Typically review units are allowed to be kept for a decent amount of time. That doesn’t mean that amount of time is necessary to come to a conclusion, but marathon sessions are possible with loaners.
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Still, a professional audio reviewer might want a representative reference library…
Credibility.
It is quite clear you’re a high-integrity guy.
The moment in the video when you said that the HD820 is fine above 600Hz sealed it! 
In all seriousness, I think that assessment is spot-on. Like there’s definitely something wrong with its bass and lower mids, but if you can somehow look past that, it’s a winner. Perfect for harpsichord music.
You’re not really saying that buying expensive stuff you don’t like all that much and hanging it on the wall is necessary to credibility, I hope.
Nope. But nothing beats a rapid back-to-back comparison. Way better than working form memory.
The extended periods of testing you’re talking about would almost certainly bias me to being overly-generous towards a headphone due to how our brain adapts to sound profiles as we become familiar with them (and if we’re talking months-years, would also change the acoustic behavior of the headphone due to eg. pad wear, headband wear). This is the exact kind of thing I think a reviewer should avoid to be maximally useful to the audience who may be spending money based on their conclusions.
In the short term I’m usually trying to limit how long I listen to a headphone without taking a break (similarly to how I try not to mix music for too long without also taking a break), because the new perspective that fresh ears provides after taking a break almost always helps me approach the sound of the headphone more objectively. The first minute or few tracks of headphone testing are always when the issues jump out the most clearly because we’ve had minimal time to adapt.
In the long term, if it’s a loaner and whoever’s loaning is cool leaving them here, my usage is still rather transient, and I find this to be a good thing. I have many headphones here, I’ll usually rotate choices; the only time I’m doing anything close to “marathoning” is when I’m writing a review of a headphone and listening to it rather constantly, but even then, I stop fairly often to do comparisons to other things.
I find my approach leads to consistent results. I finish a review of headphone A and stop listening to it to start reviewing headphone B, and months later will pick up the headphone A and still feel the same way about the headphone as I did when I reviewed it. I doubt that would be the case if I “marathon” listened when writing the review, got used to it enough to feel more positive about it, published the review, ignored the headphones for a few months, and then came back to it.
To be clear/brief, I simply do not need anywhere near that long to get a handle on the sound of a headphone. There are myriad other reasons we likely disagree, and maybe this is one of them, but frankly I don’t see any reason to change my process when it produces internally consistent and moderate results.
I have a bunch of headphones around here for long-term comparisons:
- HD 550
- HD 650
- Edition XV
- HEDDphone D1
- Audeze MM-500
- HEDDphone TWO GT
I absolutely do not see any reason I would need anything other than these (headphones I enjoy) to get a sense of how headphones I’m reviewing would fare against them, especially since they encompass a fairly wide price gamut and are my favorite picks in their respective brackets, precisely because they reflect the criteria that every other headphone is judged against.
Frankly I see encounter few-to-no issues with credibility being questioned because I’m probably a bit too long-winded and specific in my descriptions of sound; doesn’t really leave much room for questioning what my thoughts are.
The only times I run into people making attempts to impinge my credibility are when the people haven’t actually engaged with my content & are mostly familiar with me disagreeing with them on forums, or are deep enough in the weeds of audio mysticism that they think my approach is too utilitarian.
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Yeah to be honest, I knew that was going to be a hot take but it’s simply how I feel. Glad to know at least one person heard that and didn’t lose all faith 
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Funny you mention the HD 820. I picked one up for short money, as I needed a closed back headphone for certain hours of the day. I often use PGGB-RT for file playback, and find it improves the sound quite a bit when upscaling CD quality files.
Been wrestling with EQ for some time with headphones. Since PGGB has the ability to import Convolution files from AutoEQ, decided to contact the PGGB boffin for advice with AutoEQ. He recommended settings for import for use with PGGB. So, imported the convolution settings for the HD 820 as per the recommendations, and tried it out. Bottom line: It made the HD 820 sound a LOT better. Fixed the bass/midrange issues quite nicely. With PGGB and recommended convolution settings, the HD 820 has many of the sonic qualties of the HD 650, only with more bass.
Horses For Courses.
Yes, I agree. Though there are so many very good headphones out there (IMO) that it’s rather unlikely a reviewer will be able to make the back-to-back comparisons I’d be most interested in.
One of the reasons I take any review with grains of salt is the equipment and source material used to evaluate the headphone. Some headphones reveal more when using higher quality DAC/Amp setups than other headphones.
Same with the quality of the source material.
You could go with favorites in each price bracket. Alternatively, IMHO, a reviewer could have a very credible set of references with little more than the following, meant to cover the most commonly cited purported attributes:
- something for “timbre” (e.g. HD650 or 600)
- something for “detail” (e.g. HEDDphone Dos GT)
- something for “stage” (e.g. HD800S)
And an optional fourth for “fun,” or just a personal favorite, if it’s not one of the three above. Maybe a “bass cannon,” or master of “slam.”
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Yeah I can see this being a good approach, but increasingly I don’t know how necessary it is to even have that, provided someone is sufficiently experienced with what they’re doing.
It’s of course beneficial to have a few ‘like’ products kicking around to compare stuff to, and you’ll see me do that in our member streams… but I gotta be honest, I don’t even know how necessary it is to be able to come up with a fair and useful judgment of the product.
I suppose if the desired communication is something along the lines of “here’s how this product compares subjectively to its range of competitors”, then yeah you’d want those on hand. But if you’re instead communicating “here’s how good this product is given the range of possible sound quality” - like in a vacuum - I’m not sure it’s necessary. Like I guess the point here is that the range of competition for most products is not a sufficient picture of the range of possible sound quality, and you’d need to evaluate beyond those products to consider how good the thing you’re reviewing is regardless.
But of course… in reality we’re always comparing different products to potentially purchase, and so we can’t ignore the utility of that.
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Just watched a good chunk of the video and I feel that there are still things that can’t be quantified with a list or a graph. I will add that I don’t get graphs and am more emotional about headphones. But I appreciate the effort put into quantifying such a subjective hobby. In my journey I’ve found that popping a power amplifier with the DT-880-600 but loving the concert on the head effect is worth something. Or the Koss Kph30ci living on my head for the whole day until I gave them away in order to stop listening to them because of the nostalgia factor means something. I understand that it isn’t your job to give these experiences or quantify them and on top of that you all need to agree. I’m still just an ascriber of the ethereal in the headphone world. Not just the experience but a quality that you can’t put a number or letter on. At the same time I’m happy to say my favorite headphone of late is an A tier and my end-game inbound is in the same tier as the HE1. Even with my limited experience, I find that a lot of headphones do the same thing and I put a lot of weight onto something if it does something different. Ex: the Fidelio X3, I litterally don’t own anything like it and I love it for that. But I find it difficult to recommend or even listen to.
Sidenote: @Resolve you need to get your hands on the Para 1, I’d adore hearing your thoughts on it even though it can’t be purchased anymore. I truly think it’s better than the Para 2 even after a pad swap, I can acknowledge the merit’s of the 2 however I don’t find myself wearing it, the 1 I wore non-stop which is what lead it to falling off the desk onto a tile/concrete floor. I might hunt for another pair of the para 1 after this post even though funds are tight right now.
I do truly enjoy being able to hear the thought’s of those in this video, it gives me a fresh take and put’s words to what my mush melon has a difficult time with. It’s just difficult to watch headphone reviews because I often go “FUG YEAH” and make a purchase even if my wallet doesn’t agree. But I truly appreciate your method to the hobby even if it sounds like I don’t. I’m just trying to give feedback on my own feelings and experiences here.
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LCD-3!!!? And, unlike the LCD-4, it’s still in production. One of my absolute faves for a specific genre use. Just sayin’
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A lot harsher than the previous one. It would be interesting to hear why some scores changed.
For example, 1266 dropped from A to C (headphone I’ve never heard). Why? Were better headphones released or did your opinion changed in the meantime?
Three things:
- The old list was very much a list describing/ranking the headphones in terms of their placement within the realm of headphones that currently exist. So if a headphone was the best of what is currently available, it got S tier. The new list is describing/ranking headphones in terms of their sound quality relative to what is actually possible in headphone sound reproduction. Because the two ranking rubrics are different, the placement of each headphone is a bit different.
- The tier list letter rankings for Andrew and myself are actually based on the numerical Sound scores that we’d arrived at in our separate ranking lists. Because of how the math for the weighted averaging for these lists works, and because the average is produced by grading multiple aspects of headphone performance that then get averaged (most headphones are not even performers across the board), scores trend a little bit lower. We would say this more accurately reflects the rubric mentioned in Point 1 though—these scores better reflect the sound quality of these headphones in terms of how they relate to the absolute zenith of what is possible.
- They had me on this time instead of Doug. Even though I think we all rated 1266 somewhat similarly, I ended up pulling down the average of many planar magnetic headphones, because many/most of them are simply too bright for me.
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Horses for Courses. We have to keep in mind we all perceive what we hear differently. There are SO MANY headphones out there, that there are many that are good buys that aren’t included. Case in point: The Verum 2 has received rave reviews from a lot of the reviewers class. I had the LCD 3, and the Verum 2 (IMHO) is a better sounding headphone. Now, take into account that it’s cost is 25% of the LCD 3, and hard not call it a best buy. At least one reviewer compared it favorably to the LCD-5.
Bottom Line: Trust your own ears, and no need to worry if a given reviewer does not like your headphone.
Guys, a job well done by everyone involved. Moreover the availability of simultaneous views of the results, e.g. YT vid, online here by everyone and/or each of you individually is appreciated too. Obviously being able to sort results by A-Z, overall score, category score is also e entertaining. You’d be surprised how many may not be aware of dynamic sorting, FYI.
Have enjoyed my latest two additions, HIFIMAN ANANDA NANO & Fiio’s FT1, over the last several months due in part to the various information provided by you guys along w/ a few other trusted sources. Relative to the majority of offerings, both are remarkable values as you know. What’s exciting & encouraging in 2025, IMO, is how well they (& others) meet & in some cases beat higher priced “Best Of(s) / Top Rated” HP models of say the last dozen years in various annual HP awards.
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A condensed list of sub-$350 passive wired over-ear headphones, both open and closed, taken from the primary list. Several of these have only one review, as noted. Also the OAE-1 and M40X are listed twice on the master list, so I computed average scores for those two. Hopefully I got most of these correct.
I would not rank the K361 as highly as it is here btw. And wouldn’t recommend it for most listeners here.
6.0 FiiO FT1
5.8 Shure SRH440 (1 review)
5.6 Senn HD550
5.6 Senn HD650/6XX
5.4 AKG K371
5.3 AKG K553 MkII (1 review)
5.2 AKG K361
5.2 Senn HD505
5.2 FiiO FT1 Pro
5.1 Shure SRH840 (1 review)
5.0 Aune AR5000 (1 review)
5.0 HFM Sundara 2020
4.9 AT R50X (1 review)
4.9 Meze 99 Classics V2 (1 review)
4.8 Beyer DT900 Pro X (1 review)
4.8 HFM Edition XS
4.7 Rode NTH-100
4.6 Shure SRH440A (1 review)
4.5 Senn HD560S
4.2 Senn HD569
4.2 Philips Fidelio X2HR
4.1 AT R30X
4.1 Shure SRH840A (1 review)
4.0 Senn HD599 (1 review)
4.0 HFM HE4XX (1 review)
4.0 Senn HD620S
3.9 Beyer TYGR 300R Gaming Headset (1 review)
3.9 Beyer DT700 Pro X
3.6 Beyer DT880
3.6 Philips SHP9500
3.4 Moondop Horizon
3.4 Beyer DT770
3.4 Sony MDR-7506
3.3 HFM HE400SE
3.2 Philips SHP9600 (1 review)
3.0 Drop/Senn HD58X Jubilee (1 review)
3.0 Fostex T50RP Mk3
2.9 Beyer DT990
2.9 AT M50X
2.9 AT M40X
2.6 Grell OAE-1
2.5 HFM Sundara Closed
2.3 AKG K240 Studio (1 review)
Not included on the list are the new Sony MDR-M1 and Adam H200.
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To anyone who has only watched the Youtube vid, I’d encourage you to click on the links to the three reviewers’ lists with their notes. I like the vid, but the notes IMO often offer more detail and explanation of subjective impressions.
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