We’re always chasing the audio dragon…
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The very first ones I fell for? Oh my, it was 41 years ago when my father, an audiophile himself, treated himself to the Stax SRM-1 “earspeaker” I sure went oh! as I was comparing that contraption to the modest Senn HD-414 (iirc, with the yellow foam pads) I had then (I was 15 and couldn’t afford anything better after paying a fortunesque $300 in lawn-mowing money for a Pioneer SX-650 receiver.
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Got the message “Body is too similar to what you have posted” WTF?
EDIT never mind, was a deuce.
HD600/Bottleheadcrack OTL
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AKG K1000 + Nelson Pass’ First Watt F1 in 1990. Hard to believe that was 30 years ago. The first “ear speakers” had a profound effect on me, but needed very careful selection of amplification to really make them sing. Even today, they are legendary and demand a premium price (US $2,178.69) on eBay.
AKG K1000 (Used)
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For me it was the good old Audio Technica M50! I was in Guitar Center and the sales guy saw me looking at the headphones, pulled out a pair and tossed them my way.
Prior to the M50 it was all basic/budget stuff that either came with the products, or aftermarket junk that didn’t sound any better but had fancy packaging.
I put on the M50, played Master of Puppets, and proceeded to both crap and wet my pants. That was the day my obsession started, and has yet to end…
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Make sure you don’t get into fountain pens! You’ll need ALL the variations once you’ve found a favorite from limited edition colors to unique materials to hand laquered Urushi models taking months to prepare. It’s nuts. Soon I’m planning on collecting some Leonardo Officina pens in stunning Italian acrylic.
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SR60s were my first “real” headphones, but I don’t think I had a holy crap experience, of really hearing music through a thoughtful combo of headphones and amp/DAC, until I wandered into a hi-end shop during a visit to San Francisco in 2018 and heard the Focal Clears, running off that A&K desktop amp/dac. I knew I had to have them, sooner or later (but ended up with the Utopias). But I also had great times listening to a Hi-Fi Man 400i, Aeon CLosed and the 650s (just never drove them properly so I missed out on the magic).
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I’ve been looking for comparisons between the TR-X00 purple hearts and 610 for a couple weeks now. The few I’ve seen talk mostly positive, but the grain in the mid range is very real listening to live performances. Even through a tube hybrid here which generally helps to make everything pretty coherent. Would you say the 610 has the same wonky mid range? I know Lachlan from Minidisc talked about how something special went on with female vocals when he compared them to the TH-909.
Ahhh yes. The day I had my first auditioning session in the high-end range. All headphones I’ve owned before that time took at least some time to grow on me, and I didn’t expect a whole lot from the session because of that. So I started my session with some LCD-2’s, moved up the price classes gradually. Liked the Arya quite a lot after giving it a bit of time, the ADX5000 was great, but they didn’t really grab me from the get-go. So the shop owner gathered a selection of 4 planars in the €3-4k range that weren’t on my radar, reaching my absolute budget limit. I wasn’t hopeful at all, but the store owner had this suspicious grin on his face as he handed me the first headphone of the rotation, not saying anything and leaving me to it.
So I briefly inspected these silver Arya’s, the HE1000se, put them on and fired up Melody Gardot’s “You Don’t Know What Love Is (Live in Europe)” to get a good first impression…
Straight away; “HOLY CRAP!” I had to pause. Was it too loud? Are these drivers supposed feel so excursive? I start over at a lower volume, and that’s when it started to make sense. Wasn’t purely the driver excursion I was feeling, but the actual room reverberations in the recording. Bravo HiFiMAN, your realism scared the living crap out of me. Do it again.
And a bunch more of those holy crap moments happened that night with the Empyrean, AB-1266 TC and even the HE-1… I guess yall can at least sorta imagine that after that session was done, my brain was completely beaten to a pulp. And my bank account, too.
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Koss Porta Pros back in 2001. I needed some portable headphones and read a test with multiple on the go headphones in some hifi magazine. They recommend the Porta Pros. They got that right. They are still some of the best value in head-fi.
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When I was a teenager my parents bought all us kids a Koss portable AM/FM cassette player (like a Walkman) that came with Porta Pros. They later gave me a Sony portable CD player for Christmas and when I went to college I bought a pair of Sony MDR-V6s. But I’ve always preferred listening to music through speakers so it wasn’t until many *cough* years later that I caught the headphone bug after I bought a pair of Oppo PM-3s.
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The ER4PT i had in 2018 blew my mind on how good IEMs can sound. With the ER3SE i use now, It extra fun how well it responds to a bass boost despite being 1 BA.
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LOL…
Ive had a similar journey…
First pair of headphones I bought was also Sony MDR-V6 when I was 15… Had those through college and then a pair of grado SR-80s… Loved them then, but a bit bright for me now… About the same time, I got into 2 channel speakers with a pair of Vandersteen 1B - and then went on to get Model 2s, Model 3a signature and Model 5…
That ruined me for headphones for years, except for traveling.
Been about 8 years since I’ve had a place to set up my 2 channel system, and I had stopped listening to music much, because I ‘knew’ what it could sound like and just lacked the emotional connection it had before. Tried various headphones, seinheiser 280, 650, Sony 1000 and they just didn’t do it for me. The OPPO PM-3 were actually on my list, but got remarried and by the time I got back to looking at headphones again, they were discontinued (which also scratched the transport I was going to get LOL)
About 18 months ago I picked up a pair of Meze 99c - absolutely beautiful cans… And with a little eq - holy crap - music was fun again… Tapping my toes, singing along (to the chagrin of those around me)… And spending hours listening to music again… With a portable es100 and schiit vali-2.
Got the audio bug again, this time for head-fi.
Finalizing my order for ZMF VO, Pendant, 2K cables and BF2 - hoping for serious music nirvana again 
And having fun participating in these forums and hearing everyone else’s experience and input!
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My God!! 
That should at least get you close to it!! Id be curious to find out if you hear any differences with the 2K cable over the stock.
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I am just going to shamelessly say it was the Monoprice M1060 lol.
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No shame in that, brother. 
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Well, I’m hoping so…
I’m curious about the cables too - trusting Zach on this one and they look gorgous and you get a good deal on them if you order with the cans… I have heard some minor differences with cables in the past for 2 channel, but not sure I could reliably differentiate in blind testing.
I built up my 2 channel system over years… And while I super enjoyed the whole process, if I take that long this time, pry won’t be able to hear anything at that point! LOL
Honestly, though, I find the whole process of setting up the listening session contributes to my enjoyment… Whether that is just anticipation or getting in the right frame of mind… I like getting the headphones out of the case, warming up the amp, connecting the cables…
And having headphones that are really their own, beautifully crafted instruments is part of the appeal - in addition to the great sound…
Might be weird, but works for me.
Interacting with Zach has been awesome, I love what he and Bevin are doing and am glad to help support it - and really interested to see what they develop next.
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we’ve done a couple of interviews with Zach and Bevin recently…in the YouTube reviewers channel are links… if you are interested I can link to the two interviews here as well…
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Saw the one that you did and the one with you and @resolve… Nicely done and very informative.
I really appreciate the sense of community, connection, shared passion and ‘genuine niceness’ I guess you could call it - where everyone is welcome and encouraged in pursuit of enjoying the music.
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