Q: In your opinion, what is the most underrated headphone you can buy?
A: Personally, I think the most underrated headphone today is the Fostex T50RP. I'll explain why.
First, they are planar magnetic headphones, and at $100 an incredible value at a time when most planars are priced at 8-10x as much (or more). Of course planars used to be super common in the 70s and early 80s, but today they occupy a more high-end niche.
Second, T50s can be modded to become something that is way beyond what the stock T50 is. It's like they are Tony Stark when they are stock -- lovable but with specific idiosyncrasies, and then you mod them and they become Iron Man - incredibly powerful and capable of delivering truly stellar sound.
Now I agree that most headphone mods are hit-or-miss, because they are described by amateurs (often badly), and variations in methods between one modder and another means that no 2 mods sound the same. So if someone does the Kramer mod on their Koss KSC75s and you try to emulate them, you will never get exactly the same sound that Kramer got, because Kramer never detailed where specifically to drill the damned holes to make the modded KSC75 sound the sweetest.
But there are some mods that can clearly be replicated, and everyone doing the mods will have exactly the same effects as the original modder intended. For example the Sennheiser HD555 foam mod (all you do is take out the foam pad, that's the same mod no matter who does it) or the AKG Q701 bass mod (ditto with the little circular tape thingy) but standardized mods aren't just for mid fi headphones, they exist even for endgame setups, for example the Anaxilus mod for the Sennheiser HD800 (which I would argue is almost mandatory if you own a HD800).
The T50 has the advantage that it has been extensively modded, so there is a lot of stuff out there on what various mods do. But until a dude called bluemonkeyflyer posted his mod, these were hit-or-miss (or trade secrets, for those folks who modded T50s for a living). What bluemonkeyflyer did was to quantify everything he did, from posting FR curves associated with each specific alteration, to objective evaluations of alternatives, and specific results. In short, he took the "art" of T50 modding and made it into a "science".
Which means that anyone can mod the T50RP in a consistent fashion. From the materials used to the amounts of stuff you have to use, everything is well described on the Internet. My T50 is the only headphones that I have modded that sound exactly like I want them to -- by using an iterative, step-wise approach to modding them I tuned them to fit my musical tastes like a glove -- but more importantly, so can you.
Keep in mind that commercial headphones like the Mad Dogs and Alpha Dogs are T50 mods, so you know what you can achieve if you mod your T50 well.
Plus, what a wonderful way to spend time, making small sequential changes in how a pair of headphones sound, listening, modding, listening, modding some more, tweaking the SQ to match your desire.
In Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind In The Willows", the Water Rat says: "Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolute nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
Just substitute "in boats" with "with headphones".
A: Personally, I think the most underrated headphone today is the Fostex T50RP. I'll explain why.
First, they are planar magnetic headphones, and at $100 an incredible value at a time when most planars are priced at 8-10x as much (or more). Of course planars used to be super common in the 70s and early 80s, but today they occupy a more high-end niche.
Second, T50s can be modded to become something that is way beyond what the stock T50 is. It's like they are Tony Stark when they are stock -- lovable but with specific idiosyncrasies, and then you mod them and they become Iron Man - incredibly powerful and capable of delivering truly stellar sound.
Now I agree that most headphone mods are hit-or-miss, because they are described by amateurs (often badly), and variations in methods between one modder and another means that no 2 mods sound the same. So if someone does the Kramer mod on their Koss KSC75s and you try to emulate them, you will never get exactly the same sound that Kramer got, because Kramer never detailed where specifically to drill the damned holes to make the modded KSC75 sound the sweetest.
But there are some mods that can clearly be replicated, and everyone doing the mods will have exactly the same effects as the original modder intended. For example the Sennheiser HD555 foam mod (all you do is take out the foam pad, that's the same mod no matter who does it) or the AKG Q701 bass mod (ditto with the little circular tape thingy) but standardized mods aren't just for mid fi headphones, they exist even for endgame setups, for example the Anaxilus mod for the Sennheiser HD800 (which I would argue is almost mandatory if you own a HD800).
The T50 has the advantage that it has been extensively modded, so there is a lot of stuff out there on what various mods do. But until a dude called bluemonkeyflyer posted his mod, these were hit-or-miss (or trade secrets, for those folks who modded T50s for a living). What bluemonkeyflyer did was to quantify everything he did, from posting FR curves associated with each specific alteration, to objective evaluations of alternatives, and specific results. In short, he took the "art" of T50 modding and made it into a "science".
Which means that anyone can mod the T50RP in a consistent fashion. From the materials used to the amounts of stuff you have to use, everything is well described on the Internet. My T50 is the only headphones that I have modded that sound exactly like I want them to -- by using an iterative, step-wise approach to modding them I tuned them to fit my musical tastes like a glove -- but more importantly, so can you.
Keep in mind that commercial headphones like the Mad Dogs and Alpha Dogs are T50 mods, so you know what you can achieve if you mod your T50 well.
Plus, what a wonderful way to spend time, making small sequential changes in how a pair of headphones sound, listening, modding, listening, modding some more, tweaking the SQ to match your desire.
In Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind In The Willows", the Water Rat says: "Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolute nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
Just substitute "in boats" with "with headphones".
