One of the things I love about the headphone hobby is that it’s still possible for small, initially one man shop businesses to come up with artisan headphones that can compete with the flagships from goliath companies like Sennheiser and Sony. HiFiMan, Dan Clark Audio (formerly MrSpeakers) and ZMF are three who have done just that coming up with highly competitive headphones in both price and performance. Like Dan Clark, Zach Mehrbach got his start modifying the Fostex T50RP. When he began creating original designs, his craftsmanship, engineering...

Most people balk at spending more than $20 on a pair of headphones, given the disposable history of a typical portable consumer headphones for the past 35 years. Music lovers who do invest in a full size set of over-the ear cans, 9 times out of 10 they’re terrible sounding Beats or average sounding Bose noise reduction headphones. When flagships are selling for over $1,000, and more frequently more than $3,000, it’s understandable that the audiophile world can seem inaccessible to anyone but the most fervent hobbyists, obsessed music fiends, industry...

It’s Black Friday, and what’s more black than to buy a good pair of headphones for your favorite rocker or metalhead. Today the headphone audiophile community is buzzing about what may become a historic event in headphone history. Massdrop and Fostex have collaborated to create the best value in closed back headphones you can find today, with the Fostex TH-X00. This isn’t the first time Massdrop has collaborated with an audiophile headphone manufacturer. Will Bright, who participated in the Head-Fi forums since he was a teenager, is the head of...

The evolution of headphones has been fascinating to watch over the years. Pretty much everyone aged 50 and younger has grown up using headphones, and have owned many, many pairs. Some may remember the crappy headphones that came with the original Walkman and its progeny that would usually break long before the foam covers would wear off. They were an afterthought, although Sony’s 1979 introduction of the 3.5mm “minijack” stereo connector was useful. In some ways things haven’t changed much since then, as headphones associated with portable audio is...