Headphone help!! please!!

[sethmosley]

Hey, I have a 3rd generation I-pod. I was wondering what kind of headphones under or around $150 I could get keeping as much quality as possible. I'm not really worried about them bein' small and portable, I keep it with me so much I wouldn' t mind even wearin' em around my neck. I'm mainly worried about quality and comfortability. Could you guys help? Thanks-Seth sethmosley@mchsi.com

[Prefuse]

for in ear types, try looking at the shure line.

for full-size cans, take a look at grado, sennheiser. an often overlooked by widely used pair of cans is the sony 7506; still an industry standard.

[Beckman]

I have a pair of Grado SR-80's. Read the reviews for these on this site. Should be able to pick them up for $100 or less. They produce a clean, clear open sound. And they are not made to attenuate outside noises so if you are listening to music and the phone rings you can hear it. People can also hear what you are listening to. Here is a website that may help you out:

http://headwize.com/articles/hguide_art.htm

[RGA]

What Beckman refers to is the open ear can - I like the SR 60 and 80 - If you go up the line I would cross Grado off and look at the Sennheiser HD 580 - then re-enter Grado at the RS1 and RS2 - not impressed with the 125 225 and 325 for the money.

The Sennheiser 580/600 are arguably the most comfortable cans going. Both would benefit from an amplifier - either a headphone amp or the headphone jack of a reveiver or integrated amp - portable cd players don't have the juice to properly drive them.

The 580 and 600 are very close in sound but the 580 will run $150.00 or less. http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/sennheiser_hd600.htm

If comfort is an issue Sennheiser is an around the ear headphone - the ones that sit and, therefore, press on your ears are not good to me for long listening - the in ear headphones are bad for your hearing and IMO should be banned years ago - they have no ability to get the outer ear involved in the sound. And worst of all they aren't comfortable.

Stereophile has used the senns as their references for years as do most classical recording studios. http://www.stereophile.com/accessoryreviews/408/

[pelly3s]

The sony 7506's are amazing and are the standard in recording studios worldwide. also if you are lucky you can find the 7509's for around $150 and they are just amazing.

[WmAx]

The 580 and 600 are very close in sound but the 580 will run $150.00 or less. http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/sennheiser_hd600.htm



Stereophile has used the senns as their references for years as do most classical recording studios. http://www.stereophile.com/accessoryreviews/408/

Yet, in my experiences the MDR-7506 is still a superior device, in terms of absolute accuracy. I can understand why the HD-580/HD-600 are preferred. They are less 'harsh', too my ears. I can imagine they are preferred by at least some other people for the same reason. The MDR-7506 also has comfort issues. Many people complain that the unit touches the ears, thus causing irratation. I have found this to be the case, aslo. Howevever, you can replace the pads with Beyer DT-250 velour replacement pads which will move the speakers slighlty farther from the ear, probably increasing comfort for some people. The HD-580 seemed too me, to help make recordings that were recorded too closely in the first place, sound little farther away. However, in my testing, the 7506 had nearly identical tonality across teh spectrum, when comparing on live feeds, using flat response linear measurement mics, standing at the same distance as teh mics from the sound sources, A/Bing with the origional sound sources. Of course, this has nothing to do with most commercial recordings, which are likely to be EQed, close miced, miced with non linear mics, etc. :-)

-Chris

[RGA]

This is simply going to be a preference issue because my MDR 750 is the higher end version of the 7506. The 750 is a very good can very highly reviewed - and basically changed the ear cup so it would go around the ears - and leather all around.

That said the 600 and 580 are more accurate cans in that they present more resolution. The 580 has a very small amount of lift to the lower bass.

The Senns are the choice in classical music studios - classical music exhibuit the best of recording quality.

There is no evidence that a flatter response is the best response - and this is an area that is sadly overplayed as being more accurate. There is more to the ball game than JUST frequency response.

But I have had the Sony's for a long time and love them - well built sound great - same for the Senns ---- buy whichever you like better - to me that would be the Senn. But the Sony serves me far better for portable use being closed and easy to drive.

Remember also that just because a speaker is used in a recording studio does not mean it's necessarily the best speaker or headphone. PMC is a prime example - as great a sound as some of their spekers are they can be unsuitable for home use.