Comments on Profile Post by Failed Engineer

Excepting cases of obvious underamping like the Susvara and SR-007 and others that can produce sound with the wrong amps but not music.

Reason I ask is that the headphones I've loved over the years I've pretty much known from first listen and while electronics in front of it can make subtle changes it cannot transform the innate character of headphone, and that innate character is what a listener either loves or doesn't.

You can convince yourself for several months or a year but you'll look for something different if it's not a love at first sight sort of thing. I wonder if my hypothesis has any merit in the hobby or is it my own peculiarities?

I had a KSC75 sit in a drawer for like 4 years after it being my daily driver for about 2. Now it's mostly all I listen to.

Why do you think that was? Did you just take a break completely from the hobby or did you use a different headphone for those 4 years? Thanks for replying. I am genuinely curious.

Not exactly what you're asking but I appreciate my Verite open more every year I spend with it.

Not to sound generic, but the HD6xx. Sucky gear in the beginning = Senn Veil syndrome. Who the hell wants a hp with recessed everything, and murky everything? Only after putting it with an OTL amp, and combination of burn in, and probably a dac upgrade, did everything align and magic happened. Otherwise, I was ready to return that sucker.

Original Utopia. Didn't want one from 2016 until about 2020/21 when I found the right setup.

Still has the same flaws, current setup just makes them more bearable while not changing the sound drastically and doesn't muddy up the sound up to conceal flaws and give fake easy listening (what I feel like the new Utopia does to a small degree).

I had a similar experience going from a highly tuned system w/ a Mad Dog Pro to a ZMF Auteur. it took me several months to go from the heavily processed chain to appreciating what the ZMF naturally did so well. The mad dog is now in my backup system.

K7XX and Mee P1. Both I liked but didn't love when I first got them. The P1 didn't initially work because of poor fit. Tried again after years in a drawer and never stopped using them. The K7XX were in the shadow of my Senns. No fault of theirs. Now they are my go-to for secondary set ups, with no desire for anything else.

Original Utopia here too. I’ve had them since 2017, but didn’t truly engage with them until they were paired with a Feliks Euforia or WA33. Utopia really can be entirely transformed by upstream hardware.

HD600 for me had one for years and was amping it wrong. Got HD650 and liked it better. These days I love them equally.

HD650 was meh until the right amp opened it up.
VO seemed overhyped until I changed the pads and got the right chain going.

Good question. Well the DT48 comes to mind but those things need a specific amount of power to wake up that driver. Too much hassle at one point and they had to go. The HD600 is a headphone that takes some time. After dozens of all kinds of headphone that neutral-ish sound was not a "wow" sounding thing. With the right tube, you can be in audio heaven though.