discomfort hadn’t been distracting.
Still have my DT770 80ohm I bought in maybe 2003. Just got new pads for them, but hardly ever use 'em. They were a good entry into better headphones, I esp liked the bass punch and surprisingly good soundstage for a closed model.
I’ve probably used them more for guitar rec monitoring than actual listening - they isolate great for mic placement etc. Tho, gotta say the clamp and iso has gone down some over the years. The mileage is beginning to show.
Another one of my early good pairs Denon D2000 are still with me, don’t have the heart / real need to sell them. I occasionally use them for that nice biodyna bass-slam.
My first were the Sony MDR-V6, which impressed me at a record store listening station in the 1980s. I was too young (or young-adjacent) to realize they couldn’t be used when exercising, and the sweat made quick work of them. Time marched on — Grado, Sennheiser, etc., and sweat-proof IEMs for sports. But the Sonys were nice in their time.
My first good headphones were a pair of black and red AKG K141 in the mid 90’s. In the early 2000’s I got my first Porta Pros. I don’t have the AKGs anymore, but I must be on my fourth or fifth pair of PP by now.
My first good headphone was the Sennheiser HD430
The first real headphones I ever used were my father’s Sennheiser HD414.
I have been through a ton of cheap headphones over the years, going all the way back to the eighties or early nineties and whatever headphones were included with my Sony Walkman. I have mostly been a speaker and car audio guy though. Maybe 6 years ago I bought what I thought were my first “good” headphones some Marshall Major headphones. They were okay, but the build quality was trash and when I heard my first “good” headphones I literally threw the Marshall headphones directly into the trash. The “good” headphones in question are the Audio Technica ATH-M50X. I still have them and they are in real good shape. With generous EQ, they still sound “good”, as long as I do not listen to them the same day as my Stellia or HD800S. 
On the subject of selling audio gear (and buying it), over the last two years I have been able to barter/buy/sell/trade a lot of gear that I may not have been able to audition otherwise. So while I do understand the trepidation of selling gear online, I actually enjoy and appreciate people passing on their gear that does not “do it” for them anymore. I just personally will not deal with anyone who is rude or disrespectful, I will gladly pay a little more or take a little less to deal with a better human being. Also I am not a “collector” or hoarder. I prefer to keep less stuff around that I like more, than more stuff around that I like less. So after a peak of having more than a dozen $400-$2000 headphones at once, my team is down to ATH-M50X, Sony 1000 XM3, HD800S and Stellia.
LOL, that was a brave post, as the M50x does not have a lot of support in audiophile circles. And yet people will rave about how much fun it is to listen to a V-shaped IEM, so go figure.
I will support you by saying the ATH-M50x was also the first good headphone I bought.
It was my gateway to desktop headphone listening and I wouldn’t have ended up with a Stellia and Verite if I hadn’t bought it, along with an Oppo HA-2SE DAC/amp, and thought “wow, this sounds so much better than anything I’ve had before”. I had many years of musical enjoyment until I upgraded to better headphones this year. Although I don’t use it any more, I do have an emotional attachment to it, so it is packed away in a drawer with spare headphone cables, just in case I ever need it for emergencies.