Best sounding headphones you have owned?

You cannot had listen mine...

The AKG K340 and even if you did, they must be optimized and it takes me 6 months to do it rightfully with 6 modifications...

Anyway, the ratio price ( 100 bucks used) sound quality beat anything and perhaps your own system...But only seeing an image i am pretty sure your system beat headphones...But not all , give me the BACCH filters and i will stay with them ....

by the way the reason why the AKG K340 beat all headphones i had listened to is precisely the acoustic patent of the designer the two hybrid cells , dynamical and electroacoustic are distributed along the same axis in a dual acoustic chamber with 5 passive tuned resonators...And my own modifications are acoustics too ...Remember that the shell of an headphone is a room...😊 Even if most headphone designer ignore this because of cost and profit even high end one ...

Kennerton representative when i ask him why they do not design an hybrid as the K340 answer to me: it is too hard to do with too much cost in research... Thats say something ...

You go too fast to your conclusion...

And even if you are right i am not too far behind you for a ridiculous price...

Eq. is an acoustic controls i used it with my headphone optimization , I dont use it as a toy for each songs...

By the way i always disliked all headphones... Till i was in the obligation selling my house to use one before setting my small speakers right ...Now i love headphones at least mine ...And remember it is recording dependant, but the K340 is able to reproduce the acoustic atmosphere of the recording ...The sound of many albums is out of my head speaker like so much i keep my eyes open to "see" the musicians... I only need the BACCH filters as upgrade to refine that...

Anyway at 100 bucks i am envious of no one... Even of the headphone you claimed i could never afford...😊

With your budget you could not do what i did even with a pair Of K340... They are not ready out of the box... We must learn how to use them... An astute headphone critic of stereophile  do a negative review bec ause he did not understand what they are and how to optimize them... It is the most complex headphone designed...

only factor that rules audio is acoustics not gear choice

Pretty much irrelevant with headphones. Room excluded. So other than little mods on the caps (Believe me I have tried them all), not much left. And EQ? 🤯🤯🤯😂😂

@thyname I see you commenting as an expert on phones, and also stating you have Meze Elite. As someone who at one time owned the top end Meze, I find your comments about your expertise interesting.

For the rest of you. Some interesting things are happening in the world of RAAL. To prepare I bought back the RAAL VM-1a amp (getting it again on Saturday) that I sold last year. I also sold my RAAL SR1a earphones yesterday.

This Saturday, I am going to do a comparison of the RAAL VM-1a with the RAAL CA-1a headphone and the following gear:

• RAAL VM-1a amp | Schitt Yggi+ LIM DAC
• modded PeachTree GAN1
• Schit Mjolnir preamp | Schitt Aegir amp | Schitt Yggi+ LIM DAC
• Holo Serene preamp | CODA #16 amp | Schitt Yggi+ LIM DAC

It will be interesting to see if the low-cost solutions can reach near the VM-1a level. When I did a similar test with my old VM-1a the low-cost gear came close. My new low-cost gear is even better.

@yyzsantabarbara Why did you sell your SR1a ‘phones?

@soix New ones coming out soon. It is being discussed on Head-fi. The new one is a mix of the CA-1a and SR1a. There are 3 ribbons instead of 1. I will also be selling my CA-1a but that will be after the new one is released. I need a phone until then.

@yyzsantabarbara :

Sorry my post came out harsh. I honestly don’t read the Mahgister’s long rumblings, but I understand he slammed me big time his usual polite passive aggressive canadian way. Oh well…

I am not an expert on headphones but I have owned many in my two forays in them in the past twenty years, so I have a good understanding how they work FOR ME. And me only.

Bottom line: last year I built the best headphones system money can buy. Second attempt to headphones since several years ago when my kids were born and were little and I had no choice. I found myself almost always going downstairs to listening to my speakers, rather than staying upstairs listening to my headphones, over many months. As simple as that. My listening time is limited as I work for a living. So here is that