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Auditioning headphones (ethically)?

I've had some good headphones and I want to move up to some very good headphones. I'm thinking about the obvious ones in the $1500 range: 800s, Clear MG, Arya. 

Given that one needs to live with headphones for a while for both sound quality and comfort, how do people audition two or three pairs at once? Do you buy them from the same site and return what you don't want to keep? Do you buy them from different sources and return what you want? Are there any concerns about doing this, ethical or financial? I've read the policies on Headphones.com, the Cable Co., AudioAdvisor, etc--most have generous return policies but they seem to be centered on one-at-a-time purchases.

Anyway, all this is obvious. I'm sure many of you have faced this question. What do you guys do? 
northman

Showing 2 responses by soix

soix
8,723 posts
 
Doing your research should help minimize the risk of picking something too far off the mark.  Obviously finding a dealer online with a good return policy would be one way to go, but you can also consider buying used headphones and in the event you make a mistake with sound, fit, etc. you can resell them with little/no loss as long as you buy well.  Best of luck.   
soix
8,723 posts
 
To put this a different way, it would be easy for me to buy five pairs of headphones, from one site or from multiple sites, and return at least four of them. I would be within their policies. But is that ethical?
I think as long as you’re honestly willing to buy the headphones if they’re the best for you and you’re following the dealer’s own return policy I think that’s perfectly fair and kinda how the world works these days.  I think it’ll be tough for any dealer to stay in business longer term if they can’t adapt to this way of doing business.  

The other way to look at is that this way at least the dealer has a legit shot at at making a sale they absolutely wouldn’t make if they didn’t allow you to try them.  Plus, even if you return them the dealer can sell them as demo units and still make some — albeit a bit less — $ on the sale.  So yeah, this increases a dealer’s cost of doing business, but on the flip side they have a world of potential customers as opposed to mostly local traffic.  Anyway, just my $0.02 on it FWIW. 

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