Dude this sub used to have folk Bashing the ER4XR because of Crin’s impression, Almost hounded 1990 when he showed It can output 12.5db of bass(155Hz low shelf). A reviewer here quitted after spamming how Grado fans are a cult.

The Crinacle lot are the worst since I was told a IEM needs 12mm DD or 2 BA woofers. But not long after hyped the ER2XR for It bass…unaware it using a 5.8mm & It THD was 1.9% at 1KHz/100db, The ER4XR is 0.7 ~ 0.98% at 1KHz/100db.

I recommend reviewers like headphone show crin z reviews dms the hifi garage, Joshua valour and just cross comparing what they say and maybe if you can try stuff each highly recommend and see whose taste are most inline with yours. For some reason people have extremely strong opinions in this niche even though any normal person you hand even the worst 5k headphone will probably like the sound and hate the price if want to not think about it get hd600/6x0 and be happy or use a speaker I dunno

This sub is garbage, tbh. Just demo demo demo, forget what people say and listen.

There are plenty of knowledgeable people here but the majority have no idea what they are taking about. Yes of course subjectivity is a thing and matters a ton particularly in regards to tonality but there are still certain characteristics that remain the same. The HD800S is the perfect example. Regardless of whether a person likes it or not some things remain the same. It has a very wide soundstage, it has very weak bass in terms of impact and extension and it is a bright headphone.

The real problem that we have in this sub is that most people have not heard very many headphones and so they just recommend what they have. It’s really funny if you cross reference users from this sub with headphoneadvice. What you will see is that a vast majority if you check the user flair on this sub that is what they always recommend in headphoneadvice regardless of the price. I mean how often are IEMs recommended when in the post the person says I hate IEMs. You just need to find someone that has heard a lot of headphones and can describe them without imparting their own thoughts but instead just those consistent traits. Feel free to PM and I can give you a full breakdown within your budget.

I feel you!

I believe most youtubers posting reviews videos have an agenda, regardless of what they may say…

I also believe many people commenting on reddit, have very little experience so they’ll often just rave about what they have, without having ever hearing anything else for comparison…

Only +/- reliable source of info is your own ears by personally experimenting the different headphones/gear you’re interested in… (which unfortunately not always possible of course…)

And I say +/- because even your own ears/brain are not always reliable either! ;-) And headphones is a piece of gear where true blind auditions are nearly impossible to do…

Welcome to literally any tech hobby. Cameras, guitars, headphones, keyboards, video games, they’re all the same. People will buy something and then dig their heels in the sand that whatever they buy is the best version of that thing and anyone not doing the same thing is dumb. You have to be able to filter out the dumb/obviously biased comments from ones that actually might be applicable to your question or point of interest.

Think of headphone reviews like restaurant reviews. On any restaurant, you’re going to find people with different views on how good that restaurant is. Some will say “this is the best German food I’ve had!” and others will say “this food was terrible!” Or some reviews say “this dish was too spicy”, and others will say “this [same] dish was perfectly spiced”. Same deal with quality of service, with some people saying the service is great and others saying it’s terrible. Some people don’t care about service, others deduct two stars because “food was wonderful, but the waitress didn’t smile. 3/5 stars.”

Reviews are good for both restaurants and headphones, as someone else said, to calibrate expectations. If I see a restaurant has many reviews saying how their Peking duck is great, I’ll probably try it for its Peking duck. I’m not actually that big a fan of Peking duck to begin with though, so I’ll probably try other restaurants first. Same thing with headphones; if many people like the mids on one headphone, I’ll probably check it out if I want to listen to a mid-centric presentation.

As you said in your edit, sound is subjective: you aren’t going to know how you feel until you listen for yourself.

The best thing to do is listen/watch as many reviews as possible - good and bad - and pay attention to the overlapping broad strokes. For example, most reviewers are going to say the HiFiMan Arya is a wide-sounding headphone, though they may disagree on the tonality. You take the defining characteristics that stick out and pursue it further if they interest you.

The most annoying thing about this hobby isn’t the different opinions, but how hard it is to actually listen to this stuff to form your own opinion. Most Hi-Fi stores don’t carry much headphone gear, if any. A lot of the time you have to just bite the bullet, make the purchase, and then decide to keep or return it/resell.

Once you’ve settled into your gear and know your preferences, you won’t have nearly as much review-stress, trust me.

You do make a good point. Just take each persons review with a grain of salt… I’ve been in this “Hobby” for over 2 decades. Way before this subreddit existed… and I bought headphones that people said where bass heavy and what not, from reviews on amazon and other sites, because this particular headphone I was looking at was not talked about in head-fi or here. And I did find some lemons where the reviewer stated clearly that said headphone had “good bass”/Pounding bass/strong bass/etc. later to find out that it wasn’t so to my hears… In other words this bass they bragged about in some headphones review was just like listening to the OEM speakers that come with TVs…

One interesting to note is that unlike coffee in which your taste buds (probably) remain largely the same as you age, it’s almost inevitable for all of us to have some level of hearing loss as we age. A few people on a beyerdynamic thread mentioned that they used to hate the sound of their headphones because it’s too sibilant or shouty. However as they age, they’re less sensitive to treble and actually prefer those headphones because other cans have become too dark for them. This goes to show that it can be very difficult to be less subjective in this hobby due to circumstantial factors - I even find hd600 with new pads to be a bit shouty because I’m very sensitive to treble.

Otherwise I do agree that people in this hobby are not great at communicating. When I was searching for a headphone with decent soundstage, r70x popped up. However some people mention that it has a narrow soundstage because they’re comparing it with an hd800, whilst those who say it has a wide soundstage are comparing it with hd600.

Also there is an unbelievable amount of snake oil products in this hobby lol

Something similar to a flavour wheel would definitely be helpful

HD650 is warm neutral , has great detail but small sound stage and bad imaging. That how I view hd650 and I think it’s consistent enough. I don’t think there will be anyone say it’s bright and bad resolution with wide stage and god tier imgaing to contrast my point. Good or bad are subjective but overall description is enough for you to consider.

Well, you can use frequency response to tell you some things, like if they are bass/treble heavy or v-shaped response. After that when you have heard some things that reviewers have also done reviews for to gauge how much your own taste aligns with various reviewers.