It happens far too often! Sometimes it’s entertaining, but mostly it’s just cringe.
Ah yes. The meltdown in Immanis thread at headfi was massive.
Unfortunately posts were deleted, pity it was fun.
Was there a new one? I remember the old one where we somehow got accused of like… having a vendetta against the designers for some reason. Maybe it’s all just because he called me fat at the last Munich high end (he was right).
2 Likes
No the og official thread. Mods deleted like 2 pages where users had hard time accepting different opinion.
@listener tried hard to explain some stuff but you can also try to shoot to the moon with a slingshot….
I love Immanis thread, people are so insecure there, fun to read.
Maybe it’s all just because he called me fat at the last Munich high end (he was right).
That’s very mature
Ahh he was joking around. I like Alexander.
And yeah it’s tough when people don’t like a thing that costs $$$$. For the people that spent a ton of money on it, it can feel like a personal attack. Add to that the fact that headphone listening experiences are deeply personal… I get it.
I’ve been there, knee deep in copium myself hahah.
1 Like
Ah, this is fun – the page where the main list is posted has a link you can use to make your own tier list with all the little icons. So here’s everything I saw among the choices which I’ve heard for more than five minutes, ranked and ordered, in many cases, based on brief impressions and hazy recollection. Reliability: nearly zero. Honesty: absolute. Subjectivity: total. If anybody cares, I can explain everything, I swear! 
I like or love almost everything I hear. I can count on the fingers of one hand headphones I’ve heard that I flat-out dislike.
A couple things not pictured which I love:
Audeze LCD-3
Hifi for All (HFA) Dahlia
Both are “easy A tier for me.”
3 Likes
Yes I’ve been there too. Buying 10k dacs and 5k headphones and always chasing the rabbit loosing ton of money. Not anymore, after learning basics of what sound is and what is important.
2 Likes
Hi all, thought I would share my own tier list. I haven’t heard most of these headphones. I’ve been out of the game for a bit:
2 Likes
Someone likes slam haha.
1 Like
Would you spend hundreds to thousands on an at best 7/10 experience in anything else? If I were just starting, and only following the shows advice, I would think I would be wasting my money on anything more expensive then 50$ and just eq it. I agree that there are many great experiences to be had in headphones. Much better then your ratings would lead one to believe. I also agree there are no perfect headphones. There never can be as different strokes for different folks. I also think the fact some of you want to cap out at a 7/10 and most things average, average. Is a great injustice to the industry. I however, believe that this entire hobby is subjective. You can argue objectiveness all ya want, its meaningless at the end of the day. What makes one person happy can vary wildly to another. Just playing devil’s advocate to say that there is always another point of view. I am curious if you rate any IEM’s above headphones? I know you are mostly an IEM guy, and to each their own.
Cars? Coffee? Cookware?
Watches? Wine?
I think there are LOTS of situations where people spend hundreds to thousands for 7/10 results and are prefectly OK with that.
2 Likes
Indeed. Veblen goods.
The entire ZMF business model is based on experience over pure performance, even though they perform well. And that’s okay.
Many, many stereo systems are made to feed the eyes and impress visitors even when not running.
Let’s not get into True Religion jeans…
2 Likes
The longer I’m in this hobby, the more it becomes apparent just how subjective the headphone hobby actually is. Whilst there is some entertainment value reading reviews, drawing correlations to one’s individual preferences is an exercise in futility. There have been numerous reviews of headphones I’ve read that waxed prophetic about their performance, only to experience disappointment when actually auditioning the same headphone.
Or, take the case of the Sennheiser HD 820. Many of the reviewers trashed it. Yet, my experience is that with a high quality DAC/AMP setup, and some gentle EQ applied, I find it to be a damn good sounding headphone, especially if you get it second hand at a reasonable cost. I think some of the reviewers just hate all closed back cans.
So, just trust your instincts and your own ears.
Probably not, tbh! Which is why I haven’t spent more than $650 on any headphone I personally own.
Maybe true for those who have only watched this video, but in our other videos, we talk quite a bit about the reasons one would want to buy a headphone that’s a bit more expensive before diving into EQ (reasons incl. how well managed the non-linearity is, how comfortable it is, how likely the response is to vary across heads, etc.). IMO the sweet spot for headphones for use with EQ is between $200-800, with all of them having their strengths and weaknesses even outside of stock frequency response.
Can’t speak for the others, but IMO the greater injustice would be if we decided to be overly-congratulatory to manufacturers and their products. I think it’s not unlikely that doing so may encourage them not to bother improving, giving them license to rest on their laurels and stop trying to improve their products. This was not fully the intent—our rankings are our rankings because that’s how we genuinely feel about the products—but I do think how we went about it this time was better than the last time they did a tier list in 2023. I’m probably biased in saying so, though 
Funny enough, before the end of this year I would’ve called myself a headphone guy, and I think when it comes down to it I still am a headphone guy over IEMs. But the Prisma Lumen is an IEM I like considerably more than basically any over-ear headphone I’ve tried. I just wish plugging my ears with IEMs wasn’t as inherently uncomfortable as it is.
3 Likes
Odd career choice…working for a seller of $5K headphones…
I think all hobbies fall heavily on the subjective / personal side of things. Nothing unique about headphones as far as that goes.
And thank God for it! Our hobbies would be unspeakably boring and unworthy of a forum such as this one if they were purely objective / impersonal.
1 Like
Doesn’t seem odd at all considering Headphones.com’s entire thing is & has been that they want their editorial team to be an honest, trustworthy source of education for the community, rather than a team of shills to hype expensive headphones they sell so they can make a quick buck.
I wasn’t hired to shill expensive headphones that I think are mid (which is what I think of most expensive headphones), I was hired to help educate the community on headphone performance, and I think I am a good fit for that role. I take it quite seriously, which is why I’m not overly-congratulatory to expensive headphones I think aren’t worth the money, regardless of what that means for Headphones.com’s bottom-line.
5 Likes
For EQing vinyl check out the miniDSP Pocket ADC. Connect to your phono pre-amp and get digital out via optical or coaxial. Then use a DAC/amp with EQ, or computer via cheap soundcard with optical in and the EQ software of your choice.
It’s a cute little device, cost 55 EUR and has sound quality far beyond anything that vinyl requires.
1 Like
Shilling is not at all what I meant.
If you don’t own anything above $600 then you’d seemingly have to borrow or take on loan a lot of stuff to actually get a feel for it. I’ve kept “ho-hum” headphones for months or years to properly evaluate them with different types of music. This involved marathon sessions, and using one set alone for several weeks on end.
I’m guessing this could be why I routinely disagree with you.
The speaker guy Steve Guttenberg has these reference headphones:
Super, thank you! I will try it! Have you tried capturing recordings digitally with it? I have a few irreplaceable LP sets I’d like to “back up” as well. Thanks again