What makes this hobby special?

21

I guess you could say I’m an Amp guy. I love headphone amplifiers. Weather it be design or architecture or finding differences in sound reproduction/quality is a great thrill for me. Amplifiers definitely rule and it is the most interesting gear aspect of the hobby for me.

Next is the social. Going to the shows, exploring and experiencing the atmosphere while meeting terrific people along the way goes without saying what a privilege that can be.

Long story short. I’m a part of the best hobby in the world. I’m still as excited to learn and explore more as I’ve ever have been, since I entered the world of audio 14 years ago. You guys are all great. Keep it going. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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22

My passion for music is what ultimately led me to this hobby, though it all began with a deep dive into the world of speakers. I spent several years on AVS Forum, soaking up knowledge and auditioning gear whenever I could, all in pursuit of understanding my own audio preferences. Along the way, I met some incredible people and had the chance to attend local meetups and major events like the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. I even had the opportunity to help run a vendor room in the early 2010s, which was a fantastic experience.

Once I had a solid grasp of what I liked, I became curious about the “why” behind it all. That curiosity sparked a deeper interest in the science of sound, leading me to discover the work of Floyd Toole. His book on sound reproduction was a game changer—it opened my eyes to the fascinating world of acoustics, psychoacoustics, and the science behind what we hear.

Fast forward a few years, and life shifted. My kids grew older and took over the dedicated home theater and music space I’d spent years building and perfecting. I sold off most of my system, trading speakers for headphones—a more personal and less disruptive way to keep enjoying music. The headphone experience was a whole new world, and I dove in headfirst, eager to understand the differences. That journey introduced me to the insights of Tyll Hertsens and Sean Olive, and ultimately I found the Headphone Show and this forum and have been immersed in the headphone scene ever since.

Through it all, the friendships I’ve made and my ever-growing love for music continue to inspire and motivate me. It’s been an incredible journey—and I’m just getting started.

Tl:dr: the music, the science, and the people are the reason I’m a lifer.

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23

I always enjoyed music and certain songs always gave me the chills, I always felt deeply connected to music. But before I got into the audiophile hobby, I started assembling my first gaming setup 10 years ago. Back in the day, I bought some cheap creative 2.1 speakers and kept them for a couple of years.

Since I could not listen to music whenever I wanted, I then bought a gaming headset, but I was not satisfied with the sonic performance, so I looked out for a headset that would combine gaming and sonic performance. That is how I stumbled across the HyperX Cloud Orbit S (Audeeze Mobius) and I was hooked ever since (still have this headset by the way). I then got into audiophile headphones with the DT 770 Pro and a Dragonfly Cobalt.

Being able to listen to my favorite music that still gives me the chills from a completely elevated sonic perspective is an amazing experience. I have met many people who have told me that getting your hair to stand up when listening to music is weird to them, and they have never experienced that feeling, and I just thought that this is very sad as music has always been there for me and always will and never judges me.

I have been chasing the dragon for quite some time now to be honest, but the Edition XS did it for me. I will definitely get an HD 600 for reference and because it is a legendary headphone, and I will stop indulging in gear and get back to what matters most, the music.

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24

My introduction to the hobby was kind of funny. My brother always complained about my microphone when we played online shooter games so I decided to fix that. First I searched for better gaming headsets and/or microphones because I didn’t know any better. At one point I found out about these “audiophile” headphones that sounded better at a relatively cheaper price. I could add a microphone like those V-Moda boom mics and have the best of both worlds. So I bought Philips X2HR for myself and SHP9500 for my brother and added microphones to those. (My brother still uses his)

As you would guess, things didn’t end there. My mic was still acting up because my onboard sound card was noisy af and when discord tried to remove the noise it cut my voice as well. So I decided to get a “sound card”. I bought a Behringer UMC202HD and a decent XLR condenser mic. It was a little overkill but I’m kind of obsessed with value I get when I purchase something.

In the meantime, I kept watching reviews because Zeos was very entertaining. Then I bought Drop x Sennheiser HD58x as well. Then I jumped on a Sundara deal. Like how Resolve mentioned in his video, experiencing new things with each new headphones, hearing things that I didn’t know existed for the first time captivated me. But my problems didn’t end there, audio output was also constantly glitching and clipping. Maybe it always did but thanks to my new headphones and newfound awareness I started to notice them. So I started my research on DACs and Amps as well. I kept buying headphones if I find a good deal too. Then I found out those glitches are caused by the schitty ethernet driver of my laptop, just disabling it from Device Manager fixed it completely.

I could have spent way less or never entered this rabbit hole if I could found the solutions to my problems earlier but everyone needs at least a hobby and headphones with all its technological, scientific and “magical” aspects filled that gap for me.

Along the way, a friend I met online recommended reviewing to me and offered a spot on his website and I accepted it.

About what I chase, first of all I want an experience free from problems because of this past. That’s why I’m kind of obsessed with bit-perfect playback and not to use PC as a source. Then I want nothing to sound off, especially when I wear my reviewer hat. Then I chase that “wow” effect or feeling of something touches you. Ironically only one of my headphones does that which don’t sound correct at all and that is Klipsch Heritage HP-3. Attrium also like that, though HP-3 gets me going more often.

I didn’t know I was going to write this long when I started so if you’ve read it all, thanks.

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25

This is a pretty interesting question and there’s definitely a few ways to think about this. I’m drawn towards the “why did I get into the hobby” as opposed to “what makes it special among all the other hobbies”, but I’m going to try and stick with the later.

Here’s a few thoughts off the top of my head:

  1. It’s inherently tied to something that is universally loved - music. That sets a common stage for folks in every stage of the hobby. More importantly, it also helps, at least to some extent, anchor the language we use to talk about things. Yes, audiophile vocabulary can become something of a joke, but descriptors like “warm” or “bright” are generally understandable even to those that aren’t in the hobby.
  2. As a sensory-based, experiential hobby, listening is probably one of the most easily accessible ones. We all have millions of songs for free at their fingertips, and EQ is easy to set-up. And you don’t need expensive headphones to enjoy that. // e.g. Taste and food is another sensory experience that often gets compared to audio, but experiencing different types of food inherently has quite a few more barriers than simply clicking “Play Next”.
  3. It’s very easy to accidentally fall into this hobby. It can be as simple as “Hey my favorite album sounds so much better on my AirPods Pro compared to my old earbuds!” and wondering why that is. And then digging deeper and deeper into the different rabbit holes this hobby affords.
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26

I started my journey with home theater and building out a decent 7.6.2 setup. Then started down the path of 2-ch listening. Got into room treatment, convolution and upgrading components until the price to benefit hit my personal ceiling.

But then it came to listening to my gear and this is where my wife came in and she didn’t appreciate the music at different times of the day at volumes I enjoy so that pushed me to looking into headphones.

Started out with a simple Schit stack and a Focal Elex. Looking back I should have kept the Elex- underrated IMO.

Since then I have cycled through several headphones and source gear. I found it takes a while to determine what I like and until I hear it really is hard to know. I recently found an EQ target that I generally prefer but also find that FR is more of a function of the differences rather than strict adherence to a set curve. An area I am exploring is getting left to right alignment (phase, FR etc) which I have found on my main stereo makes a significant difference in the precision of imaging but don’t have a HP measuring device yet.

My pursuit now is on finding the different presentations with my headphones. Moving a little away from a jack of all trades to what kind of experience each headphone offers. Intimate vs large scale, high detail vs smooth, high impact vs refined, etc. I also have been using and learning about VST3 plugins through Audirvāna and tools like Focus Fidelity and HangLoose convolver for convolution on my main speaker setup.

Current HPs are Hifiman HE1000 stealth and Focal Clear MG. Both I have EQ’d to preference and just to note the Clear MG absolutely requires EQ IMO but when done it really is a great headphone. Currently on the hunt for a third to backfill my Aria Stealth I recently sold. Considering HD800s for soundstage imaging or a Heddphone 2 GT for detail and timbre. Also like the idea of having different types of drivers with a dynamic, planar and AMT so leaning to the Heddphone 2 GT. In a perfect world I would get both.

Anyway that’s where I am at on my journey and why I got into headphones. Appreciate any recommendations on a third headphone close or under $2k.

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27

I found correlation to my senseless hifi obsessions last year as I encountered, for the first time the cleverly tragic depiction of Mozart in the 1984 film Amadeus. I reflected much on the obsessions and convictions Mozart had in composing some of the greatest works of musical art of all time. My continuing resolve to the contemplations of how capable an artist Mozart may have been was met with the concept of what if Mozart was a dubstep artist today? What if Mozart had a synthesizer and a loop machine? What would he have been capable of? Considering forming music during Mozart’s era meant, either knowing how to play many instruments or knowing what the instruments were capable of, and conveying to others when and how to bring emotion while playing them. It reminded me of all the reasons why hi-fi is special to me, gave me a greater appreciation for all compositions and forms of it, and reminded me that for hundreds of years there have been audiophiles in every generation.

I consider myself no longer chasing the dragon. My two-channel system and room check off enough boxes that I didnt think were possible to check that it’s easily become my preferred way to listen to anything. Headphones are the safe haven of solitude to hear less of the room and environment and more of the music in a more personal way. The two channel system is more about dynamics you can feel, and headphones more about dynamics you can hear. Both, ultimately feed into an emotional connection to the music, which is the dragon.

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28

For me, it’s not so much of a hobby as a utilitarian objective. The object of the exercise is to get the maximum enjoyment I can out of the music I listen to. i.e. it’s about music, not ‘gear’, or a hobby.

Of course, what “getting that maximum enjoyment” entails has varied over the years, depending on my specific situation, and available resources.

My headphone journey really started with the need for headphones when heading off to university, not least because my ‘cell’ wasn’t much bigger than my huge transmission line ‘home’ speakers. I resolved (excuse the pun, Andrew) that with an early pair of Stax electrostatics. Bear in mind, I’m talking about the late 1970’s, and most people’s response to hearing “electrostatic headphones” was “electro-what-now?”

Over the following 50-ish years, my headphone collection has evolved. Unfortunately, the available resources to scratch my headphone itch went up, pretty much in inverse proportion to the time available to listen to them. By the time I got to having both the money to indulge and the time to use them, it was post-retirement and my hearing certainly wasn’t anywhere near as good as it was when I bought those first Stax’s.

I have recetly listened, sampled and trialled a variety of headphone types, technologies and brands, from around the $100-ish mark, up to and including LCD-4z, Empyrean, etc.

My conclusion is that there’s limited, if any, benefit to me in me going above the $1000 mark, at least in terms of sound quality, and realistically, probably not even that far. So while the ultimate remains the same, that of musical enjoyment I’m forced to concede that any headphone I buy buy asolutely must be comfortable enough to use for a protracted period, or the sound quality doesn’t matter. An additional concern is build quality, ecause I don’t want to be replacing even relatively low-priced headphones (in the audiophile-type category) because the broke.

My final criteria is having the right tool for the job, and for that matter, the right tool to fit my mood. That’s resulted in owning a small but wide selection, including dynamic drivers (Sennheiser and Focal), Audeze (for Planars) and of course, Stax. It includes mainly open-back but one closed (Maxwell), noise-cancelling (for travel) and of course, in-ears, including Airpods Pro 2.

The combination means I get about the best msical appreciation my ears are capable of, in just about every situation I face … which was the point of the exercise - listening to music.

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29

For me, the rabbit hole started almost a decade ago with frustration with throwaway headphones and headsets - the sort where the cord breaks in 6 months and renders the headphones or headset useless.

I asked an audiophile friend for advice on building a setup that was comfortable to wear for long periods of time, durable, with replaceable cables,with acceptable sound, on an extremely cheep budget, and ended up starting out with a pair of Phillips SHP-9500 headphones, a Behringer UM-2 audio interface, and a cheap condenser microphone. In retrospect, not the best setup, but, a good enough setup and a night and day improvement over the generic disposable headsets I’d been using.

While I was started down the rabbit hole by cheap headsets with non-replaceable cords, the real awakening was when my audiophile friend let me try her LCD-2s. They were warm. They actually had reasonable amounts of bass in an open back. And I heard detail in the tracks I was listening to that I didn’t know was there - the crash of a cymbal that was previously buried in the background, the texture of the bow upon the strings of a violin.

Fast forward half a dozen years or so, and I’ve tried quite a few different pairs of headphones, found several I’ve liked, some I can tolerate, and some that were just meh. Eventually ended up owning a pair of LCD-2Cs for my main setup, and a pair of Maxwells that I use for work and travel.

For now, I’ve stopped chasing simply because I know from here it’s diminishing returns, and I feel like I’m at a happy medium between enjoying music and enjoying gear, without becoming so wrapped up in the chase that I lose my life’s savings and take out a second mortgage going after marginal gains after marginal gains.

Will this be my endgame? I can’t say for sure. Maybe one day it will be time for something new. But for now, I feel like I’m at a good place in the hobby where it’s more about the music than the gear, and I don’t want to lose that by obsessing too much about the gear.

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30

It’s not a “hobby” for me. I don’t collect multiple pieces of audio equipment. I just look for the best component I can afford to reproduce music as accurately as possible, and once I make that purchase, I’m done.

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31

But… where’s the fun in that? :winking_face_with_tongue: :rofl: </snark off>

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32

I still have my SR-5n at my listening station. Cant’ say they get much use now, the Hive eStat is considerably better. But for certain bass-light genres, they are still very good.

33

My journey started in the late 50s in high school, listening to WHAT-FM from Philadelphia. This was an “all jazz” station with knowledgeable hosts and (for that time) great FM sound quality.

Then a group of my buddies started traveling on weekends to Manhattan. We frequented the leading jazz clubs at the time: Village Vanguard, Village Gate, Five Spot, Basin Street East, Birdland, Cafe Bohemia, and Eddie Condon’s.

I was enthralled by performers such as Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Jack Teagarden, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Mingus, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Roland Kirk.

I was hooked on live music from then on. My lifetime quest has been to get as close to the experience of those incredible live performances. I started with a two channel system which I took to the max (for me) [Linn/Quad) to (McIntosh/MBL). Then we downsized from a home where I could have a listening room, to a smaller space where I have a listening nook with outstanding headphones. My dealer was definitive audio, and they got me to try the AKG K1000 “earspeakers”

Needless to say, I was hooked from that point on. This has led me through many TOTL headphones, DACs and AMPs. Today I am listening to a pair of Raal Requisite SR1a driven by a dCS Bartok DAC and Raal Requisite HSA-1b amplifier.

The experience is good enough that I can close my eyes and imagine that I am sitting a few feet from the Bill Evans Trio at the Village Vanguard on a Sunday. (i was there when they recorded that one.)

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34

Without going t check, I think mine are the SR-5 for the headphone part, and SRD-6 for the transformer.

They still work, despite buying them in (I think) 1977 (or maybe '76) which makes me give a wry grin when I hear how ‘carefully’ electrostatics have to be treated. I didn’t know that they were so delicate, and clearly, nor did my Stax’s. :smiley:

I would add a caveat to that, though. Just maybe, those ancient units weren’t that delicate but newer ones are, so I’m not really mocking that claim: it might be spot-on. It just doesn’t gel with my limited personal experience.

35

The fun is having more money to invest in music recordings (and other tech I find rewarding, like state-of-the-art TVs & video monitors…)

36

If you use an actual electrostatic headphone amplifier, they will sound better than ever. Much better than with the SRD-6. When my SRD went out a number of years ago, I replaced it with a restored and modded SRM-T1S from mjolnir audio. Way more better.

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37

Interesting. Thanks for that.

I do have a Stax dealer very conveniently about 5 miles up the road from me, and I’ve had a discussion about auditioning a pair of SR-007 Mk2’s, but I keep blowing hot and cold on it. I get an urge, but then think about whether I’ll get value for money from it. Somehow, I doubt it, not least because, as per my initial post, I’m not convinced my hearing is ood enough any more. I mean, it’s not lousy, but I already have several pairs of different ‘pretty good’ headphones, so the marinal benefit of yet another?

Yeah, exactly. :smiley:

39

I too have been thinking about the SR-007 Mk2, but had a happy sidetrack to the Nectarsound Hive. It’s good enough, and some say similar to the 007 that I would need either special temptation or a silly money windfall to pull the trigger.

40

The $45K Warwick Acoustics Aperio estat sounded a loooooot like my HD 800S….

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42

Hard to quantify the sound of money. But I suspect the marginal value of the extra $43.25k is only irrelevant to billionaire audiophiles.