Resolve's Headphone Ranking

Disclaimer: While the following headphone ranking is a NO EQ list, it takes into consideration the reality that no headphone is perfect and they can all be improved to some extent. You may notice that there are no 10/10 headphones on this list and that’s because even the best headphones out there for my subjective preference do not meet that standard. This ranking is also weighted towards treble balance since that tends to be more make or break for me, and in my view a headphone where all I do is add a bass shelf is a better headphone than one where I need to mess about with fine-grained high frequency EQ. The other usual caveats for ranking lists apply:

This is a subjective ranking, it’s not based on measured performance but how these sound to me, given my preferences and the kinds of music I listen to.
This ranking is subject to change, since preferences and opinions can also change.
Unit and / or run variation is a real problem.
Headphones can score and be appreciated similarly for very different reasons
We’re all biased to some extent, we try our best to hedge against that.

Tonality preferences: I care more about balance between fundamental and harmonic tones than any specific tilt towards warm, neutral or bright. So I can appreciate a bassy headphone or a bright headphone so long as it’s coherent, especially for the treble. I do, however, index more for clarity and have an aversion to muffled, congested sound.

The color-coding scale goes from Blue at the best, to Beige in the middle, to Red at the worst.

Other Lists: