Earphones/Headphones

[froggyman75 28]

I recently bought my sister a pair of Koss Porta Pro Stereo Headphones for her birthday and they have great sound. They easily match up to some of the Sennheiser's around the same price range (£30~ in the UK) and can fold up and are easily portable unlike most non-earphone Sennheiser's. I highly recommend them if you can find them for a reduced price like I did (£5 in a bargain bin, definitely a great steal) and even at full price they're worth it if you want a great pair of portable headphones.

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

After four years of faithful service, my 20 euro headphones bought from a supermarket finally went to the other side.

Good night sweet prince

This time I'm investing around 60 euros and see what comes up. I don't really care enough to spend much more than that

[ficsci 50]

Around high school I also didn't bother getting really good headphones.

And then I finally bought a pair a couple of years ago, AND I CAN'T GO BACK TO LISTENING TO MUSIC ON JUST ANY RANDOM EARPHONES.

This is what I bought: Audio Technica Open-Air Dynamic Headphones (ATH-AD700)

Also, since those are open cans and I can't listen to them in public places without pissing people off, I just got the closed cans counterpart of the same model, ATH-A700. The Air-Dynamic is about $100, and the A700 is $125. People who like to hear lots of bass tend to not be fans of either of the A700s, but they're amazing in creating a 3D sound experience, which totally suits me because I listen to rock with tons of reverb. They are on the cheaper ends of serious headphones, but supposedly sound a lot better than their price (as usually is with Audio Technica. I also have a pair of in-ear $40 AT phones, which sounded pretty darn good, but still nowhere close to the A700s). Also I love the cables of both my A700 headphones, 1 is super thick and the other is fabric-insulated, so basically unbreakable. I think most problems I had had with other headphones in the past is that their cables can't survive my heavy use. I still don't have the money to get the even better headphones, but I'm still totally happy with these. Perhaps, someday when I have a real job... (I might turn into one of those audiophiles).

Yeah, so I know I'm going to sound like a jerkface poster girl, but if you don't listen to music on good headphones, you're missing out the amazing experience of hearing the intricacies of album mixing and near life-like sound re-creation *preaches down the crazy town*. Seriously guys, after that everything else sound pale in comparison.

Anyway I'd be willing to pay anything under 100 dollars at the moment; I don't have enough money to buy the OMGTHISISAMAZING headphone sets yet unless those exist in that price range.

Edit: Zess reccomended to me the "Sennheiser HD448 Closed Circumaural Hi-Fi" Headphone.

And I'm totally recommending the model I have (the A700 one, because it's closed back. Also, it has a bit more bass over the AD700, but not as much sound stage/3D experience. But all parts sound very clean and crisp.)

[ficsci 50]

This is what i usually use for my netbook:

[attachment=0]HDPN.jpg[/attachment]

It's Phillips HN 110

It is not bad actually, though if i am not really paranoid,

i'd choose to take my Sennheisser everywhere with me better.

For iPod i mostly using their in ear earphones.

i never tried candy something, but i did heard alot of ugly stories about it.

And like ito said, many were bought the item for their bright colours,

aside of their more economical price.

That's one of my old headphones!!

It's pretty good but often hurt my head because it clamps too tightly for me. And then eventually the over head wire broke

The part that I should have added on to that was "I mostly listen to music on my iPod so I go through tons of headphones a year because they all end up getting busted in my bag". I wouldn't want to spend a ton of money on quality headphones just to break them.

Aaand you just summarized my entire life age 12-16

[Zeus 7997]

That still is my life. I don't let my Senn's leave my room.

[sai 868]

I have two sets. I have the regular Apple iPod earphones for when I go to school or need to go to work, but when I'm at home I use AKG K518DJ headphones.

They were 39 euros (which I found really acceptable, seeing as they were cheaper than the Skullcandy brand) and they're great quality. The bass is really good and they are really strong. I've dropped them multiple times but they haven't decreased in quality at all. Definitely recommended.

[Zeus 7997]

Alright MHers, I'm ready to upgrade my cans and I need some advice.

I bought the Sennheiser HD 518's around November of 2011 and they've been serving me wonderfully. I have them paired with a FiiO E10 DAC and while it isn't really necessary I find that it helps brighten and tighten the sound. However, I want a headphone that will really push the E10 to its limits. I know it can handle headphones up to 300 Ohms of impedance; however I don't want to risk underpowering the new gear. I was taking a look at these few headphones but I'm unsure of where I want to go with them:

Sennheiser HD 598

Beyerdynamic DT880

Grados Prestige SR225i

Audio Technica ATH-M50

Any other recommendations are happily welcome. If you need an idea of what music I listen to, check out my last.fm page.

[Mei 276]

i have a badass skull candy

[bonsaijodelfisch 328]

the first three seem finde, but i wouldn't go for the audiotechnica ones, since they are closed design.

that might be an advantage if surrounding noise would be an issue but i don't think that's the case, on the minus side though closed heads always give out a distorted frequency-curve, especially in the bass-territory and also one always has this sort of "head underwater" pressure on the ears, which personally find pretty annoying when listening to music.

a former roommate of me has the beyer DT990 and they sounded pretty sweet to me although they are immensly heavy, like wearing a helmet

no idea about the sennheiser, but i'd be surprised if they would show any flaws.

in terms of soundquality i guess that the grado might be the best, one would have to actually listen+compare the ones directly, but grado labs are known and feared for their almost annoyingly good sound.

i myself have the sr80 and really haven't found anything better so far.

only issue with those (might be better with the 220) is that the cans actually sit "on" the ear, they don't surround them. since i have pretty huge ears i can only listen to about 5 hours straight before i have to make about a 30min break, because my pinnas start to hurt.

[Zeus 7997]

Ah! I didn't realize AT was closed-back. Scratch that then!

The only reason why I'm not contemplating the Grados is because I want something that plays back all types of music instead of excelling at just one (I've heard Grados to be described as "the rock headphones"). It may also have a little bit to do with me being a tiny bit of a superficial bastard.

[Maiku 4]

I got these when I got obsessed with Persona 3. ;__;

[bonsaijodelfisch 328]

(I've heard Grados to be described as "the rock headphones")

well, that's bull right there i couldn't even tell what kind of attributes would qualify for a special "rock"-head, but since all of those cans are pretty much for studio use they should be pretty "flat" and neutral per se. To decide between the three i think comparing will be the only option, apart from visual appearance obviously (i kinda like that trashy 80's retro-look of the grados, but that's just me...)

[Zeus 7997]

(I've heard Grados to be described as "the rock headphones")

well, that's bull right there i couldn't even tell what kind of attributes would qualify for a special "rock"-head, but since all of those cans are pretty much for studio use they should be pretty "flat" and neutral per se. To decide between the three i think comparing will be the only option, apart from visual appearance obviously (i kinda like that trashy 80's retro-look of the grados, but that's just me...)

Which is exactly why I came here . I can only rely on reviews on Amazon to a fault. There's a point at which people who ordered their first pair of expensive headphones are going to drop a review saying "this is the best thing ever!" and you have to decide with how many grains of salt you want to take their opinion. I have absolutely no way of demoing any of these headphones, which is a shame. I might do some digging around and come around with a few more that I'm contemplating buying, but as I won't have the money for another month and a half it's not much of an issue at the moment anyway.

I have a pretty alright DAC that can power headphones with up to 300 ohms of impedance, although I don't think it'll do too fantastically with headphones that require exactly 300 ohms to move the drivers. My upper bound is 250 ohms, but I might get a 300 ohm pair if the recommendations are pretty high.

I'm also contemplating between the Sennheiser 600 and Sennheiser 650. The 700's specs look like an aborted cross between the 650 and the 800 with the pricetag of the latter, so they aren't even up for consideration unless someone can really sway my opinion. I might also invest in upgrading my DAC from what it is now and see if it causes any real measure of improvement.

Although I suppose I should start culling low bitrate files from my library and start replacing them with things above 256 if I'm going to be serious about this (and I believe i'm fairly serious about updating to some really bamf cans).

[bonsaijodelfisch 328]

whow, sennheiser hd600/hd650?

that's entering a really pricy and also already full-fledged studio-territory

i don't know how the both of them compare against one another, but i've seen/heard the 600 in the studio before and really liked it, also pretty comfortable to wear, but i didn't really pay much attention to the heads themselves then, so i'm not too sure.

one thing you should keep in mind is that in those regions of cans the purpose and the advantage of these super-expensive ones isn't necessarily to sound "good" but to try to reproduce every tiny little detail (to be precise every little problem, that might be on a recording...)

so while they will undoubtedly sound pretty sweet, they probably won't sound any "better" than heads of half the price, in contrary little recording-/soundproblems and bitrate/clipping/aliasing whatever will most likely be much more annoying on the really expensive ones.

so to find out, if the doubled-pricetag is really necessary or if i'm talking a whole lot of nonesense there's no way around trying to demo the heads against each other as annoying as it is. i think on the sennheiser homepage is a "dealer locator" section, perhaps there is some obscure shop not to far from your place? looking for one might possibly save you quite a lot of money

[Zeus 7997]

There might be one forty minutes away from me, but I'm stuck without a car so I have no way of getting there.

Concerning the headphones right now I'm just being a greedy piglet and looking at anything I could feasibly want. I want to keep my options as open as possible. If there's a headphone set that does everything I want at a lower price I'd definitely spring for those (and save me some cash too!).

[Ito 2438]

I just picked up a new pair of closed back headphones.

The reason that spurred the new purchasing is that I am working 40 hours a week in an office that allows me to use headphones. I still love my Technics RP-DH1200, but they just arn't meant to be worn for over a few hours...wearing them for about 6 hours straight, my ear want to kill themselves (from the pressure the headphone puts on them, which is even worse since I wear glasses).

I wanted to consider an open pair, but that just wasn't feasible in an office environment.

So they needed to be Comfortable, Over ear, Closed back, with little sound leakage and decent isolation. Max price was $300.

Immediately tossed out Shure's. I never found them very comfortable when I have tried them before.

Wasn't even going to consider Beats and Bose (fuck that).

Unltrasones got thrown out cause I hear they are very bright.

Sennheiser doesn't really make anything with my requirements in my price range.

The Audio Technicas seemed to have really fucking sound staging and the comfort wasn't all that.

I hate active noise canceling, so I ditched anything with that.

I narrowed it down to:

AKG K550

Denon D2000

Focal Spirit

Philips L1 Fidelio

Beyerdynamic DT770

Denon got canned because it leaks a lot of sound, Focal was ditched cause the build quality is apparently crap, and the Beyer just requires a lot of power to run. This left be between the AKG and the Philips, so I went with my gut and got the AKG. It isn't without it's problems, but it is amazing how muddy it makes my old Technics sound. If anyone is interested, I can go in to more detail.

[Zeus 7997]

I'm interested!

Also just cashed out $400 for some new headphones. They should be in next week because they're being shipped straight from their factory in China instead of from one of Amazon's warehouses. Can anyone guess what they might be?

[Neon 6]

Its sonys Headphones good? I wanna buy one and I wanna know that are thay good.

[bonsaijodelfisch 328]

Its sonys Headphones good? I wanna buy one and I wanna know that are thay good.

short anwer:

most likely, no..

longer answer:

well maybe, can't really only stick it to brands, you have to compare (like describend in the second part of my very lengthy post here )

EDIT:

If anyone is interested, I can go in to more detail.

please do!

[LIDL 692]

Its sonys Headphones good? I wanna buy one and I wanna know that are thay good.

It's O.K quality. Sounds are well balanced but if u like heavier bass might not be the right choice.

Also just cashed out $400 for some new headphones. They should be in next week because they're being shipped straight from their factory in China instead of from one of Amazon's warehouses. Can anyone guess what they might be?

Damn gurl you be mad rich!

[bonsaijodelfisch 328]

Also just cashed out $400 for some new headphones. They should be in next week because they're being shipped straight from their factory in China instead of from one of Amazon's warehouses. Can anyone guess what they might be?

Damn gurl you be mad rich!

^that + sennheiser 650?

[Zeus 7997]

Nope. HiFiMan HE-400.

[Ito 2438]

Awwww, you didn't man up and get some Audeze's?

Probably the flattest frequency response under 1K

http://audeze.com/audeze-lcd2-bamboo

Edit: If we lived closer, Zess, we would so do listening sessions XD

[Zeus 7997]

They're in! I unboxed them at work and everything, but sadly since I don't have my 1/4" to 1/8" adapter on me I can't listen for a few more hours. (Blurry) pics and listening impressions coming in a few hours!

[Ito 2438]

Ooooh goody! XD

I am truly an audio nerd when it comes to this stuff.

Edit: This post was my 1337 post. Awesome