Agreed. We need headphone emojis!
If this sound is neutral/natural, with decent width/soundtage, depth/detail, that’s the holy grail for me, because every artist will sound great now. Then, if you need different sounds, you need to discover different music genres and different artists, not different headphones… IMHO.
So… Maybe you need expensive gear (it depends).
But to enjoy all the music in the world, you definitely don’t need a wall of headphones like Zeos. 
I think that if you are just learning what sound signatures you like, buying a variety of entry level/mid-fi is a great way to explore. I have been exploring for almost five years and have found several signatures that I like.
I think that in the end I will have two sets of open back, two sets of closed back and a couple of amps.
Different strokes…
People are making good points. The human brain is wired with something called habituation that operates at a very deep level. Call it been-there-done-that-itis. Things that we’re Cloud 99 infatuated with turn into comfortable-old-shoe familiarity things with repeated exposure. People talk about music being the be-all-and-end-all toward which gear is just a means to an end. But most of us are going to get bored with any given piece of music and any given genre given enough exposure to it. If you listen to a lot of music you’re likely scouring the internet for ever new material.
So don’t knock the gear part of the hobby. This is just another tool in the tool kit to keep things fresh, to counteract the relentless force of habituation. Trick as always is to use the tool, not the other way around.
Personally for me, gear is equally as enjoyable as music, and I like both lol
Tech enthusiast speaking: The gear IS the hobby.
I get my hands on everything tech related because I am interested in the thing, the functions are a nice extra, but the thing itself is good enough!
So, on the topic of needing expensive gear…No, absolutely not, in my workshop where I spend many hours i have a nice bluetooth speaker ($125, on sale) and my cell. Very simple and I’m perfectly satisfied. In the shower i use a $50 little waterproof Bluetooth speaker w/cell and again very satisfied. Kitchen; $100 speakers and $144 amp, cell and total satisfaction.
There are folks though who take their hobbies very seriously, i’m not talking about the folks who do things for a living, that’s work, I’m talking about hobbyists who spend years understanding acoustics, physics, music and training themselves and their ears to truly “Hear” the music and everything else that is a part of it. I follow these folks on some of the other forums and rarely participate in the discussions because 1. I know i am in waaayy over my head and 2. I’m there simply for the sake of knowledge and to understand the opposing views presented. I would argue that these folks would argue that there is a NEED for higher end gear.
Expensive is a relative term, according to whose income or passion or ability to save? I happen to like nice things, sometimes these nice things depending on a bunch of factors, cost more than my current ability to afford, thus they seem expensive to me. I learned a skill, worked hard at getting real good at it, budgeted for years and learned to pick and choose what i could play w/and what things were beyond my means no matter how hard i tried.
So to answer your question in a slightly different manner, no i don’t need expensive gear but sometimes i really want it and develop a need to acquire it. Happy listening and shopping to all! 
One thing I do is a liberal use of Amazon Prime’s easy return policy to try headphones out and see what I like. So in that sense I can try expensive gear and see if I like it.
We don’t need it, but if we can, why not lol. I think the most important thing is having fun and enjoying it all while not wasting too much money on it.
Apparently returns are pretty terrible environmentally… I had no idea until recently… to the point where certain items that can’t be repackaged to new end up in the landfill… now I sell on ebay and local buy and sells.
Damn that sucks, never knew. Is there like no dedicated service to rent headphones?? To test them out
Well for example if you buy from headphones.com you can return them before a year if you are dissatisfied for a full refund, which is really dang good imo
Whoa that’s amazing. Looked at the pricing for some tho and looked quite expensive
Yeah, they don’t have the best prices, but the return policy is great
Word is if you email them inquiring on certain products they may be flexible with pricing (I haven’t done so myself, but I know of others who have).
They’re good people and they often offer B-stock specials as well. They’re also authorized sellers of all products that’s they carry, so all manufacturers warranties should be honored.
Oh, thank you i had missed that link somehow the past few months.
Back to the question on if we need expensive gear (with apologies if this point has been made already on this thread and I didn’t read closely enough to see it yet)…I personally struggle mightily with the ‘expensive gear’ question, and not just in audio, video, or other largely entertainment-oriented activities. Questions of proper resource allocation personally, locally, nationally, and globally are legitimate and important questions that need to be wrestled with by individuals and groups alike. I certainly cannot afford multi-kilobuck gear, and at times I’m deeply skeptical how much better a $100K speaker is than a $10K one or how much better the $10K speaker is than a $1K speaker (in fairness, I’ve never had the opportunity to listen to multi kilobuck gear in a proper setup). And I ask myself questions like ‘why are people buying $100K speakers (or $2M cars or $10K watches or spending $10K+ for the luxury box at a sporting event, etc.) when in my city of ~115000 people there are hundreds of elementary school children whose families are poor enough or whose parents are battling addictions to the point that the kids eat lunch at school on Friday and then don’t touch food again until breakfast Monday morning back at school?’
OTOH, it’s nearly impossible to predict what happens as the result of scientists and engineers spending lots of dollars to make discoveries or developing products that push the limits of the possible. As Neil deGrasse Tyson rightly points out, people asked Niehls Bohr and his team why they spent so much time and money studying tiny little particles that no one could see. But, because of that work, computers, transistors, and information technology are possible. Automatic transmissions? That started off as the expensive option on automobiles once upon a time. Now they’re pretty much standard. If there wasn’t a customer base out there willing to spend the money on such an innovation, would it have happened? Dunno.
So I haven’t answered the question. Just thought I’d share some things that I wrestle with on the general question. Thanks to all who have read my ramblings this far…
Happy New Year to all!
Ok on the topic of expensive gear, the Ifi Zen dac is fairly inexpensive. Is it any good? I see its not extremely powerfull but have any of you heard it. 6.35mm SE and 4.4mm balanced just for extra since its actually a dac? Want to pull the trigger on the liquid spark but then that baby cought my eye.
I see it has a 4.4mm balanced out at the back as well. Which means if you get the adaptors to XLR its a fully balanced dac as well.
I think it’s pretty good if you like a warmer signature and have a balanced headphone imo. Doesn’t have the most power behind it though. As a dac though for the price I think it’s great. It’s the traditional iFi burr brown implementation which has more smoothness and a warmer more enjoyable signature to me.
Mmmmmmm, now the question. Buy the liquid spark and use the dac in the fx audio for now. Or… ifi zen dac and use the 4.4mm balanced out for the Aiva and the later get the liquid spark to pair with it.
And it has that 365day return policy. And it looks very very good lol. Why must there be so many choices 