The problem with music and sound is that every darned combination produces a slightly different sound signature. Now, if you don’t know any better because you haven’t yet tuned your ears or tastes go ahead and buy the coolest looking things you can afford. Personally I think Kennertons have an awesome look and ZMF too, that’s just me though, I have this thing about wood and using up the environment as much as i can before “I kick the bucket”…
I’m curious about your source, DAC, pre-amp, Amp, etc. We would love to see you spend a bundle of cash and enjoy the heck out of it. I love my “stuff”, all of it, this is a fun hobby and we are here to help each other enjoy. Happy Listening
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Yea thats me as well. And I get what you mean, to use lower price headphones to fine tune your taste and then go big with the headphone that suits my taste. Instead of buying the headphones to try them out, and trying to flip them and constantly keep changing them, wouldn’t it be more cost efficient to go to a store and listen to different ones to get a sense of your “taste”, and then to narrow down and research on what higher end headphones suit your taste?
That is correct, but that is more for general, once you narrow them down to like 3 models or something, you really would want to spend more time with them in a proper environment
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Where can you generally get second hand headphones so you can just try them out and flip them later on afterwards? So I can be exposed to more types of headphones with it being more cost efficient.
I personally like hifishark.com to look around for used units as it searches lots of places. You could also buy some from places with free no questions returns (amazon is a big one but don’t abuse it, headphones .com offers free returns on non sale items, and other sites as well)
Sounds good, if there are 3-5 headphones that I should try to find out my taste so I can really spend all my cash on a big bad boy, what 5 will it be
Its a good idea to get gear from a place where you can return it if your not happy with it or if your still searching for something to your taste. A place like Amazon or Headphones.com (read their return policy). theres a lot of places that will accept returns.
When i got into this wonderful hobby, I moved from headphone to headphone, improved my amps and dacs, watched reviews, chatted on the forums and just had a ball. I do i hate to see you deprived of that. Even the beginner tier (if you get the right headphones) are quite good. Who knows? you may be satisfied with something quite economical lol. I’d pay attention to Mon’s advice. he and people like him have a lot of experience with this hobby and will steer you right.
The thing about this is its more more complex and deeper than i at first thought. Much to my surprise. We’re dealing with sound. and like anything that complicated, theres gonna be a lot to investigate and understand. So take your time and have fun with it. Discover your music like never before.
But skip the beginner tier if you already have some experience with it.
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Well lol, that’s a bit question, so like are you asking for what 5 headphones would represent the most signatures
Yea, if you need more than 5 feel free to add more
Thanks for the detailed reply 
This is gonna be good
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What budget are you thinking for each headphone?
Under 1K? RIP my wallet bois, here we go.
btw, do I also get the questyle amp you told me about for each one?
What questsyle amp?
questyle cma400i
I would say that questyle amp would be nice imo, would be a good benchmark amp
So my picks for open back would be the focal elex, lcd 2 classic, dt1990, esp95x, hd600.
If you want to go closed I can give a list for that as well lol.
So of course these picks don’t represent everything, but it can give you a good idea of how things sound different
Alright thank you too muchhh. Rightt now I am only going for open back headphones. Can you quickly talk about the what each headphone from the list “specialises” in.
Elex: slightly W shaped headphone that still sounds neutral, with excellent detail and dynamics, with a 360 degree ish imaging and soundstage that can be intimate and wide on the track, very impressive
LCD 2 Classic: Wide, warm and bassy with darker treble with good impact and slam, traditional planar with good layering too
DT1990: Brighter neutral signature with an aggressive sound with impressive more traditional soundstage and imaging
ESP95x: Estat, light and airy with great detail but lacking impact and organic tonality
HD600 for intimate sound with a reference signature that will pair with a tube well in the future, a reference for many
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This is my humble opinion. I would skip the 95x. Been listening to it lately and i find it really lacking. And i would replace it with the Sivga 2P. which is a copy of the great Aiva headphone. The Elex gets my vote though.
The Elex: Dynamic, Aluminum-Magnesium. great all arounder. good bass, midrange, treble, detail, imaging everything. not too dark, not too bright. but its not nuetral. its W shaped, which means the treble, bass and midrange are slightly turned up. makes for a more exciting headphone.
LCD2C: Planar Magnetic, 106 mm. i havnt heard it. but i hear its an excellent headphone. its a dark headphone. this is what the dark sounds like i think. I dont like dark headphones
DT1990: Dynamic Tesla Neodymium driver. I haven’t heard it. I was surprised he put the elex and dt1990 i hear they are similar to the elex. but brighter.
95x: Electrostatic. i have this and the detail is great. and you got that great estat speed. but is lacking. this is the headphone that convinced me not to go for the stax L700. also hard to care for.
HD600: Dynamic, Plastic composite. i had this. this is a great reference headphone. kinda legendary. very good dynamics but its is warm boarding on dark. but they say this headphone is awesome on tubes. so if you want to see what tubes are like, maybe this one.
Sivga p2: Planar Magnetic, 97x76mm diaphram. This is a very bright, treble headphone, but without pain. very intimate. its wonderful and detailed. this is my treble headphone. this is a V shaped headphone (which seem to be popular these days). which means that the bass and treble are elevated
Fostex Ebony: Dynamic, biodynamic. I would like to include this headphone. problem is they dont make them anymore. you’ll have to find it used. but the pads are leather and easy to clean with alcohol or something. This is bassy. i didnt know i liked bassy till i heard this. bassy headphones are awesome and a lot of fun. and you can send it to Lawson and make it sound even better with his mods. If you dont want used maybe Mon can suggest a headphone that Fostex has in production to replace?
So thats it. I got my Treble headphone: Sendy Aiva (Sivga). My Bass headphone: Fostex Ebony. My exciting Balanced headphone: Focal Elex. And my tube headphone Sennheiser HD600. I dont have a Nuetral headphone yet, not sure in this price range (which is 300$-600$ a good sweet spot) which headphone that would be, i was thinking one of the Audio Technica’s. My amp is the Sp200, a THX amp. and a SMSL SU8 DAC. I use Foobar 2000 player
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Oops, forgot to mention that the Sivga is a V shaped headphone (which seem to be popular these days). which means that the bass and treble are elevated. so it has nice bass too