All you need to know is that you appreciate them all and to you, they are worth it.

I can rationalize the price when I remember that if I treat them well, they will last decades. Yeah, maybe I spent $500 now, but if I had spent that on something like Airpods (no hate, I have some) they would only last me a few years thanks to the batteries. Nothing about the headphones I have will stop working any time soon.

Not really, but kind of. DT 770 was my first headphone and I obviously liked it (fat sub-bass and spicy treble). With the knowledge I have today I would not buy it again. But can I really call it a regret? It's sturdy as hell, easy replacable and cheap parts and can be EQ'd. Then, I am still going down the IEM rabbit hole and have a bunch of IEMs that are not outright bad, but none of them satisfies me as an endgame should.

No regrets. Chalk it up as the cost of enjoying a hobby, which brings excitement and requires building your knowledge. If you have cans you don’t use as much anymore, sell them second hand and use the proceeds towards new gear. As we are all on different stages of the audio hobby progression, beginners can get into the hobby by buying well cared for gear at a fraction of the new price. I think cans are just one part of the bigger hobby picture. DACs, amps and music library also provide a source of technical learning and appreciation. The question is, what would you have spent your money on otherwise? If the answer is alcohol, drugs or partying, I’d say spending your money on audio has been a wise choice (haha).

I've been meaning to make this a post but it might not warrant its own thing: I don't regret buying headphones but I hate how much I feel the need to switch between them... having too many headphones is only annoying because of how often I rotate between them.

this was years ago, but my first "high-end" headphone was an HD800, which I bought blind because I just got a job and it looked cool and audio reviewers were raving about it... and I hated it. These days I'm more cognizant of just how subjective head-fi is, so I don't spend money I'm not comfortable wasting without listening to something with my own ears or the recommendation of someone whose opinions I trust completely. Though of course, sometimes you buy something and it turns out to be unreliable or uncomfortable for long stretches and so on.

A lot of summit fi or high end gear are not scams, they may actually be quantifiable/ subjectively better in a very small way… but the truth is almost 99% of those options terrible in price to performance value. And that’s exactly why they make them so expensive. They know the people buying them are either gear chasers, big wallet enthusiasts wanting to try the most refined audio listening experience using the best materials refined to increase performance by >.01%, or well off people who just want the “best.” But regrets depends on how you look at your emotional investment in the hobby.

For example, I’ve owned countless headphones low, mid, high tier. I recently went gear chasing looking for the ultimate sound and had utopias, lcd-5s, multiple zmf’s, heddphone, multiple Grados, and Dan Clark’s older ether flagship. Don’t forget countless hours researching and trying amp pairings. Out of all of those, the lcd-5s were, imo, the best daily driver for me after months of buying and selling. In the end I sold them all and now I only have an older black silk HD600 from 1996 with custom cans brass bass port mod and I’m quite happy to stay here at the moment.

So I have ‘regrets’ in the sense that I spent all this time, energy, and money looking for and having something truly special, yet in the end, the entire process made me realize that my hd600s were all that I really needed. They do something special regarding my subjective listening preferences while being 90% the performance of anything else above them. And this is my 4th time owning various iterations of the 600. But at the same time, going through through this ordeal has made me realize more of what I value most. The journey has been really fun, really agonizing, and I’m sure I’ll continue having waves of wanting more in the future.

I love this energy, keep looking and keep finding and trying different products. You'll find the ultimate product if you keep looking, or, it could be right in front of you... who knows right?

Aeon closed...

Great response, I'll do that. It's the entire journey of getting your first setup and enjoying and moving on which makes it worth it, in my mind at least. The learning is also why this hobby is so great, It's like peering inside a product authors mind and seeing why/what/if they choose there product to sound like. It's great

That's fair

I will admit I do have some regrets. In one way, I got to hear details that I hadn't heard in really cheap buds and speakers. And I did learn quite a bit of things about audio over the past few years. In another way, I became more focused on finding the "perfect sound" rather than listening to the actual music. I tried a few IEMs and headphones, only to be disappointed. Nowadays, I wouldn't feel as happy spending more money on high-end equipment and thinking about what "pairs" with what. I have been much happier just listening to my HD600's and even cheap stuff without thinking much about its flaws.

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Go read some golf forums and you'll feel great. Thousand dollar clubs, hundred dollar rounds, abusing yourself mentally over and over, and you don't even get to hear a great song. Golfers will spend 300 dollars on a new driver to get a few extra feet and then hit the ball into a lake and then throw the new 300 dollar driver into the lake. (the ball was $10)

Ever thrown your headphones into a lake after a bad song?

For the headphones themselves, not really. The only headphone that I could say I regret purchasing is the Fidelio X2HR, because it was so uncomfortable, but I returned it for a refund, so not really a regret.

There have been plenty of times when I've been initially disappointed with the sound of a headphone, like "I thought there would be more of a difference", but it's never turned into regret. Either I appreciate that headphone more over time, or I consider that headphone a good learning experience. The more headphones I try, the better I learn to discern and articulate the differences between them. I read something once that went like "I only regret making a choice if I ended up worse off than if I hadn't made it". Maybe not the best perspective for all of life's choices, but within the realm of headphones, that's the view I take. No headphone I've ever bought has permanently degraded my enjoyment of music, or of headphones, so I don't regret any headphone I bought.

I think it's interesting that you said, "Each of them is perfect in their own way". For much of my headphone journey, I was focused on finding a headphone that perfectly fit my preferences and did what I wanted a headphone to do. Now that I've more or less reached that point, I'm more interested in finding out what a headphone was meant to do. To judge a headphone based on how well it does what it was designed to do, and not judge it based on my preferences and what I want it to do. I've found that sort of open-minded approach to be so much more relaxed and enjoyable than looking for flaws and finding ways to reject a headphone because it doesn't fit my view of what a headphone should be.

I suppose my only regret from buying headphones is that it has skewed my perspective on what is expensive. I recall seeing the price of the Nvidia RTX 4090, at $1700, and thinking "oh not bad, that's about the price of the HD800S". Meanwhile, the rest of the PC hardware crowd was having a meltdown over the price.

no ragrets

Owned 30+ headphones over $100 and several fairly pricy amps and DACs. No regrets because most of that stuff was bought and sold secondhand, so no huge financial losses.

I think most of the regrets in this hobby come from people who are trapped in what they call "mid-fi hell" where they have a decent setup, but keep trying out endless numbers of headphones in the $300 to $1000 range trying to get to what's known as the "end game", or a personal perception that one has reached the absolute limit of audio performance for a certain dollar amount and they are satisfied with the sound. The reasons they are not satisfied are numerous and difficult to pinpoint. For some, they may have a bad digital to analog converter, but they might not have any experience with a good one or even believe that all converters sound the same so better ones don't exist. For others, they may be wanting a level of sound that is not achievable with whatever arbitrary financial limit they set themselves. Still others may be looking for qualities that don't exist in headphones (the ability to make Justin Bieber mp3s sound good, speaker-like spatial imaging, bass that rumbles your chair, etc.) Another problem is chasing what is known as the "hype train", where new headphones get enormous amounts of hype and anticipation before they are released. When you are on the hype train, it's easy to believe this next headphone will solve all your problems. But when it finally arrives, you realize it's just a different flavor of sound, not superior to what you already have.

Just to clarify a point for you, most people who are calling Hi-Fi a "scam" don't think headphones are a scam. Headphones obviously sound and measure differently. They think high priced electronics (digital to analog converter and amplifiers, the two types of electronics you need for a high end headphone system) are a scam in the sense that they don't provide an audible difference over cheap ones. There is a huge subjectivist/objectivist debate in audio where subjectivists think ANY kind of audio equipment sounds unique (and of course, the more money it costs the better it sounds) and objectivists think that expensive stuff sounds just the same as cheap stuff because their distortion is both under the limit of human audibility. Adding on to this problem, It's really difficult in this hobby to figure out whether electronics sound different without auditioning them, but there is no retail store to audition most of these niche products, so they just have to buy blind based on random forum reviews. So it's really difficult and frustrating to figure out if you have a "good" DAC or amp when you have only owned one your entire life, and have to choose to believe (or not) a better one is out there based entirely on forum randos. The best advice is listen and try with your own ears, do blind tests if you can, and be willing to listen without considering the price of what you are listening to.

I believe the people who have few regrets in the hobby have all followed a similar formula: buy lots of secondhand equipment and try it out so they have lots of reference points for what sounds good TO THEM. And going to meets so they have a chance to hear what truly high-end systems sound like. A minority have also been very successful with building DIY electronics at a fraction of the retail price.

I'm only 6 headphones into my journey and no regrets so far. I have been disappointed when a headphone didn't live up to the hype (DT177X) but I still try to appreciate them for what they are. I've learned which reviewers are helpful vs entertaining and I've also learned how to EQ (I like bass) so it's definitely been a learning experience that I've enjoyed.

My older brother, a non-audiophile person, referred to my ifi Go Blu as "snake oil"..... I was kind of speechless. haha! He's 43 (married with 2 kids) and spends his money on G.I. Joes and Legos. He probably has at least $30k invested between both hobbies but to his credit he does have some cool stuff. It is crazy what people will spend their money on and what they consider a scam...

I have not told him about the Burson Soloist 3x GT that I just splurged on.

I don't regret the sound or the experience because they're gorgeous but I ended up not liking the Meze 99s because the cable was so goddamn noisy.
They sounded fine for the price, and again, they were beautiful to look at, but at the end of the day I didn't enjoy having them on my head, so I ended up selling them.
Other cans I've been disappointed with (Beyerdynamic DT 770s, e.g.) I've returned within the return window, but I so wanted to love the Mezes that I held on to them until I ran out of space.
As a whole (i.e. not talking specific models I've been disappointed by), I now have a couple pairs in the $500 range and I think that's about as expensive as I'll ever need to go. My whole collection is sub-$2000 and I will continue to pretty much buy what I want when I want, as I've budgeted for my hobbies so I don't have to feel weird about spending money on them.

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I regret not picking up the LCD 2C for $450 from audeze's b stock sale this past black Friday. I don't really regret what I've bought so far (560s, Tripowin Olina, SMSL C200) since I got them all for a pretty decent price for new, though I probably could have gotten away with going for used, so maybe my regret is not keeping up with the used market.

Critical listening is a learned skill, not some inborn genetic talent. I think anyone with healthy hearing should be able to tell the difference between good and bad if they take the time to learn to what to listen for, meaning anyone who can't simply needs to put in some effort. Does instrument X sound louder than instrument Y in this track, or are they equally loud? is hardly Kaballist esoterica.

I have no regrets about spending money on stuff that I use for hours on most days.

I regret buying an AKG k7XX, for the price that they were the build quality and tonality was awful. I have since sold this for a tenth of price i bought it for.

I also regret buying an AudioEngine D1 DAC as that really didn't make a difference in sound quality compared to my onboard audio and didn't really offer any more volume. Although the optical input was handy sometimes.

Apart from that don't have any other regretful purchases.

I don’t regret anything, because if I buy a headphone I’m not sure about because I couldn’t test it, I always buy it used at a maximum of 50% MSRP. I can easily sell it again and get all my money back.

Also, about non-audiophiles: If you think in terms of price/performance ratio, if you happen to like a headphone that costs 2000$/€, and the tuning is different from Harman in a way that you like, the AKG K371 might have a terrible price/performance ratio for you specifically, because you’re after a better build quality and a different kind of sound.

Yeah, maaaaany years ago when I was younger and naive I made the mistake of buying a Nura Headphone, the advertising sold me. But wow, they were SO SHIT 💀 it feels horrible and the sound is catastrophic. I forgot to send it back to have my money back.. I have not touched it more than 5 times in total. And that’s how you lose 300€. Now I feel ashamed of being so stupid at the time.

I buy headphones for their unique drivers and have an interest in hearing subtle differences in each, so I don't regret it as the amusement comes from learning.

I don't buy top tier headphones as they will still be just another headphone, but I could've gotten multiple for the price of that one unit.

From trying many, I've learned that for sheer music enjoyment and accurate reproduction headphones are limited by their very nature, speakers are more complete sounding and IEM's have better tonality than headphones.

All in all I don't think expensive headphones are worth it, for just sound enjoyment.

My only regret is that I don't have the time to listen to each headphone in my collection enough. I have a few different ones that I use for different situations and I love them all but I feel guilty when I don't feel like I am spending enough time with each one. There's an argument that maybe a smaller collection, or even just one headphone, would solve that dilemma, but I really enjoy trying new gear.

I do have regret, but it's "learning experience", since I'm more interested in the gears (and reviewing them) than the music itself.

I imagine I would regret some kilobuck purchases due to incredible performance of the sub $500 IEMs this year. The IEM market moves so fast that buying kilobuck IEM is a risky move if you can't audition widely and carefully.

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In terms of headphones, ofcourse no, you have to try a lot of them to know what you like. And you can put a lot on re-sale, it's not a concern. I never went into the hyper expensive stuff.

I did regret investing in a marantz pm7200 just to use it as a headphone amp, but I didn't know better at the time. Also got a tube headphone amp that I soon regretted but I was very lucky to sell it for a good price. Overall, I'd say this hobby hasn't costed me much.