YIN AND YANG

 

I finally have the yin and yang of trailblazing vintage headphones. 

Sennheiser launched the HD414 in 1968, the pioneering open-air design. Mine is the last of at least three incarnations. It’s the 50th Anniversary Edition released in 1993, and which I bought from Cardinal Audio that same year. Some reviews say it can’t keep up with more aggressive contemporary headphones. But it’s so light that I sometimes forget I’m wearing it, and it sounds like you’re listening in a cool breezy outdoor field. This makes it my favorite on hot summer days when anything on my ears induces sweat. It’s almost indestructible because of the resilient lightweight plastic headband, field-replacable cables, and sponge earpads. Although it’s been out of production since the late 90s, Sennheiser still makes the cute yellow earpads because so many of the original headphones are still in use today, it fits other headphones such as the Grado SR series, and the cables are interchangeable with the current the HD600 series and the HD25 light.

On the other hand, the Koss Pro4aa is the complete opposite. I got this pair pre-owned but in mint condition just last week. Introduced in 1970, it was touted as the first high-fidelity closed stereo headphones. It is very heavy, very hard, very tight, and very inefficient. It has its fair share of haters too, who consider it excruciatingly uncomfortable. But it is articulate, detailed, and un-hyped, like a small air-tight vocal booth where even the tiniest of sounds are audible. It’s indestructible in its own way because of solid rubberized plastic earcups and steel frame.Because they are a closed design, I can listen at lower loudness levels. This makes me more conscious of distortion in the source than in the headphones themselves. Koss still actually makes them to this day, and backs them up with a lifetime warranty. 

These two models are not just quaint relics from a bygone past. They still have virtues that appeal to me, even today.  I have to be in a specific mood to put them on, but it’s always a treat listening through them, despite what the haters say.