The first pair was the LCD-X 2021. They made me cry but the weight made me sell them. Then the HD800 S didn’t make me cry but impressed me with its amount of detail and has been the most comfortable headphones I have had. Nowadays, the Susvara is the one that gets more listening time having that planar 20Hz- 20K Hz without sacrificing comfort and detail.
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My first headphones were the Jecklin Float electrostatics. Their clarity and transparency were amazing, at first. Then the lack of bass and slightly dulled/rolled off upper midrange and sheer physical discomfort started to get to me. Also, after reading warnings in the reviews, annoyingly I had to keep a close watch on volume level to avoid burning them out by overvoltage arcing. Almost the same problem as with the old Quad ESL-57 electrostatic loudspeakers.
Nothing as fancy as all of you.
I had the working assumption all headphones ranged from sucky to mediocre.
Then I wanted some wireless headphones (pre-bluetooth era) and just totally randomly got lucky enough to get Sennheiser HDR-120 (or earlier equivalent).
I was like wow, this sounds good. But I was still clueless that it was the lowest tier of entry-fi. So dumbly walked around thinking I had the best headphones ever, for years, until they finally broke and I upgraded to HD558. These were a HUGE step up that made me aware there were upper layers to this pursuit.
BTW, HD558/598 are still to this day seriously underrated. This is coming from someone with a collection of $1k+ headphones now. They have qualities no other headphones have and if I could only own three pairs, these would be one of them! No kidding.) Besides being the lightest most comfortable headphones ever made, they have a unique mixture of analog vinyl-like romantic glow and warmth WHILE having good neutrality and clarity, and some kind of sweet spot in resolution that’s just good enough to sound great but just romantic hazy enough to to hide edgy glare and poor recordings. Absolutely great for pre-1950’s recordings of any genre. And for wearing in bed when you’re in danger of falling asleep and not wanting to mash and mess up your $2000 (fill in the blank) pair of flagship headphones.
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I’ve had a bunch of different headphones over the years, but the first ones to make me feel some type of way were the Beyerdynamic 990 pros. The next step up didn’t come for a while after that.
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I agree with this. There are many headphones and IEMs that are tuned to give a wow factor on first listen and then some of them can become tiring over longer periods.
Yet, some other may not have that initial wow factor but when spending time with them, you realize just how good they are.
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For me, it was the best Stax electrostatic headphone that a friend had - I forget the exact model number - in about 1992 or so. He had it driven by a Stax tube headphone amp, and the perfection of the sound, the smoothness and accuracy, staging, etc., were absolutely phenomenal. The best headphones I have ever heard!
My own personal set for many years was an Audio-Technica electret condenser AT-7 connected to their special headphone power adapter. It may still work, but I have not used it in a long time - the pads have degraded.
My current set is an Audeze EL-8 … similar sound to the Audio-Technical and better in some ways (flatter bass response for example).
Yamaha HPH-200, my highschool headpones that I still use today. They are warm, detailed, fun and sound way to good for the price. I’ve tried bunch of headphones since then even pricier ones and I always came back to these, Grados are similiar.
1st: Koss Pro-4 AA’s!
Yes, i am THAT OLD. They ran off the speaker output so you needed a QUIET Poweramp. Mine was a Crown DC-300. One wrong move and my eardrums would have flown into my teeth.
2nd great ones were Sennheiser 535’s. INCREDIBLE sounding.
Most recent, and best I’ve had are the AKG K702. No looking back now.
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But you had to suffer if you wanted to hear the blues. Worst ear pads ever, and you couldn’t simply find replacements.
They were an industry standard used by thousands of recording engineers. Mine were brand new and the pads lasted for many years. They were made of thin butyl rubber, injected with silicone. They sealed out the outside as well as safety phones that you use in construction. They were the most comfortable out there back then. After ages, the silicone dried up, but by then I didn’t need phones anymore.
That’s easy for me. A pair of Stax electrostatics, in about 1976/77.
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I was there then too. Your memory is kind to them I had a pair, Guy down the hall had ESP-6 when that came out
I never heard the Koss’s, but my memory of the SR5/SRD6 is pretty good … as I still have them, and they still work. 
As for the sound, perhaps not my first choice now, but compared to anything I’d heard back then, they were astonishing. Bear in mind, I’m by no means a bass fiend, which was good as they were certainly a bit bass light. Then again, it was nearly 50 yeas ago.
I still have mine too. They get a bit of use, but I use an estat amp now instead of the SRD adapter. But those are almost a decade later than the Koss Pro 4AA.
When I first heard STAX, I was amazed. The HOLY CRAP moment was with the Lambdas, which I wasn’t going to afford.
But the earlier holy crap moment was with the Koss ESP-6 in 1975. Also an e-stat
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Yes! I had an Lambda and an SRD7 energizer, but later got an SRM-1 amp . Took almost every disposable penny I had in the mid-70’s.
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