It occurred to me that things which work well are often under-represented online. I absolutely love my listening headphones, so I thought I'd write a quick post about them.

To say I love music is an understatement. My iTunes... er... Apple Music library is has 61.5 days of it. And I am reasonably picky. And unlike my Steam library, I have listened to all of it! Many times over.

I also tend to listen a lot in situations where headphones are the best output device. Either nobody else is awake (I'm listening to Arthur Rbenstein's performance of Chopin's Nocturnes right now, if that gives you a clue) or others are very much around who may not appreciate classic trance blasting at 100dB. Headphones are a really fantastic way to listen to music, and if you care about quality, they are some of the best bang for your buck. You can get some AMAZING quality cans for a fraction of what you'd pay for a comparable speaker setup.

But headphones are also hard to get right, and highly personal. What follows is my current favorite, and the journey to here. I'll try to note cases where I'm aware of my own subjectivity. but I probably won't get everything.

What Makes a Good Headphone for Me

I've worn headphones for a significant chunk of my computer time (an inordinate portion of my life) since 2011 or so. That's about 15 years at the time of this writing. Here are some things that are important for me (or not important), which may help frame my opinion:

• Excellent sound quality is non-negotiable. No AirPods, sorry.
• Relatively natural frequency response is also important to me. I really dislike units which skew the response (usually to the bass side for popular brands).
• I strongly dislike closed back designs since they kinda kill the sound stage depth and make me feel like I have ear muffs on dampening everything around me. For reference, I tend to work in more or less quiet environments, and that's where I do much of my listening. I also strongly dislike active noise cancelling as it makes me feel like I've got a cold.
• They need to be light enough to wear for ~2 hours.

Previous Cans

Over the years, I've really liked Sennheiser. I had several mid to high end pairs over the years. I rather liked my HD558s from years past. They were mostly neutral response and open back. But those were a long time ago (I bought them in 2013). And current Sennheiser isn't what they once were.

More recently, I bought the Grado 325x. They were crisp on the high end. But after about 8 months, I couldn't stand them any more. Thery were far too unforgiving of all but a perfectly mastered track. The lower frequencies were off, especially for electronic music (but sounded great for rock). They were heavy. They were uncomfortable (I hated the headband and the weird angle of the earpieces, which look cool as a piece of steampunk concept art but are highly impractcial IMO).

To make matters worse, the cable is non-detatchable and soldered all the way through. It also weighs a ton and is super inflexible. I hear there are a bunch of people that do cable mods, but by the time my pair developed a loose connection (probably due to the above) that made them practically unlistenable, I was ready for something else.

Current setup

Moderately annoyed, I decided to buy some new headphones almost a year ago. I didn't find much help in reviews honestly, and you probably shouldn't expect to here either. But I ended up going for some Beyerdynamic DT 900 Pro X's. I definitely over-indexed on the detatchable cable by the way (I haven't had a single issue with the cabling, nor have I bothered detaching it, but it's the principle of the thing). The sound quality on these is excellent, and they have a better sound stage than my old Sennheiser's. I liked some things about the Grados better, but these are way more versatile. They are also comfortable to wear for 2-3 hours: they are lighter, and the cushioning is amazing. Especially with my glasses. My only complaint is they are a bit tight fitting for my large head, and I can actually hear some squeaks from my glasses frame when moving around sometimes.

Headphones also need a solid amp (+ DAC if you're using it like most people). I currently use a Schiit Magni. A ridiculously under-priced amp+DAC. I really don't have much to say except that it's an excellent little unit that sounds great. I haven't had any issues in the 2 years I've owned it, beyond the decade and change issues with certain music players not filling buffers fast enough during a cold start of a new album.