Last weekend I had a little trip back home to see the folks and catch up with a few friends whom I hadn't seen in far too long. Amongst this lot was the guy who first got me into sound engineering as a pimply teenager, and actually taught me how to use my ears properly. As a nice demonstration of causality, this is what led to my enjoyment of good hifi (because bog standard stuff sounds so crap). Anyway, I am wittering somewhat here.

I own a pair of respectably decent headphones (Sennheiser HD555s). They've lasted me through 3 years of battering and are still going strong and sounding good, I would highly recommend them to anyone. Meeting up with my friend Garan, he happened to mention that he had bought some new headphones (Beyer DT 880s), and would I like to have a listen. Naturally I said yes and spent a fun filled 15 minutes picking my chin up off the floor. To put it nicely, they were good. Really good. Ok, not Stax levels, but for something that was capable of being driven by an iPhone, they were most impressive. The trouble is, my otherwise perfectly good set of Sennheisers now sound decidedly average whenever I put them on, and sadly I don't have £300 to spare for a new set of headphones.

The moral of the story; if you cannot afford them, don't listen to them!

Gutted for you Jon!!

I know what you're talking about, but I've never experienced it with headphones

The DT880s get mentioned a lot over at Head-Fi.... that's another way to ruin a sound/headphone experience... you just keep hearing about how this is good and that is good etc... .

I hate capitalism, but I love HiFi.

All my kit is home made. I take a perverse pleasure in thinking "It could sound much better, and maybe one day I'll manage to improve it so it'll sound like that".

Jon, how about using a really crap set of 'phones for a bit, and then reverting to your Sennheisers?

That's not a bad idea. I may even still have my iPod headphones lying around somewhere, and they don't get much worse than that.

Or I could get a second job…

I had a pair of DT 880's but I replaced then with the DT990 Pro, although they are similar prices the 880 is supposed to be for home use and the 990 is more for recording and monitoring. However as the 990's are open I found them to be more relaxing with a wider soundstage and all the usual waffle used in Hifi land. I think its personal choice. Not sure how he drives the 880's with an iPhone though, they took some driving with a Project Headbox.

The reason the 880's would sound so good would be because the 555's are very laid back compared to the 880's and not anywhere near as revealing. I found the 880 to be very neutal and almost sterile. The 990 Pro although has a rather tight clamp pressure, has all the features of the 880 but more musical. The 595 are a good deal better than the 555 if you can find a pair secondhand. The 120 ohm version is good if you are amping them, they sound fantastic.

Just for clarity, it was my iPhone that I was using, that's not what he normally uses.