There must some guys here who had a chance to hear some of the headphones i’m thinking about, and i was wandering how do these headphones stack up against today flagships. Headphones i have in mind are AKG K1000, Sony Qualia 10, Sony mdr-10, Grado HP1000, Stax SR-Ω, Sennheiser he-60 I’m wondering how are these headphones in comparison to today’s totl headphones.
I own a bunch of vintage headphones (though none of the legendary ones). Most of them fall into the category of “fun, but objectively bad”, especially the dynamic ones.
My Sennheiser HD 540 (from the 90s) sound pretty good in my opinion (better than the modern 560s), but they are still far from competing with most high-end headphones.
However, I also own a Stax Lambda Nova Classic (also made in the 90s), and that one is excellent. Performs similarly well to modern-day lambdas, but the tonality is more pleasant to me. I’d expect similar things to be true for the electrostatic headphones you mentioned.
“Flagship” headphone is not a guarantee to get something good sounding, even nowadays, so I can imagine some of the older ones to compete quite well. However, out of those you’ve mentioned, all but the K1000 are rare and very expensive, so not really good value-for-money.
HD 540 are good, and I use them to listen to classical music every now and then. There’s a sweetness to the sound that is really nice.
My Stax Lambda Nova Basic also see occasional use. Apart from the lack of bass they are really good when using the oratory1990 EQ settings. Also a steal since I got them + the amp for 200 USD.