Which headphone/amp/DAC got you into this nonsense?

iPod Classic 3rd gen and Koss KSC-75.

 

Violectric V800
Woo WA3+
Sennheiser HD580

 

BH Crack, HD600, Modi MB.

 

Aiwa HS-370, then TX-656 cassette players, w/ Sony MDR-A20s or MDR-D77 eggos!

 

Senn 579's on my iphone in a Fry's parking lot.

I wanted more Sennheiser so I chose HD800's and then google brought me to Marv's old best amps page. Here I am 5+ years later.

 

My first headphones, which I owned for years until the pads flaked away completely, was the MDR-7506. I remember reading some article somewhere saying that engineers used these for mixing and mastering and I figured if they were good enough for them, they were good enough for me. Only later did I learn why that was a poor assumption.

 

Akai ASE-20 'phones from the headphone jack of an Akai GXC-38 cassette deck, usually on record & pause because the Leak Stereo 30 didn't have a headphone jack but I could monitor the signal from the Garrard 60B TT (with Shure M44 cart!) this way. I recovered the headphones a couple of months back after going through my father's house back in NZ after he died. The pads need a bit of surgery but I'll put up some measurements and impressions when I get some time.

Later (late 80s) I upgraded my portable/boombox listening with Sony MDR-V1s. Those were hard to drive, but were a definite step up from the things that came with Walkman-type players. Then in the mid 90s, Sennheiser HD320s - which I still have.

 

Grado SR-60s and a PowerBook G4 back in the early 2000s

 

Sennheiser PX-100 (mk 1) and whatever on-board DAC for a long time. Fast-forward 15 years later, I saw some company named Drop advertising the HD6XX and read that it was pretty much the fabled HD650 in a different colorway. So I picked that up along with a Magni 3/Modi 3 stack and went from there.

 

HD 555s out of a super, super cheap Walmart returned special Sony surround sound thing.

But before that, my dad got me into audio with a sick vintage integrated amp, a Pioneer cd player, full eq, and a pair of Bose 601s. He gave me a few pair of headphones (no idea what) I would use at night. I think Im still looking for the sound I remember hearing then.

That was middle school/high school for me.

 

Koss PortaPro from a Marantz 2270. We had no DAC!

 

I remember the HD555 were a really common gateway for a lot of people back before 2010. I also remember them being the worst headphones I've ever heard.

I got to listen to my neighbour's set, he was so proud when he handed them over! Slow, bloated, muffled, horrible. About the only redeeming feature was they were very comfortable and non-fatiguing. I kind of smiled, then offered him a listen of my collection...... as I passed him each of phones I had at the time (first KSC-75, then Alessandro MS-1, then Audio Technica AD-900) his face just kept dropping further and further. He went back to the HD555, and just gave a look of sheer disgust. When I told him the prices (the KSC-75 and MS-1 were cheaper!) he just swore and walked away.

TLDR; I'm glad you're in the hobby. Because if I started with the HD555, I probably would have given up years ago.

 

Modi MB/Vali 1/HD600

 

I think I’m in this non sense since my childhood. My mom tells me that I wouldn’t feed as a kid without music playing. Obviously that time I had my father’s stereo to listen to and then later once I moved to hostel I got my own Walkman with cheap earbuds and once I had the means I got Cowon DAP /iPod Touch and some Sennheiser and Klipsch earbuds as first major earbuds/ headphone purchase.

 

Magni
Modi
HE560

Was my first setup. So glad I kept going.

 

Lol! Next was a 595, and between that and a DT990 (wow treble) I kept the 595. Eventually landed on a HD600 a year later which was a revelation to me. Then the dac and amp and planer madness set in.

I wish I had a friend like you back then. No one I knew was into headphones.

 

Bifrost Uber > Asgard 2 > Shure 1540 for fullsize headphones. My 2-channel history goes back to the early 1970s, and I also had a significant period of original iPod through earbuds or 2-channel preamp 2001-2008. Got back into better 2-channel in 2012, then the above system for work listening, then the rabbit hole.

 

Focal Spirit One out of phones and questionable CD players, bought for cheap when the QC problems were emerging.

Wasn't too comfortable, eventually needed to be held together with duct tape because the plastic frame didn't like the shape of my head. Still sounded better than everything else I'd tried to that point, so I was willing to deal.