Need Decent Headphones (OT?)

Alba's sound great. Can a man have more than one pair of headphones? Actually, I need some good laptop speakers now that my headphones are putting my $10 Walgreens speakers to shame. :(

http://www.audio-technica.co.jp/products/hp/image/a900/a500.jpg

I'm buying a banana hanger for them this weekend.

ihttp://www.audio-technica.co.jp/products/hp/image/a900/a500.jpg

I'm buying a banana hanger for them this weekend.

and do they need to be portable?

Answer these questions and I, the amateur ILM headphone oracle will recommend the ideal closed cans.

I just spent $40 on the PortaPros!!!!

I probably don't want to spend more than $60, which is a shame as all the really GREAT ones are about $100.

for example:
http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/images/er6-top.jpg

For closed over the ear headphones, I'm going to recommend the Sony V6 which is identical to the Sony MDR-7506 (but do NOT confuse this with the supposedly very inferior MDR-V600 which looks similar). Other options: Sennheiser PX-200, Sennheiser HD-280

For in ear canal phones, I'm suggesting the Shure E2C
Other options: Sony EX-71, Sony EX-51

Now the problem is that both of my recommendations are more than $60 (Street price being between $70-$100). However, many people have apparently had success bargaining at Guitar Center, and have got them down to $55-$70 for either.

Again, this information is coming from having done alot of recent research at head-fi.org which is actually pretty addicting to read.

I had been in serious advice mode for this thread..

Bring back Jean Claude Van Damme, he never fucked about with music people might actually want to hear...

xpost: so you listen to your A500s on the road, then

FUCK Wes Anderson and his boring ear-canal phones playing interesting music from the last 30 years.

Bring back Jean Claude Van Damme, he never fucked about with music people might actually want to listen to.

But seriously, they're not portable *at all* - too big and they'd probably fall off since they don't clamp to your head like some other (uncomfortable) headphones.

I have just got some Shure E2Cs. They are great.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/IMG_5008.jpg

i like them. They are like earplugs and you can listen to stuff on the tube at a much lower volume then :)

Shure E2c Sound Isolating ipod Earphones £57.99

Bass is perhaps a little light, but that's largely down to my iPod I suspect, but isolation and clarity and sound-staging are all excellent, good enough to use them with my home hi-fi if I didn't have some Grados.

The RRP is more like £70+ I believe.

It barely drives my koss ksc35's at all (same drivers as yr portapros nick) pretty close to inadequate (i'm no loudness freak either).

This is timely. I got an iaudio7 this week and the earbuds that come with it really don't stay in my ears at all. I have portapros but was thinking about moving back to an in-ear answer.

Oof, I've been meaning to get some Etymotics for onstage monitoring, but I might look for something else. Maybe this is more of an IMM question.

...in the few months I've had the Etymotics ER6i's, they've broken twice.

Was that before or after you accidentally ran them through the washer/dryer?

If it's any consolation, my "sturdier" (and 425-dollars-more-expensive) Shure E500's gave way to wear and tear (i.e., frayed wires where they wrap over my ear; good warranty though) at least three times in my three-ish years of ownership.

I handle them differently now, and it seems to have solved the problem.

I ran into the same thing with ER6i's. They're great headphones but mine have shorted twice this year. I do have a bad habit of leaving them coiled up in my pocket all day, and have been a little more careful about putting them in their case when not in use. Seems to be working so far.

The good thing is that Etymotic's customer service is pretty great. The turn-around from sending them out to getting them back was about a week both times.

I recently bought the Creative Labs EP-630 Earphones for something like $25 (I had a coupon from Dell and needed to pad things out to over $100, so I added these). They're a little bass-heavy, but for the price they're pretty hot shit. I've given up on Etymotic after one too many broken pairs.

What about Bose, of any size/design? Worth the prices?

No.

another recommendation for portapros. they also have a ridiculously archaic LIFETIME WARRANTY. mine broke a while ago, more as a result of me carelessly schlepping them around forever, and for £3.50 postage they fixed them/sent me some new ones. they sound great, are great.

Anybody know if the SportaPro is of the same quality as the PortaPro?

i think i heard that they aren't. i spent a while digging around on geeky headphone sites to decide whether portapro were what i wanted, and i don't think they're of the same quality. but what do i know? i'm pretty enthusiastic about portapros, maybe to the extent of ignoring some of their failings, like the way they're reshaping my head with the little metal strap. so perhaps sportapro are worth a shot.

I am selling a headphone hanger - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300253748217

< / Shameless plug >

http://www.americanmusical.com/images/h/p17166h.jpg
Still love 'em, after all these years.

I've read in a few different places that the AKG 240s are the "reference standard" for studio monitoring. Don't know if that's true, but I see them a lot in films of recording sessions.

a headphone hanger.
a headphone hanger.

a gun rack.

have a nice blood.

I made a terrible, terrible mistake- got tired of my slightly painful, hideous (yet wonderful-sounding) Portapros and went looking for a more attractive model for walking-around use, settling on a pair of Zumreeds (the Japanese ones with the hemispherical cups). They look great and sound like absolute crap compared to the Portapros. Thankfully the place I bought them from will take them back after a minor restocking fee.

I'm keeping the portapros (with replacement ear cushions, because OW) for walking and commuting, but I am in the market for a nicer pair I can wear at work and use for casual DJing at home. Would Grado SR-80s be good for this? I'd be running them off of an ipod at work and a generic middle-of-the-line sound system at home.

my slightly painful, hideous (yet wonderful-sounding) Portapros

ha ha. i always thought it was like a portapro secret. i totally put up with pulling my hair out, digging a metal band into my head and crinkling impressions of the plastic eatphones into my ears because they sound so great. i really need to send them off to be fixed sometime soon (elastic band solution amid disintegration), but i don't want to be without them for a couple of weeks. i still regularly notice how good they sound.

grado's sound great, and i love my SR-60s...they are very "open" though and bleed sound both ways, so that might be a problem in a work environment.

Just got my SR80s today and I'm already in love with them. A bit less up-front and punchy than the Portapros, but I'm hearing so many subtle little details I was missing. And they're so comfy!

On flights to and from Oakland for work in August I saw around 5 age 50-something and up guys using Bose headphones. Just got back from a trip to LA and again saw the same number of folks in that same demographic with the Bose headphones. I wonder if I should join them when I hit that age range...

Bose - Better Off Somewhere Else.

Typically you can get better headphones for a lot less.

I use the noise canceling Bose on flights and they work like a charm. I would never have sprung the $350 but since they were a gift I use and enjoy them.

After 50 your range of hearing is typically so reduced that it won't make much difference what you use.