Headphones? Anyone?

I have done a lot of headphone research and some listening of late.

Its very hard to choose on paper these days other than style maybe. So many good ones and headphone preference is a very personal thing.

I really like the Klipsch phones I have heard, both in and on ear. Seem pretty flat top to bottom but with bass that sounds more right to my ears compared to many phones. I bought the in-ear buds and those are quite good for the money as buds go. The on ear models sounded similarly good when I heard them.

I am still a Stax fan also for the combo of sound and low fatigue and have a pair of older Stax electrets. These are hard to find in US these days it seems but I would go out of my way for Stax electrostat headphones still if I were in teh market for a new pair. Most Stax require higher voltage than most phones and run off speaker outputs via custom transformer though, not off line level as with most headphone amps.

It seems to me with headphones that sound quality and fatigue are two big things to consider independently.

Headphones and in-ear buds in particular can easily become fatiguing, even in many cases where sound quality is technically excellent. In the case of in-ear buds, you are pretty much injecting the sound directly into your ears. Very efficient but correspondingly also potentially very fatiguing!

For this reason, I am a fan of dynamic speakers but of eletrostat headphones, like the Stax and a few others. The dynamics of eletrostat drivers tend to be less fatiguing in general when done well. Much better suited for direct exposure to the ear IMHO in terms of low listening fatigue and longer listening sessions.

AKG has always had a lot to offer audiophiles for quite some time now. If I were to add another pair, AKG is where I might look first.