I started my headphones journey with Sennheiser HD 380s. Nothing earth-shattering, but not bad. I had a somewhat decent speaker system already, so I didn't really see the point in having headphones too. Then I found this subreddit, and found out there's an entire hobby here.

I quickly decided to get a pair of Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pros. I was happy with them for a year or two. I bought a basic DAC/amp combo from Topping, and figured this was pretty much it as far as contentment with a pair of headphones was concerned.

I then heard about planar magnetic and also decided I wanted to try open-backed. This time, I spent more time thinking it over, since the price increase was fairly big for my wallet. I read a lot of reviews. I eventually narrowed it down to two offerings from Hifiman, the Sundaras and the Anandas. The reviews didn't all agree on the differences, but the gist of it seemed to be that the Anandas are more neutral, and the Sundaras more lively.

Well, I've spent about four hours listening on these, and I'm thrilled. I finally know what people mean when they say soundstage. Why open-backed is a good thing. This might be placebo to some extent, but I'm picking up details in music that I had never noticed before.

I can still see myself using the DT 770s, mainly for gaming. I'm not sure if I'll buy a more expensive pair after these, but then again, that's what I said when I bought my previous ones..