Phil's Superpower of Enthusiasm

A place to write about things I enjoy, for my own edification. Headphones, audio gear, albums, whiskey, wine, golden retrievers etc.

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Lawyer, unabashed nerd and geek. Purveyor and pusher of excellent sci-fi/fantasy, good food, and repartee. He/him. Dog dad/servant to @Goldendenali.

I’m experimenting with Amazon Affiliate status in an attempt to defray some of the costs of headphone reviews; Amazon links may be affiliate links (depending on whether or not I’ve figured out how to use them correctly). Please feel free to buy elsewhere; this is just one way to recoup the costs of this hobby.

  • On being a 43-year-old Deadbeat

    In February, after three reorganizations in six months, the Gates Foundation eliminated my work group and laid me and my colleagues off. For me, it was more unexpected with regards to the timing, rather than the fact of the lay off itself. After the last couple of reorganizations, I more or less figured the writing was on the wall. I just expected it to happen this summer, rather than this winter. When I walked into a meeting in late February, I didn’t think that would be the day until my boss’s boss told me to hold on a minute because someone else was joining us. I figured she was a new team member (the group had been expanding, after all) right up until she introduced herself as being from HR. Good times.

    Even though I’d been half-expecting it, oh man did it hurt.

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  • My Headphone Review Methodology Explained

    When I decide I want to review something, here’s my methodology:

    The actual methodology:

    1. Pick the product, and avoid reviews, videos, and data about the headphones as much as possible.1
    2. Acquisition: figure out how to acquire the product and actually get it in my hands.2
    3. Brain burn-in: listen to the product for 10-15 hours as background, with albums that I like and know well.3 By the end of this, I’ve usually figured out what amp/DAC combination I want to use for the review (based on both my philosophy of resource allocation in headfi AND what sounds reasonably good). I mostly avoid EQ at this stage unless something is glaringly bad, and if it’s that bad, I’ll probably just stop the review.4
    4. Critical listening: listen to the product for 4-5 hours in the foreground, paying attention to performance and making notes along the way.5
    5. Writing: draft the bulk of the review (usually 4-10 hours of active listening, testing, and writing).
    6. Comparisons: pick the comparables, and do extensive A/B testing with them.
    7. Editing: edit the review (reading it aloud helps me pick up on word errors).
    8. Find frequency response graphs for the headphones and read reviews from reviewers whose opinions I trust, to see if anything I heard stands out as divergent. If I have wildly different perspectives from other people (or the graphs have something like a giant treble spike I didn’t hear), go back and to targeted re-listening to confirm. Update appropriately.
    9. Photography: draft the list of photographs that I think would enhance the review, and do the product photography!
    10. Finalize: format, insert pictures, double-check spelling, and upload to WordPress.
    11. Finishing touches: pick the overall and cost-adjusted scores (in X out of 10 Denalis), write the TL;DR, and publish.
    12. Post to Reddit/elsewhere.

    All told, this is somewhere between a 30-40 hour commitment per review, which is why I tend to focus on the things that I like. If I get a few hours into listening to something and I really don’t like it, I *might* decide to try applying a little EQ if the issue is just something like bloated bass or spicy treble. I also might just decide to add it to the “I won’t review this” list.6 Life’s too short.

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  • Meze 105 AER Review; Another Great Meze Product

    [Original MSRP $399.99, currently $339 on Amazon, purchased open-box from Headphones.com for $300 with store credit.]

    [Tl;dr: The Meze 105 AER are a genuinely impressive pair of headphones. While they’re not quite as good as the 109 Pro as an overall headphone to my ears, they correct the one notable tuning flaw in the 109 (occasionally spicy treble) and will be a better fit for many people. I would say that they get you 90-95% of the performance of the 109, and at half the price. I think these have displaced the Edition XS and Fiio FT1 Pro from my rotation and may even edge the 6XX out over time.

    If you want a warm, rich sound with good detail retrieval and don’t want to drop almost $800 on a pair of 109s, I recommend these to you whole-heartedly.

    Scores:

    Cost-agnostic: 9 out of 10 Denalis

    Cost-sensitive: 10 out of 10 Denalis]

    Bass1MidsTrebleSoundstageComfort/Fit2
    Meze 105 AER4B4B4B4CB
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  • Phil’s Sheet of IEM Goodness

    Over the years, I’ve listened to a lot of in-ear monitors (aka IEMs); some good (Tangzu Wan’er 2), some bad (anything by KZ, really), and some ugly (the CCA CRA). They range wildly in price, but I tend towards the less expensive ones just becaus they’re more fun. Very few of them are worth doing a full-on review (which take me somewhere between 10 and 15 hours of listening before I even start engaging with them critically), but I often get asked on Reddit or other forums what my recommendations are for them. I’m in the process of writing a buyers guide to heapdhones to pair with my Hifi 101: Practical Applications post, but in the meantime I figured I ought to publish a version of the spreadsheet I use to keep track of my impressions. A few important caveats:

    1. These are pretty quick listening sessions for the most part, probably 30-45 minutes each instead of the several weeks I do for full reviews.
    2. Some of the entries have full reviews (Airpods Pro 2, Status Audio Between ANC, etc.), but most don’t (in some cases, don’t *YET*).
    3. IEMs move pretty damned quickly; my guess is that most of these will have a replacement version sometime in 2025 or 2026. There’s no way to keep up, but old models are often available for years after they’ve been superceded.

    My scoring system is pretty basic; I assign a score from 1 – 5 on each of the following dimensions: bass, mids, treble, soundstage, comfort/fitment, and then combine it to both an overall score and a cost-adjusted score. For most, I also provide some quick listening notes, a note about the fitment that worked for me, and a note on the broad tuning.

    These scores are a little different than most of my reviews. A 3 is a competent score for a particular component: it’s what I expect from an IEM. A 2 is disappointing, and a 1 is a clear not for me. On the other side, 4 means good, and 5 means best in class. If something feels like it’s between scores, I let myself assign a “+” to the number. For the overall score, a 3 or 4 is a recommendation to listen, a 1 or 2 is a recommendation to skip, and a 5 is worth a blind buy in my opinion. There are around 10 value-adjusted 5s on here, but all but two of them are under $25 and all but one under $40. That’s the beauty of the IEM market in 2025.

    [Sorry for the horrendous formatting; still trying to figure out how to post this cleanly. The actual sheet is public, and available here.]

  • The Bose Quietcomfort SC; a Solid ANC Offering

    [Original MSRP $349.99, on sale from Costco for $219.99 regularly and $199.99 for Memorial Day 2025, $180-200 at Amazon in December 2025.]

    [Tl;dr: These are a perfectly good pair of ANC headphones that will serve most people very well. They’re not super resolving and their slightly bassy consumer tuning and their layering and instrument separation leave a lot to be desired from an audiophile standpoint, but they sound perfectly nice and the ANC functionality is great; exactly what I’ve come to expect from Bose. They’re also a distinct step up from some of their competitors with regards to their controls and app-accessible tools. They’re my new recommendation for anyone trolling in that market; if I didn’t already own similar products that I like better, I would probably keep a pair of these for travel. Unfortunately, they have to compete with the Airpods Max and Bose 700s in my collection, and those are headphones that I REALLY, REALLY like for this use case.

    Whole-hearted recommendation for most people, they’re just not for me.

    Scores:

    Cost-agnostic:  6 out of 10 Denalis

    Cost-sensitive:  7 out of 10 Denalis]

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  • The Fiio FT1 Pro; a Great New Addition to the Crowded Open-Back Space

    [MSRP $279.99, purchased on Amazon.com in March 2025 at the old MSRP.]

    [Tl;dr: I’m really very impressed by the FT1 Pro; I thought given how good the FT1s were that these might be a disappointment, but they did not let me down. For my general musical preferences, I’m still going with my trusty 6XX most of the time, but for anyone who wants a little more bass in their open-back listening, these may be right up your alley. I will probably grab them anytime I’m listening to EDM or metal.

    I came into this review pretty skeptical of Fiio’s ability to compete with the 6XX and the Edition XS, and I came away reasonably impressed. Fiio really seems to be killing it, lately.

    Editor’s note: after I started this review, Fiio raised the price on these from $209.99 to $279.99 as part of the ongoing tariffs; while I still think these are reasonable at this price, they are definitely less competitive at $280 than they were at $220.

    Scores:

    Cost-agnostic:  7 out of 10 Denalis

    Cost-sensitive:  8 out of 10 Denalis

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  • The Chord Mojo 2: a Ridiculous, but Ridiculously Good, DAC/amp

    [MSRP $650 from Chord, same at Amazon, purchased used from Hawthorne Stereo in spring 2025.]

    [Tl;dr: The Mojo 2 seems, at first, like a ridiculous idea. DACs and amps can’t make that big of a difference in sound, right?! Except, it seems, when they do. I’m not saying the Mojo makes your gear better; but I’m pretty confident in saying that it will get the very best out of almost anything you run with it, and the degree of separation and layering you get from complex music is really quite something.

    I love it. It’s my new favorite DAC/amp, and could replace virtually anything I own in the space in a heartbeat.]

    Scores:

    Cost-agnostic: 10 out of 10 Denalis

    Cost-sensitive: 9 out of 10 Denalis1

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  • The Fiio FT1; a truly excellent budget closed-back

    [MSRP $159.99, purchased on Amazon.com in March 2025.]

    Fiio FT1 in walnut

    [Tl;dr: These are a really great pair of closed back headphones. They’re even better when you consider their pricing, though Fiio has recently announced that they won’t be importing new products in the near future due to the burgeoning trade war so the limited US inventory may be going up in price, at least in the short term (and likely in the long term, given the catastrophic tariffs currently projected for Chinese imports).

    These do *feel* like a $150 product; fortunately, they do not *sound* like a $150 product. I expected them to be good-for-$150-headphones, and instead they’re just good headphones, full stop.

    If I hadn’t also first experienced the Bokeh Closed this month, these would probably have been my best of 2025 headphone. If you can give these a listen, or snag a pair, I strongly encourage you to do so. They might have edged the Edition XS out as the best deal in hifi, at least at their current MSRP.

    Scores:

    Cost-agnostic:  8 out of 10 Denalis

    Cost-sensitive: 10 out of 10 Denalis

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  • ZMF Bokeh Closed: A Deep Dive into Luxury Sound

    [MSRP $1099, $200 more with a tuning set, more with additional/upgraded cables.]

    Bokeh Closed in its case, connected to the ZMF Lectric C Cables

    [Tl;dr: These are an incredible pair of closed backs, from a technical standpoint, an artistic standpoint, and a dedication to craftsmanship standpoint. They are very expensive even for someone like me, and they’re definitely not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I really, really, really like them (and I’m not generally a big fan of closed-back headphones). They’re hands-down my favorite closed-back at this point, and I think they may be my endgame closed-back. If you know me IRL and you like headphones, you should come take a listen to them. If you like woodworking, you should come take a look at them.

    Editor’s note: I put on Massive Attack’s “Heligoland” while I was editing this review, and … damn. These headphones are perfect for this kind of music, so they’re kind of perfect for me.]

    Scores:

    Cost-agnostic: 10 out of 10 Denalis

    Cost-sensitive: 8 out of 10 Denalis

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  • Headfi Audio for Dummies

    [Update 11/16/25: I have completed a tiered recommendations list from $20 to $2,000+, and it’s available here.]

    Last year I wrote a Stereo Building for Dummies post laying out the basics for a loudspeaker system. In the last couple of months I’ve gotten a few similar questions about headphones and their care and feeding, so I thought it would be worth putting together a quick outline of the basics of headphone hifi, or Headfi. I’m going to focus primarily on digital media in this post, but much of it (except the parts about DACs) will also apply to a purely analog system. I’ll start by reiterating my four rules of hi-fi audio, then get into it:

    1. You like what you like. The most important factor in judging an audio system is also the simplest: does it sound good, to you, in your space, and listening to the things you want to listen to? 1 Many of my fellow audio nerds spend a lot of time arguing about objectivity and measurements, and that seems silly to me. Do you like the $5 headphones that came with your phone? Sweet! Enjoy! Do you want to spend $25,000 on a set of Macintosh separates? Awesome, please invite me over to listen to them (and maybe add me to your will?).
    2. Used gear is your friend. Audiophiles spend a lot of time chasing the new hotness, and a lot of their gear ends up in the used market. You have to be a bit careful with used gear from Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, but a good used hifi shop will have tested and potentially worked on gear they’re putting out for sale, and can talk to you about it (and, usually, let you listen to it before you buy!).
    3. Components interact in unexpected and unpredictable ways. Even high-quality speakers or headphones may sound less-than-stellar when connected to a particular amplifier or source, and it gets infinitely weirder in a separates-based system.2
    4. No system is the end-all, be-all. Everything can be upgraded. Nothing is forever. Components break, and some of them can’t be easily repaired or replaced. That’s okay. Embrace the change. Half the fun of audio is figuring out what you can swap in for a particular piece of gear and the changes that doing so can bring.

    [Caveat: I’m not an objectivist. I don’t really care about measurements or graphs;3 I care about what a system sounds like to my ears, playing music that I like, in the spaces I am inhabiting. I’m not going to talk about measurements here, but there’s a wild world out there of objectivists on the internet if that’s what you’re looking for. I’m also not a professional reviewer; I don’t (and can’t) listen to everything, and I tend to focus on the stuff I like rather than spending brain power on the things I don’t. Everything I say should be taken with a grain of salt.]

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