Like most sensible people I started falling in love with music as a child. My first portable audio device was a Sony Walkman (the cassette kind) that I got when I was 10 years old (25 years ago). I toted that lovely brick around with the cheap included headphones for several years in cold Fairbanks, Alaska. Like a Hieronymous Bosch mural, my tastes can be weird and wonderful: from dreamy Japanese garble pop to banks of strings and percussion in the Mariinsky Orchestra. I listen mostly to rock. I tend to like neutral bright headphones and I'm a sucker for soundstage. I don't do EQ. I believe that cables can make a difference but do not unconditionally make a difference, same thing goes for balanced outputs. Some axioms: Frequency response isn't everything, but it is important. If you didn't volume match, how can you be sure you heard a difference? Ears are beautiful things, but we hear with our brains and brains can be pretty darn stupid.