What headphones do you use?

[aarumugham]

I had the same question about what headphones. I got an open box deal from headphones.com. Focal Clear were 35% off. To me, they sound great.  Headphones.com also have a good return policy if you don't like them.

[adydula]

Well.....I have had these 1350's now for almost 5 years!!!

They have been sitting here mostly unused for years as other Beyers, LCD. Grados have come thru the door...

So tonight for some reason I said "hey self..you never have tried these 80 ohm cans with your Bottlehead Mainline!:...."

So here I am listening with them once again and boy what a nice homecoming!

They are working so very well with the Mainline on low impedance setting....

Wow the bass from these "tiny" things are just awesome.

Here is a review from the wayback machine:

https://kenrockwell.com/audio/beyer/dt-1350.htm#rex

Comparing these to HD 800's, Stax, and others!!!

Ha!

Great set of cans..with a great amp!

Alex

[ideal.hat]

Hello Alex.

Very interesting.. I am really happy with DT1770-Pro (250ohm) paired with the Mainline. They sound far better then with my HDV-600/Crack+SP/LD MK2/M1HPAP. If I should try to explain it some how, then the soundstage is wider and somehow more live-like and realistic. Id didn't know that the 1770 Pro could sound so good..


I received the HD820 early January and I have to say that I prefer them from Solid State HDV600 while the HD800S sounds SUBLIME from the mainline. There are some early observation so my opinion might change with time

On another note, I have some issues with isolation on the HD820, there feels like a small gap in front of my ears while I have them on and I am loosing some low frequency there. it gets fixed when I push them gently closer to my head. I am waiting for the pads to give in, if they wont then I will try Dekoni´s.

[Loquah]

I had the same question about what headphones. I got an open box deal from headphones.com. Focal Clear were 35% off. To me, they sound great.  Headphones.com also have a good return policy if you don't like them.

I had a similar experience where I bought the Clears on a deal (Black Friday in my case) and I love them from the Mainline, but also from my solid state Massdrop THX 789. I've owned and reviewed the HD800 and HD800S (not yet tried 820s) and the Clears are vastly superior for my tastes, but that's because I prefer a more musical, richer sound and the Clears balance musicality and transparency / neutrality extremely well. I've been using the NightHawks for a long time with the Mainline and still enjoy some of their characteristics as much as I enjoy the Clears, but the NightOwls are also on the way so it will be interesting to see how they stack up as I think they might combine the best of both from what I've read.

[ToneDeaf]

      I finally got my Senn. HD820's . I bought my mainline a year ago on sale. Couldn't resist the sale price. Then when the HD820 came out, there were so many mixed reviews, I waited for the dust to settle. Oh, and for someplace to give a handsome discount on them. I bought a pair of Senn. HD280  to hold me over till I got the 820's.  I thought the 280's sounded pretty good with the mainline. But now with the HD820's I am totally blown away. I know the mainline has enough hours on it to be broken in, but I only have about 30 hours on the 820's. so they might even get a little better over time. But so far I just love the combo. I built the mainline with no mods since it got such great reviews. But now I don't even know if I want to roll the output caps, it sounds so good as is. Loving the mainline and HD820's.

[carlsor]

Another happy Focal Clear user.
A magical combination of the Mainline and Focal's stock balanced cables to the Clear headphones!
Very musical, dynamic, detailed, rich, full frequency range listening experience. Highly recommended!

[jtori]

The perfect storm:  Longtime intrigue with the Focal Clears, available funds, good price and hearty recommendations from Mainline forum denizens.  Just received these headphones and I can say with relative certainty they are the match I've been looking for.  Thanks guys! ;-)

Joe.

[geniekid]

FWIW, I'm testing out my Mainline with Verum 1 planars and it sounds surprisingly good given the Verum's particularly low impedance (8 ohm).

[amirhosein]

Campfire Audio Atlas here for now 😅 Sounds amazing and the hum is imperceptible almost when nothing is playing. My HD6XX are in storage and I'll have a listen with them soon and hopefully I'll be addin Meze Empyreans to the mix 😁

[Paul Birkeland]

This modification I posted for the Crack is also applicable to a Mainline if users are getting some noises that are digital in nature:
https://forum.bottlehead.com/index.php?topic=11676.0

[SmashBruh]

So, I've been thinking about selling my Atticus headphones and as a sort of good-bye I plugged them in one more time into my mainline.... I'd forgotten what a great pair this is! The Atticus's combination of BIG SOUND and liquidity makes it a such a great pair with the mainline, especially if you're looking for a bit of a raucous experience!... I don't know if I can sell this...

[A Jedi]

Anyone using Abyss cans with Mainline (Diana V2 in particular)?

[Audioraider]

I have tried a lot of headphones, both mine and friends with my Mainline. My favorite headphone and the one that gets 90% of head time is my ZMF Vérité closed. My second favorite is the focal clear. I made the mistake of buying the Utopia because I liked the clear so much. It is an awful headphone IMO. The single most inaccurate headphone I have ever listened to. The Nighthawks are a great headphone, a little dark but eminently enjoyable with a Mainline.

[Adrian]

I thought I would jump in here to mention a couple of headphones not covered yet.
My main HP on the Mainline is the Focal Elear.  These are very comfortable and have a well balanced sound - excellent mid-range (where we all live), good, accurate bass and treble.  I'm not a bass head and I prefer phones and speakers that are not overly bright, so the Elear is a good fit for me.  For a closed-back HP I prefer my VISO HP50s.  I find closed-back phones and IEMs somewhat fatiguing due to the "hard panning" nature of headphones in general and the closed-back design in particular.  The HP50s were designed to emulate an open speaker like sound. 
I use a Senn HD600 exclusively on the Crack in my home office.  These are the only high impedance HPs I have so I cannot compare other high impedance phones for either the Mainline or the Crack.

I have played around with the idea of a cross-feed circuit to minimize hard panning and make the phones more like open speakers.  I use a Leckerton DAC with a cross-feed function with my IEMs and I can listen to them for hours without fatigue.  Tracks that are mixed with speaker usage in mind can survive excessive or hard panning to some extent but head phones cannot.  Luckily most audio engineers are aware of this and watch the level of panning knowing that our brains attempt to resolve a stereo signal to the center.  If someone has experience with implementing a cross feed circuit in BH gear, please share with the BH community.