They are not bad cans. I only kept mine for a short time, but I thought they worked fine.
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HD650’s were my cherry pop! But the Aeolus was my for true love!
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A few things… my experience is limited, and so keep that in mind. Second, no idea if there are better headphones for the money, but I’m quite happy (excellent construction, as well). Third, not sure what the Drop version means (I’m using the Classic 99 with the walnut). Fourth, they are VERY comfortable and you can wear them for some time. Fifth, my mixes often sound bland compared to professional mixes, which tells me that the Meze headphones are disclosing all my faults in mixing, which is important. I think if you mix something and it sounds pretty darn good (and you don’t know much about mixing), then the truth is not being told, and these headphones certainly tell the truth.
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Moondrop Blessing 2 Dusk. They kept me in the audiophile world. This is after trying ath-r70x, airpods max, quad era-1, lcd-x, sundara, arya and he6se. The dusk inspired me to get the dunu zen on which I am listening to have it all by jason mraz right now. And now I am happy!
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No worries, the forum is all about giving your opinion. It’s all valuable information. We all understand that we don’t necessarily like the same things, so the responsibility is on the reader to absorb the information he’s reading and make an informed decision.
Drop.com sells their own version of the meze 99. To keep the cost down, I think they use plastic instead of wood.
Massdrop x Meze 99 Noir Closed-Back Headphones | Audiophile Headphones | Drop
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From reading your posts, I get the impression you know what you want and you’re going to keep trying until you get that, without compromise. So when you’ve bought something, I’m intrigued because I know you put a lot of effort into it. I have to try the Dusk and/or the Zen just to see if our taste is aligned.
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I’m sure that your son would love the ZMF VC more than the Meze’s. 
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Thank you! But I would call it knowing what I don’t want once I have experienced it. That’s on DAPs, AMPs and Headphones. It’s possible the Zen isn’t the ideal as I have only heard the headphones mentioned. 3 of them were hifiman with fairly similar overall frequency responses. The only reason I got the dusk and zen is it was the closest bass boosted balanced FR I could find to that hifiman signature. My experience is fairly lacking.
Basically, it’s possible I will hear a ZMF one day and be like: “What the heck was I thinking? Should have bought this years ago”. Right now, I consider ZMF to be bonkers in FR. Who knows.
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No! They use dark (espresso stained) walnut cups. The bright gold/chrome trim of the retail models is replaced with a black finish.
Drop keeps the costs down by selling older products, direct sales (versus brick-and-mortar retail), and historically through batch buying (i.e., the old name was Massdrop).
The Meze 99 Neo is made from plastic, but not sold by Drop.com.
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My mistake, I must have confused those models.
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For me it was the HD700, which were only the 2nd audiophile headphones I’d heard at the time. I enjoyed the 6XX a couple months, but they weren’t a transformative experience primarily because the soundstage is so narrow, so it struck me as like all headphones before had been with sound seeming like it’s just between my ears (also had underpowered amps at the time as I was just getting into it). The out of my head experience was just unbelievable, and they’re also quite detailed, which were the first to make all the music I’d listened to for years sound completely different, like there had been all this other sound hidden or something. I’d always been one who maxed out treble on whatever device I had so the 700s never bothered me. Then it was hearing them with my first decent tube amp, the Woo WA7.
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I’ll play! 
For me, the first pair of headphones that made me literally say “Holy Crap”, were my ZMF Aeolus. I had them hooked up to a Liquid Platinum with a Modi Multibit, and remember how immersive, powerful, and natural the sound was. It was like I was inside of the music, if that makes since, with sounds flying all around me, and those vocals brought tears to my eyes.
Nothing better than experiencing good heaphones for the first time!
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Kind of the sundara. But really, the blessing 2 dusk. I say kind of because the sundara was easily the crispest most gorgeous thing I had heard at that point. However, at the time, I didn’t realize it wasn’t really the tuning I wanted. I first experienced that on the blessing 2 dusk. So both? I guess?
EDIT: I responded earlier in the thread. Can’t keep track anymore. But here it is again.
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Audeze LCD 2012, early revision. Went from Sennheiser 580, and my jaw dropped.
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I picked up the hd650’s about 5 years ago and fell in love with them. I don’t use them that much anymore but it’s hard to part with them given the history. My first amp that amazed me was the LTA MZ2. I couldn’t believe how much detail was produced by it while still being a tubed design. The detail was so transparent but at the same time smoothed out to not be harsh at all. That opened my mind up a lot in terms of amp designs. I would like to some day grab a mz3.
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Back in the day, as they say…Sennheiser HD424X. Currently my 800S
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Not quite answering the question but one of my earliest mid-fi headphones, a HD595 (about 12 years old), received new life when I connected it to my alternate chain: Bifrost2 → Crack w/ speedball. I think my jaw dropped because I’ve never heard it sound like that the whole time I owned it.
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audio technica ART ATH-A700X Monitor. First set of headphones that really impressed me and at the time I bought them, I picked them up in competition with Grado SR-80’s and left the Grado’s at the store.
HEDDphones. Changed my life 
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Nice! The HD650’s did that for me too, and were my first good set of headphones. However, I was only using a Valhalla 2 with them. I can only imaging how they sound with a MZ2, and I have always been interested in that amp and the MZ3. Everything I have read on those amps has been positive, and there is nothing better than good tube gear, and good NOS tubes.