1.) Ultrasone Proline 750 : The sound is virtually defective by design. Redefines the meaning of 'harsh' and 'crazy treble'. Hmmm, thinking as a headphone-type reincarnation of delta-sigma sound of a badly implemented Sabre DAC.

2.) Ultrasone Pro 900 : Similar to 750, just slightly in less degree.

3.) Grado PS-1000 : Bass is completely made of distortion... The bass is the distortion itself. Painful high does not help much either.

4.) Sony SA-5000 : Q010 was slightly better, but both headphones were painful treble galore. Only reason I ranked these below PS-1000 is that at least bass was clean enough. SA-3000 was far better headphone in both sonic and comfort.

5.) Bravo Audio V2 Headphone amplifier : Wow, my crappy samsung laptop's audio out is far better than this...

Denon AH-D7100 $1000 Hamburger headphone

I love these sorts of threads. As other pirates can attest to, I'm a magnet for terrible sounding gear. My least favorites:



Ultrasone Edition 8 -- was looking forward to these being my end game portable headphones. I loved the styling and exotic luxe materials. I was SO ready to love these after Peter from the Great White North proclaimed them to be the best closed headphones ever. Within 10 seconds, I knew these weren't going to last. Glaring, sharp treble on these made even Diana Krall music hard to digest. They actually were the worst Ultrasones I had in my stable at the time -- the HFI-580's were much more balanced, and the Pro 900's at least had that bassy dance club charm to it.



Mytek 192 -- Same unit that Marv and Luis heard. I seriously wonder if this was a defective unit. Either way, their review says it all.



Objective 2 -- It's hard to put this on the list because it's so cheap and it's a fun DIY project. But after all of the claims of complete neutrality and transparency, this thing sure did fall short of the hype. Biggest issue for me would be the treble glare that turns human vocals into cyborg vocals. Then there's just the lack of resolution and soft, thin sound that really gives me no compelling reason to go back to it.



Grado 325i -- I guess you can pick anything out of the Grado lineup if you're not a Grado fan (I don't have issue with them as much as others here). But I feel like the 325 is the most egregious example of all the things wrong with Grado.



Skullcandy Double Agent -- I feel stupid for even posting these, but they are one of the worst things I've listened to. I used these for 3 years for snowboarding before I wised up and started wearing a helmet. Built-in mp3 player was cool, but they were terrible lo-fi headphones that needed to be replaced 3 times in the in 3 years because of failure. Gotta love a lifetime warranty though.

- Yulong DA8 -- strident, warm, oddly voiced midrange, no bass/odd bass

- WyWires Red cable on HE-6 -- rolled off, inaccurate, congested lump in the lower mid range/upper bass

- SkullCandy Aviators -- warm, low resolution

- Oppo PM-1 -- only tried it once but was immediately disinterested. Too warm/rolled off and low res if I remember correctly.

- dunno, will edit later