Their near ubiquity on film sets means that you can snag these phones at a massive discount, making them one of the better deals for people that need a headphone to do work on.

Many people I know swear by the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pros, and while they are indeed a studio staple, durable, and have some of the most comfortable stock pads of any headphone in its range, they are not what I would call flat, and I could not get used to how they sounded.

Eventually, my answer came in the form of a 76-page thread on the Head-fi forums from 2009 to 2019 by a user named Acix titled “ The German Maestro GMP 8.35 D Monitor in the studio... serious about audio, INDEED!!

Eventually, German Maestro released a version with a removable cable and an additional stock pair of pads called The GMP 8.35 Mobile specifically because of requests from customers with autism.

When I showed them to Alex Parkin over on the video team (a certified MDR user with a well-worn pair who also despises the coiled cable), I could sense his apprehension.

I hold them and know that there is a very good chance that they will still work for decades, possibly even after I am dead and buried, and how truly rare it is to buy a piece of gear made to outlive you.