I Watched Over 1000 Movies and Didn’t Find my Perfect Headphones Until 900!

Life with $1000 Headphones

I think it’s fair to say I watch a lot of movies these days. It was one of those late Lockdown-related pass times that frankly, got a little bit out of hand. However, in fairness I had to give up the guitar after 20 years due to the severe hand and arm pain it was causing and needed a more passive pass time that didn’t involve using my hands. “I’ll watch the classic spoofs and comedies”, I thought, Naked Gun, Blazing Saddles, Hot Shots and the like. Then I got to a few I’d never seen, such as The Producers, Young Frankenstein, and then with films such as The Big Lebowsky, upon watching it… it turned out I’d never actually seen it before! Then moved on to other movies I had never seen, such as Star Wars, and did all of them (done them more than once now too). Then it was 100 movies in 100 days, which only took me 86 days. I’ll skip on a bit, but I did 500 movies in a year, 400 movies in the next year and to this day I’m still going strong as I hit 1000 movies in 800 days, and the 1000th movie was also the 500th movie I’d never seen before. I’m at exactly 1100 today, but who’s counting?!

Here’s what 1100 movies look like… It took 902 days!

I had my Creative Theater headphones for years, well, actually, I wore them out after a year, and got another set, then wore those out too, and by the time I got to the third set, I was getting pretty tired of them burning out. Wireless and gaming headphones are great, but when you’re putting 10-16 hours a day on them, it’s amazing how fast they can wear out. They weren’t bad quality either, they’re just not designed for constant use like that, they’re meant for a few hours of movie watching a day. However, I work at home, game a lot, and watch movies in my office space on the ultrawide and large monitor with my feet up on my reclining chair and footrest… it’s my happy little corner of the world.

My happy little corner looks like this so far.

However, most people go to work elsewhere, and play their games and watch movies in different rooms and systems. This means they don’t use the same hardware around the clock. But I do, and it takes a heavy toll despite how well I look after my things. Gaming chairs, mouse mats, keyboards, mice, and headsets, I can wear them out in mere months, a year if they’re good quality. I should be in the QA team for some brands, as I really put the hours on products I like.

I always see my headsets wear out, either the batteries lose their capacity, the wireless connection starts to go wonky, or the drivers lose their shine. And again, I care for my hardware, and I’m not a volume junky either, I take care of my hearing. But hey, I’m not on the stand here, nor am I putting any brand to shame for bad quality. This is about finding the right tool for the job. I mean… I even managed to kill my QNAP NAS through excessive PLEX use and had to upgrade that to the F221 from Terramaster, sitting on your backside and watching movies can be a lot of work it seems.

I’ve personally been through Corsair, Sony, Creative, Turtle Beach, Razer, and 1More headsets and headphones on this movie run, I even dabbled with a Sennheiser wireless setup that I just couldn’t find any joy with. Not counting the one-offs for product reviews from NZXT, AOC, MSI, ASUS, SteelSeries, HyperX, Marvo and Roccat, assuming I didn’t miss any.

The headphone I originally wanted to test, was the Audeze Maxwell.

I reached out to Audeze about their Maxwell gaming headset, it was sold out at the time, I missed the launch, and mentioned my little movie expedition to them, and they suggested some truly bonkers headphones to me. They were their open-backed high-end models, with prices getting close to £2000! However, as good as they would be, I much prefer closed-back headphones, so I asked them if I could try their LCD-2 Closed Back, which at the time are their most high-end closed-back headphones. Sure, some prefer open-back drivers for their accurate sound, but I like locking in the sound and blocking out the world, and I know that I’m not alone in that regard with headphone choices too.

Audeze LCD-2 Closed Back

Getting a good set of headphones, and I mean a REALLY good set, sent me down a rabbit hole of EQ, amps and more that I simply didn’t expect. Likely not a surprise to many that expensive headphones aren’t quite plug-and-play like gaming headsets are, but here are a few of the extra things I needed to do to get a better experience.

I needed a more powerful desktop amplifier, nothing crazy, but I just use the Creative SXFI USB-C amp, it can drive higher-powered headphones with ease compared to the limitations you may have with onboard audio on all but the more high-end motherboards. I have a Z790 Aorus Extreme and even while that can drive my headphones, the maximum volume is pretty quiet! I needed a headphones adaptor, as the LCD2-CB use a larger jack, so I needed to convert that to 3.5mm. These aren’t gaming headphones either, so there’s no microphone, so I upgraded my desktop microphone too (A story for another day). Then there’s software. I used to use Creative SXFI processing, which is a headphone speaker simulator. I’ve now switched to DTS Headphone:X processing on Windows 11, along with Equalizer APO and the Peace GUI, which gives any Windows audio output an extremely comprehensive set of EQ features, much like you could find in audio editing software through the use of VSTs.

That last part is extremely important it seems, as out of the box, I simply didn’t like how these new headphones sounded at all. But what they can do in terms of EQ is quite simply breathtaking. They can handle extremely broad EQ ranges, turning them from extremely low-frequency bass cannons into crystal-clear vocal monitors, and everything in between. Or, with the right EQ, a good mixture of everything, but it takes time to get them dialled in.

Thankfully, with AutoEQ, you can download the calibrated curves for these (and many other headphones) as a starting point, providing a flatter more neutral sound using the Harmon Curve. I think it sounds pretty soulless, but it is accurate and the extended range of the headphones gives it a bright sound while still retaining the low end. However, you can then simply throw in a little more low-end EQ and dial back the treble to suit your taste, which works very well for most uses.

My initial bass-heavy EQ sent to me be a handy redditor and edited to suit my taste.

When I first got these headphones a few months ago, I dialled back the treble a lot and added more bass. Doing so required a -11dBa to prevent clipping on the EQ, but the overall volume still had plenty more than I’d need. But over the months, I’ve learned to appreciate the sound of them at a more flat EQ. What at first sounded like a harsh treble was mostly just a reaction of my own since I was coming from my non-High-Res drivers and bass-heavy SXFI Theater headphones. It’s not that I’ve stopped enjoying the incredible bass these headphones can recreate either, it’s just learning to appreciate what good bass should actually sound like.

The revised EQ that I am using now.

The Audeze LCD-2 Closed Back are big, with drivers that are more than double the surface area of a typical gaming headset, they’re capable of driving incredibly low-frequency sounds even at lower volumes. I can hear all the way down to the 10Hz section on this test even at 20% volume, and it sounds great! But simultaneously, they’re able to deliver incredibly high frequencies too. Their build quality is exceptional, with premium components, and hand-assembled hardware, and it’s even burned-in at the factory as they play a test song through the drivers for two weeks prior to shipping, ensuring they’re in perfect working order from day one.

My daughter says they’re actually comfortable, even those that practically enclose her whole head.

The size issue is backed up by weight, they’re heavy, at 612g I found them quite literally exhausting to wear for the first few days, and for a few weeks, it was noticeable. Now I can wear them for 8 hours straight and not give a damn. Heavy, yes, but the headband is so incredibly wide that it never ever puts excessive pressure on any part of my head and I don’t get the head dent from these like I do from more narrow headbands on gaming headphones.

The ear cups are like two big doughnuts of soft and forgiving padding.

The downside to the size is you look like a knock-off of Princess Leya, On the upside, the headset is extremely comfortable and gets more so once you adapt to its weight.