Headphone Regrets šŸ˜Ÿ

Headphones General Headphone Discussion
101

For me personally itā€™s AirPods Max. When it comes to consumer tech (phone and laptop) Iā€™m Apple fan-boy. I knew itā€™s going to be exactly the way I predicted and yeahā€¦ Never buy AirPods Max, overpriced headset!

2 Likes
102

Very few regrets over the years

Dan Clark Ether CX, just a terrible headphone for my use case IMO, Arguably the most comfortable headphone Iā€™ve ever owned, and I really wanted to like the sound of it, but the volume levels required for them to open up made them a none starter to me, without a lot of volume they just sound very compressed.
I canā€™t really complain, I got them at a very low new price and they get a lot of hype on one site and as a result they were relatively easy to sell at a minimal loss.

ZMF Aeolus, Camphor Burl and one of the prettiest pairs Iā€™ve seen, I picked them up at the same time as a pair of Eikons, and just really could never get over the overly smooth presentation, well loved headphone, but certainly not for me. Again I canā€™t really complain I didnā€™t lose a ton on them and they arenā€™t overtly bad.

5 Likes
103

I have had a few disappointments over the years, but nothing comes close to the Audio Technica WP-900ā€™s.

The term V-shaped gets thrown around a lot and a little too loosely. However, these headphones are a Perfect example of V-shaped. ALL treble, ALL bass and good luck finding the mids. I took a financial bath on these and I had gotten a great price from Amazon. :grin:

2 Likes
104

Happy cake day @ShaneD !

1 Like
105

its not a popular opinion but i second that, i cant stand the focal ringing/sheen drives me crazy. Only one I donā€™t hear it on is the focal utopia 2022

106

I donā€™t have any serious regrets fortunately, but I am in the position now where Iā€™ve got more than I can handle, which I think is a fairly common experience. The beginning stages of trying to sell some of these off is going to be quite a challenge.

2 Likes
107

My biggest regret was selling my MySphere 3.2s. I erroneously thought that they were redundant with my Raal Requisite SR1aā€™s as they were both ā€œearspeakersā€. What I neglected to take into account was that the SR1aā€™s required expensive and heavy amplification (also from Raal).

I learned a good lesson in my audiophile quest: that there are a number of use-cases, each of which has specific requirements - and conflating them over a single device attribute is an error. The headphone use cases I have settled on are:

  • Critical Listening - Desktop [Nucleus > Bartok > Raal HSA-1b > Raal SR-1a]
  • Critical Listening - Office [MacBook > Naim Uniti Atom HE > Focal Utopia OG]
  • Critical Listening - Portable [A&K SP3000 > MySphere 3.2}
  • Critical Listening - Pocketable [iPhone > L&P W4 > 64 Audio U12T]
  • Casual Listening - Walking Around [iPhone > AirPods Pro 2 or Shokz OpenFit]
  • Casual Listening - Airplane [iPhone > Focal Bathys]

Recognizing my mistake, and that the MySphere 3.2 is one of the best headphones I have owned, I purchased another pair, and an Astell & Kern SP3000 DAP to drive them.

Figuring out the use cases helps me to better choose the appropriate gear, and not just become enamored with a new piece of kit which doesnā€™t particularly fit, and may duplicate functionality.

6 Likes