Musical headphones, IEMs and headphone amps in 2018

[einj]

Hello everyone!

I have scrolled through the headphone threads in here a several times and currently own a few pairs of Skullcandy JIBs, AKG K24P and K550, (N60NC are coming), and some not-so-musical ones. Thanks for all the hard work of comparing gear, your recommendations are truly appreciated! Due to a new job I find myself listening quite a lot of music from headphones, so now it feels like the time to improve that set a bit, even though I do prefer listening to speakers.

So the question is, what are the current recommendations for musical headgear? If anyone has found a tuneful and mobile headphone amp/DAC, that would definitely be a sweet spot considering my usage. Currently using the older version of Audioquest Dragonfly, but eyeing towards Cambridge Audio DacMagic XS or Chord Mojo. Any idea which of those would be better regarding tune?

Thanks for your input!

[Tendaberry]

Try to listen to Grado PS500e with the Grado RA1 headphone amp, this combo easily betters my active Akubariks. The RA1 is also available in a battery version and the battery lasts very long.

[Spannko]

I’ve been looking for a decent pair of headphones for the last 40 years! I’ve now given up looking, which is what I should have done years ago! I’m convinced that it should be possible to design a musical pair of headphones, but it seems that the manufacturers are only interested in making their headphones sound more impressive than their competitors. Maybe for most people, a really musical pair of headphones would sound boring!

I’ve finally settled on a pair of AKG K92’s. Not because I think they’re a great pair of headphones, it’s just that they don’t do anything really badly and they can be bought for about £40. They’re a closed design, which for me is perfect. I can’t wear open back headphones in bed at night cos the misses makes me turn them off! I also find them better than noise cancelling headphones when traveling. They cut out “just” enough background noise for the music to drown it out. Open back headphones are terrible when traveling and although noise cancellers cut out slightly more noise, I don’t like the effect of the electronics. And, they’re “just” musical enough so that they’re not too annoying.

Someone else on the forum mentioned that the K92’s were their favourite headphones too (I’m not sure who it was), so maybe they’re better than I realise. I only drive them with the output of an iPhone or iPad, so maybe I could look into mobile headphone amps too, but at the moment I know absolutely nothing about them.