Why I stopped chasing the perfect headphones (and actually started listening to music)

When I tell people I test and review headphones, most assume I’ve fallen off the deep end into a hobby and gone pro to support my Gear Acquisition Syndrome. After all, that’s how most people get into gigs like this, so how am I different? Having access to virtually every product on the market, I learned that it’s not the gear that makes the listening experience good or bad — you need to keep in mind what really matters.

Headphones are a tool, nothing more

Before we get too far, I need to rip off the proverbial bandage: headphones are a tool for listening to music. Though modern wireless headphones have all sorts of features and add-ons, you use headphones to accomplish a task — you don’t buy them for the sake of having them. Almost every hobby has tales of ruined wallets and distress, but among audiophiles, the pursuit of audio quality has led to some absolutely absurd spending. But I got lucky — I was saved from an endless search for perfection by my experience with another hobby: photography.

When I started as an online journalist in 2011, I suddenly had a professional excuse to fixate on camera gear — and I took it. It’s much easier to buy something than to learn the limitations of your setup, and every new doodad that arrived in the mail felt like it solved a problem “forever.” Prime lenses, color cards, teleconverters, flashes… you name it, I accumulated it. None of it made my photos any better, and most of it just collected dust. I had it backwards: the gear doesn’t shoot great photos, the photographer does.

This should probably ring a few bells for those in the throes of chasing their “endgame” headphones. You’ve likely bought a few headphones or cheap IEMs, maybe with the mistaken impression that cost has anything to do with audio quality. Maybe you’ve scoured the internet for deals on a DAC or amp that would for sure make everything sound better… somehow. But after the initial thrill of the purchase wears off, how do you feel about the sound quality? Are you still as happy as you were when you first opened the box? Do you have a growing pile of gear that isn’t getting used?

I even started down that path a little bit in 2012, but after my second pair of headphones, I stopped. Sometime between building my own amplifier unit by hand and trying to justify the expense of a third set of cans, I realized that I was putting the cart before the horse. It didn’t matter which headphones I was using because, yet again, I was focused on the wrong things in my new hobby. I had way more fun building things and listening to music than I ever did getting something new, so I stopped chasing the new. I started treating headphones as a hobby instead of a spending addiction. But how does one do that?

It’s about the music, stupid

To put it bluntly, you should only buy new headphones if your current pair is broken. If your headphones fit well, stay charged, and do the things you ask of them, you don’t need new headphones. Any new headphones.

The whole point of headphones and earbuds is to listen to music. Everything else is less important. Just like amassing guitar pedals doesn’t make you Khn de Poitrine, collecting headphones doesn’t make you a better audiophile. Eventually, every hobbyist has to learn that the work behind the hobby is the reward, not the items you collect. Ever wonder why people take ages to fix up an old car? It’s because the work is the fun part. But it’s easy to miss that if you’re just getting into a new hobby, because audio’s low barrier to entry means most people are dropped into it without a game plan.

What most novices miss when starting out is that getting “better” headphones isn’t the same thing as getting the right ones, and you can’t paper over an unsatisfied emotional need by buying your way out of it. No amount of impulse buying will remove the need for making informed, intentional choices — or help you enjoy listening to music more. Buying things isn’t a hobby, and you won’t find your preferred sound by purchasing an endless string of different headphones or amps. You’ll find it by experimentation, education, and experience.

My journey as a shutterbug got a lot more rewarding after I accepted that chasing gear was a dead end. After eventually ditching my professional system for one that’s less forgiving to poor shooting skills, I had to get a lot better at the craft to overcome the camera’s shortcomings. Being forced to improve made my skills as a photographer explode. I even shot professionally with the “less capable” system for events, portraiture, and product photography for a decade — you hire a photographer, not the camera, after all. Nobody cares what gear I used; they only care that I snapped the right shots at the right time with the right stories. It’s the product of the gear that matters, not the gear itself. Likewise, you shouldn’t fixate on what headphones you own; rather, focus on whether you’re making the most of them.

Music is the reason you wanted better headphones in the first place. Music is the reason why you started reading reviews, articles, and scouring for deals about products. It’s the music you’ve listened to that evoked the feelings you’re hoping to achieve again by gear-chasing. If you need proof, try finding new tunes for a while instead of new gear. When you find some new jams that speak to you, you’ll scratch that itch you’ve been trying to get at with these expensive purchases. This advice might ring hollow from a guy so keyed into headphones that he lab tests them for a living, but that should give more weight to what I’m trying to tell you — not less.

Escaping the loop

Now that you’ve realized that the gear doesn’t matter, how do you recapture that dopamine hit? Just like I had to build myself up as a photographer, you’re going to have to build yourself up as an audiophile. Unfortunately, these skill-building exercises seem to be less popular with online forum-dwellers than they should be — so there’s a relative dearth of advice and reputable information online. Though some of these suggestions will function somewhat like a nicotine patch, I hope I can help someone else out by giving them the tools to re-frame their mind when it comes to headphones as a hobby. If my kids ever start hoarding headphones, these are the suggestions I’m going to give them:

• If you’ve recognized that you like that feeling of buying something new, but you want a more lasting high from it — isn’t a logical step buying music you like? Not only do you support the artists more directly, but it will eventually incentivize you to make your own library of tunes, and give you endless, less-expensive ways to pursue a hobby with the help of your headphones.
• Since overcoming obstacles also gives you the rush of achievement, why not teach yourself a skill like equalizing headphones or learning how to listen critically?
• Are you a curious type? Why not grab a like-minded friend and build an amplifier, headphone, or DAC kit to learn more about these devices? There are all sorts of options out there, from KiwiCo for the younger crowd to JDS Labs or Bottlehead for the hopelessly lost audiophile.
• If you’ve got all sorts of lost thoughts in your head about music, why not learn an instrument and make your own tunes?

As long as anyone reading this remembers that there’s so much more to being an audiophile than buying headphones, I’ll have accomplished my goal in writing this. For many years, I used to sign off my videos with “happy listening” — not “happy buying.” Maybe I’ll bring that back.