Buying guides
Read one of these before you buy. They cover checking a used pair from the listing photos to the first listen, what amp a vintage headphone needs, matching a Stax to its energizer, what the Koss warranty really covers and telling Grado generations apart. New to used headphones? Start with how to check a pair.
How to Check Used Headphones Before You Buy
What to look for in a used headphone listing, from crumbling pads and one quiet side to wired-in cables, missing energizers, odd plugs and fakes.
Read the guide →Impedance and Your Amp: What Will Drive a Vintage Headphone
What impedance and sensitivity tell you about a used headphone, why a 2,000-ohm Sennheiser and a 32-ohm Grado need different amps, and how to match yours.
Read the guide →Stax Pro Bias vs Normal Bias: Matching an Earspeaker to an Energizer
How to tell a Normal-bias Stax from a Pro-bias one, which vintage energizers and SRD boxes take which plug, and what's risky when you mix them.
Read the guide →The Koss Lifetime Warranty and Used Headphones
What the Koss Limited Lifetime Warranty actually says, who it covers, why a secondhand pair usually isn't covered and what to check on a used Koss instead.
Read the guide →Grado SR Series by Generation: Original, i, e and x
How to tell an original 1990s Grado SR60, SR80, SR125 or SR325 from the i, e and x versions in listing photos, plus the cable and pad faults to check.
Read the guide →