When you have a group of enthusiasts gathered around, certain things will tend to dominate the conversation. Certain headphones will gain praise over most. (To an alarming degree, which is where I agree with ya)

So when ten people praise a thing, more people will buy the thing, then more people will praise it, while a percentage will have a negative experience.

It’s not only headphone preference. There’s an even greater enthusiast market for listening sources. A different source can give someone a totally different experience. And from what I’ve heard, the hd600 is a very amp dependent headphone. So people are hearing different experiences in general.

There’s also a fuck ton of snake oil coming outta YouTube reviewers that flows into this forum.

It all just makes for a VERY frustrating hobby, when you can’t just try the shit before you buy it. I’m the type of guy that will do a stupid amount of research before I settle on something. It’s why I like the Deva over the Sundara.

This hobby is very subjective. But if you want to hang with knowledgeable, passionate people about this hobby, this sub isn’t it.

Visit the forums at Head-fi, HiFiGuides, The Headphone Forum and Sonus Apparatus if you want less bullshit and more information from people who really know what they’re talking about.

Isn’t fr graph the headphone equivalent of flavor wheel tho? You can kinda cross reference the headphones in question with the headphones you own to get an idea of what that reviewer is talking about. Also, like others have said, you can pick reviewers that align with your tastes more.

To me, the coffee community is sometimes wayy more snobbish and susceptible to placebo and misinformation. Like for example, people have been saying hiss is no good for aeropress, you need to pre-rinse the filter, you need to do pre-infusion etc. Then Hoffman comes around, did a blind test and found out that there is no or very minimal difference in taste for doing all those (he believed in the hiss thing before this too iirc)

Also, tasting a new coffee is just a matter of $10-$30 for a bag/a cup. It’s easy for people to “accumulate” their experiences. For headphones, people are shelling out something from $20-$2000++ for a new headphones. You can easily why an average joe on Reddit can’t have that much reference point to do a proper “review”.

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…

You can’t really complain about a community where 99% of the members don’t understand audio at a technical level and just parrot whatever audiophoolery they heard from a “reputable source” off the internet.

I feel like a good portion of headphones, especially IEMs which are recommended are not recommended because they’re objectively better specs-wise, or because it has a curve which is pleasing for the scenario the thing will be used for, but because they’re expensive, therefore must be good, or because there’s some anime artwork or mascot for that product.

This is on you. If you lack the ability to filter out unconstructive criticism, and can’t parse the more useful descriptions of experiences from the rest of the ramblings, then stick to testing headphones in person and call it a day. The rest of us don’t have a problem with how things are presented presently.

Also, you’re assuming everybody here only uses headphones for music. I have dedicated listening sessions, but I still use my headphones more for gaming and television/movies - reviewers going on and on about what music they listened to is useless to me.

Yes, sound is subjective, but, more importantly, headphones are relative. No headphone exists in a vacuum - everything is more or less than *<*a different headphone>. It’s 100% enough to know the general idea of how headphones perform, and how that performance compares to other offerings.

And another thing: this isn’t a professional review website. It’s a community of anybody and everybody. You’re expectations are too high. If you “hate it here” simply because the reviews aren’t trynig so hard to be objective, and aren’t as good as the websites on which people are paid to make good, useful reviews… then good. Fine. Leave. Do it. Quickly. Stop wasting your life here, trying to get something that was never here for you to find to begin with.

This sub should be changed to r/hd600

Every had different ears. You shouldn’t take any reviews on face value , best way for you to decide which one you should get is get into the store and test them yourself

You cant really do anything about it… cuz its very biased here. you just find one you love, and for some reason it just fits you better than others

I have the hottest of takes: Different people like different things.

Shocking, I know.

If you want to know whether you’ll like a headphone or not, go to an audio store and listen to it.

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’m just here for the opinions

It’s simple.
Audio is a solved thing meaning they’re all high fidelity, high quality headphones that are by and large the same.
People are arguing over minute differences that are all based on personal preferences.

I mean, headphones are subjective. Use your ears and find people who share your tastes.

What are you trying to get out of reviews that’s lacking? Outside of an obvious flaw that justifies saying “this is objectively bad” most headphones are fine from an objective standpoint. Beyond that it’s basically just the reviewer saying if they liked the sound or not, and what other headphones it’s most similar to. You have to either know what reviewers have similar taste to yours, or have heard enough other headphones for the comparisons to be meaningful. Without either of those, no, reviews aren’t really useful.