It sort of started for me, in Guam in late '67 when I was in the USAF. on their typical Sansui receivers and some nice sounding small Pioneer speakers and maybe a Sansui tt, they were playing Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 and I was hooked.
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I have a Sansui AU-919 in the office. Some nice small EgglestonWorks speakers and I still sometimes listen to Brasil 66.
Speaking of USAF my Father in Law was a Lt. Colonel in the 509th
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I was in the 863rd Medical Group stationed at Adersen AFB.
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Kinda far from the Santa Claus trackers at the DEW line.
yeah, it was during the vietnam war, I joined as soon as they said LOTTERY. a lottery on my LIFE? no thank you. being drafted assured you to go to war and all that that means. i didn’t even wait for my lottery number.
there were LOTS of B52s there, I was a medic, not a warrior.
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I’m a bit younger. My lottery number was 003 but the war was winding down and they stopped calling a few months before I would have been called.
My FIL was a navigator from B17 through B49. Roswell, Pease. England. Shot down over France, made it back. 2 shacks in one training run, and two entries in project blue book.
Thanks for your service. Those wishes are extended to all vets in here!
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Entertaining read:
Earliest headphones weighed in at a whopping 10lbs. First earbuds in 1891. John Koss creating the path for a headphone jack.
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^ Puts things into perspective.
My dad had a ham radio receiver with retro headphones. And I’ve used lower cost earpieces and cheap portable headphones about as long as I can remember, since the 1960’s/70’s, with various portable radios and whatnot. And I always thought the sound quality was pretty miserable. Certainly nothing like listening to speakers in a room. Most only had midrange. And the low and high frequencies were simply ignored.
My intro to better sounding headphones began with some Koss portable on-ear headphones from RadioShack. Pretty sure they weren’t neutral. But they had titanium coated drivers, and a more open and detailed sound than the closed headphones I’ve used since. They were very lightly built though, and I was always breaking 'em. And went through quite a few (even though Koss had a lifetime warranty).
I don’t think they still offer the models I used back when (e.g. Pro35a). Can’t find any FR info on them, but the KTXPro1 looks somewhat similar in its design and specs to some of the older models I used.
The KSC75 is also similar in size, and may employ the same or similar titanium drivers. And they don’t measure too badly. Earclips don’t work for me though, because I wear glasses.
I’d be curious to see though how something like the Pro35a or KTXPro1 measures.
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There’s a Koss thread here. Everything from PortaPro through ESP-650
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I think the Koss PortaPro, Creative Aurvana Live!, and Senn 6 series (incl. HD 580) were probably starting points for a number of older enthusiasts. I haven’t actually listened to most of these older designs though.
Here’s an old article and video by Tyll on the Senns. Step in our time machine and we will go back, back,…yes, all the way back to the year 2013!
https://www.stereophile.com/content/very-important-sennheiser-hd-580-hd-600-and-hd-650
Tyll did tend to favor headphones with good mids btw, which probably helps to explain his preference for sound quality of headphones like the HD600 and Focal Clear. I believe he also admitted to possibly having some hearing loss in this range, which is not unusual for older males.
Hmmmm.
My first high school headphones were Veritas possibly bought at Rasio Shack. Then Audio-Technica ATH-1, a very early planar. By the time I hit college’72-75, friends had Koss Pro-4AA and ESP-6.
I think my next headphones were the STAX SR-5n and finally the original Sennheiser HD-580. I still have all but the Veritas, which was junk with a noisy pot on each cup.
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Funny you should mention the Pro4AA, as I was just lookin at some of the specs and reviews here. Koss still offers these (though they were discontinued for a time). And there are some folks who still seem to like em alot.
Some say they’re not the most comfortable though. And there’s nothin in the specs about the drivers and magnets. Tyll measured a couple of these back in the day. And it looks like the Pro4AAA (with three “A’s”, unless that’s just a typo) probably measured the best! But with some very inconsistent sealing and LF behavior. So perhaps isolation and retro looks are the Pro4AA’s main selling points now.
Koss has another low-cost over-ear headphone with titanium drivers that is open-back though, which I have not tried: the UR40.
They are not the most comfortable the pads are weird. They used to be sort of an air cushion Pro 4 AAA is not a typo. It’s a subsequent model
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Might be interesting to see some new graphs of a few of these older HPs that are still floating around on an HBK 5128 rig. Don’t think I’ve got the cojones to request them though in the official topic. 
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Yeah, like I’d send my old Audio Technica’s with the 50 year old flat pads to @Resolve for testing.
They might fall apart at that age hahaha
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