A Trip Down Headphone Memory Lane
Like many of my generation, born in the saucy 70?s, my first set of headphones was the pair that came with the Sony Walkman. And from what I remember of them - they were serious fun!
I never really took an interest in headphones after that, preferring to listen to vinyl and CD music pumped into my old hi-fi speakers handed-down to me by my Dad. Then in my teens, being an avid break-dancer, my tape-deck boom-box was added to my system for extra oomph. So yeah, I was a speaker guy.
Some years later, at the dawn of the new millennium I found myself working in an advertising job as a graphic designer and art director. I had an idea for a radio-station who happened to be one of the clients at the company I worked for. It involved a pair of headphones in the concept. So the photographer that was commissioned sourced a pair of new Sennheiser HD 497s for the shoot. When I first took a look at them I fell in love with the way they looked, and asked the photographer if I could keep them after the shoot. To my luck, he agreed!
They were my besties for over 10 years those HD 497?s. In hindsight, they were not the best sounding headphones I have ever heard, and they were not that easy to drive, and were pretty uncomfortable for long-listening sessions, but they opened me up to the so much great music. So for this reason they are my first love when it comes to headphones.
They fell-apart and disintegrated around 2010, and never got them fixed or replaced. But 11 years later, and with a bunch of other better headphones in my arsenal like Beyerdynamic, Grado, Hifiman, Koss etcetera - I still remember those old Sennheisers with great fondness.
Which headphones were your first love?
