I’ve been out of the hifi world for a number of years, but now that I’ve been having to replace my desktop dac/amp and have had to spent the past couple of weeks online on hifi forums looking at and reading about different units, I’ve been pulled back in and would now like to start thinking about maybe upgrading my headphone.
My apologies, beforehand, for making another “recommend me a headphone” thread, but I have browsed through most recommendation threads and while I did find a couple of potential candidates (see below) I couldn’t really find one with similar requirements or for a similar price point. Turns out headphones are quite personal - who would’ve thunk it?
To make it easy (or perhaps not), I don’t have any specific wishes in terms of its signature. I’m just really looking for an overall noticeable improvement to what I’ve had so far. I listen to all kinds of music, from electronic to classical, so I would like one that not necessarily excels, but just does well across the board.
So far I’ve had the Ultrasone HFI-780, which I bought over 10 years ago when I was still listening to and producing bass-heavy electronic music, but I’ve relatively recently replaced that with a Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 250 ohm because I needed a headphone with more comfortable pads for work.
While very comfortable and definitely not terrible in terms of sound, I find the sound of the Beyer a little fatiguing in the higher end when listening to music at a higher volume and for extended periods of time. So perhaps I need something warmer.
Another requirement is it having detachable cables so that I can attach a balanced cable to it (I would like to be able to connect it to my amp’s balanced output, since I’ve never tried that).
Next, open or closed back doesn’t really matter to me. It will only be used for my pc setup, so noise cancellation isn’t an absolute necessity. I do find bass relatively important, but I would assume that any decent open back headphone still delivers in that area.
Now, the most important factor: I would like to keep this under €500,- (so let’s say $600.-). Again, I’m not looking for something super high end that excels in every conceivable way and gives me the best possible experience, I’m just looking for a nice hifi headphone that will noticeably give me an overall improvement in sound quality for all types of music and will last me for years as a daily driver for music listening.
Here’s what I’ve been looking at so far (in order of price in €50 increments):
- HiFiMan Sundara
- Denon AH-D5200 (I’ve had a good experience with Denon in-ears in the past)
- Audeze LCD-1
- Aeon Flow RT (open/closed, I don’t know)
Please let me know if any of these 4 don’t actually meet my requirements (I’ve heard something strange about the cables on the LCD-1, for instance, which I didn’t quite understand) and please don’t refrain from asking me further questions on my tastes, wishes, etc.
I’m not at all set on these 4, so I welcome any and all recommendations.
Thanks!