Recommend a pair of headphones for me

well i'd need to buy them first to get such a document, no?

basically it's said to be real bad news

ok well either way i need a new set of all purpose headphones.

budget? in-ears or hphones?

hphones, not in ear. up to £75 at most

Koss Portapros. You'll have £50 leftover.

aiaiai capitals?

sweeeet

Re: Koss Portapros, to rebalance the straight-vs-right-angled jack comments upthread, I've had a pair of straight-jack Portapros for 4+ years, without any problems at all. Best value headphones I've ever bought in terms of price vs sound quality, they are ace.

good, because i ordered them off amazon

Got sick of returning yet another pair of Klipsch S4s with a banjaxed cable, so have just swapped them for a pair of RHA buds. Haven't had good experience with fabric cables in the past, but they do seem really well made and at first blush sound every bit the equal of the S4s. Maybe even a bit better.

My second pair of S4is just shorted out in one year, less than a year after I had the first pair replaced. They're sending me a third pair. I asked the warranty person over email "so are you guys going to redesign the plug yet?" and never got a reply.

So now I'm going to have THREE pairs of $99 headphones, two of which only work out of one ear. Their willingness to just mail me new ones every couple of months means that it must cost them like five bucks to actually manufacture these.

I guess I should find some replacement plugs and fire up the soldering iron.

Such a shame, because they do sound great - they're just not built for everyday use.

That's what seems so crazy to me - what else are you supposed to do with earbuds? The whole point is to carry them around with you.

Absolutely!

plug them into your headphone amplifier at your desk in your study so you can't hear your family

just emailed my klipsch warranty claim. i guess they look at it and are supposed to send me back a return authorization number -- anyone know how long this process takes?

couple of weeks

arghh.

i kind of hate klipsch but my current headphones are just not as good (despite being similarly priced) and are already starting to fritz out. With my luck I'll have two headphones in a warranty return process. what i get for being lazy and not doing this months ago.

I emailed Klipsh via their website on the 21st, confirmed my shipping address on the 22nd, and received my third(!) pair of headphones yesterday, no questions asked. Plug design is the same so anticipate these dying out sometime next May.

that's comforting! the speed of your new headphones anyway.

Their willingness to just mail me new ones every couple of months means that it must cost them like five bucks to actually manufacture these.

yeah, they aren't even asking me to send them back! i could have gotten warranty on my other klipsch that i destroyed totally by my own carelessness.

i can expect them within 7-10 biz days. woo!

(i don't understand the plug design thing. my old klipsch shorted out within 10 days -- amazon replaced with ones that had the l-shape...so they do make them. does amazon just keep em in reserve for headphones that die quickly?)

does klipsch never ask for the defective ones back? if so, i might try to get the other one replaced too--the two years will be up in a few months.

audio technica m50s vs ad700 's?

basically: closed vs. open.

to be used primarily at home (porta-pros for bus, etc) so the open feature isn't so much an issue. intending on 75% music, 25% film/videogames. i really want to experience this whole "sound stage" phenom, especially having coming from a lineage from super-budget closed headphones (porta pros, whatever sony charges more than $30 for) but at the same time seem to continually find that m50 has an fairly decent soundstage for a closed headphone and has a vastly larger following.

budget: under $130 if anyone else has other recommendations. i'm new to the whole game, really. porta-pros are the best thing i've heard yet.

AKG are my home headphone. Will check model and price later.

AKG K601s, but price is probably nearer $250.

what do you guys think of beyerdynamics? builds (ultra-foamy earpads, etc) + included case (not just the standard bag) suggests a sort of market for luxury. i'm thinking the dt 990 pros... retailing about $168. open.

i'd like to go off the enthusiastic reviews off amazon for recommendations but, honestly, after hours of searching it really seems like the enthusiasm level for headphones is always unanimous with the purchase. seems like everything i'm looking up is supported by a fanbase which absolutely, absolutely loves everything about what they just bought.

Head-fi is where you want to research this stuff

Only if you've got a LOT of money. Hanging out on head-fi cost me about £500 a few years ago, and I was a light, hesitant user. VERY easy to get sucked down the wormhole.

i love my beyerdynamics...
though if you want to go open design....Grado's lower end stuff like the SR 60s/80s are just a ridiculous value

I've had a pair of DT 880s (the 200 ohm version) for about 2 months now, replacing some Denon cans that wore out after 3 years of heavy use.

They're super comfy and they sound marvellous to my taste, but I get the feeling that I should pick up a headphone amp sometime in the future to get the most out of them. My iPhone packs *just* enough juice to drive them acceptably loud if I'm wearing them on the couch or in bed.

Yeah, be careful around head-fi.

i just ordered audio technica m50's and then immediate regretted it, despite them being apparently great headphones. see, i'm in that state where the purchase is so costly that i just *need* to find a headphone i absolutely adore, or at least want to adore, before i even.... you know, use it. it's ridiculous, because now i'm torn between having these ship and using them - and being delighted by them - but missing out on that open-ended sound i've been craving and even prompted a headphone purchase in the first place.

god dammit amazon one-click

i'm seriously thinking about buying a pair of ad 700's and having 2 new pairs.

or returning this and going with the beyerdynamic dt 990's which some dude in head-fi champions above the M50's

like....really, really passionately. it's just one guy, really, but he has me convinced.

They're both good and if you haven't had headphones this good before you'll be blown away. The dt990s make my ears ache after a while. Wot are you going to be plugging them in to? These things really sing if you plug em into a decent amp.

rediscovered my AKG 240s last night - coupled with the nu-force DAC these deliver...!

Headphone amp u&k. I got a Fiio e6, they're dirt cheap (about £20) and sound amazing.

I'm so new to this idea of amping. 80 percent of my listening will be via Android spotify. The other 20 vinyl and movies. Can an amp be used for these things? I assume the investment isz mostly for hi fi systems.

sure, if there's a line-level out option or you find a good standard output for the headphone jack you can use it, or there appears to be a digital audio-over-usb standard some may support.

amping & DACs can be awesome with laptops. I hear they can also add to ipods and the like but then it just seems too much of a bother to carry that stuff around.

Fiio E6 not massive or a bother to carry around:
https://www.decrescent.com/admin/ebay/product_images/FIIO-E6-04.jpg

my klipsch replacements arrived! i'm surprised they don't require you to send the old ones back--how do they know you're not like, stockpiling klipsch headphones?

Looking into those Fiio amps but unsure whether my Audio Technica ATH-M50's can take full advantage of them? Again, majority of listening will be via phone + Spotify. I don't understand all the technicalities behind it, but I certainly know these aren't .FLAC files I'll be booting up. (Is there a noticeable difference at just 320k?)

Sure, it has a lot more to do with volume/power boosting or some audio massaging depending on the unit.

some recs from (yeah, i know) lifehacker: http://lifehacker.com/5949489/five-best-headphones

Loved my Koss PortaPros, much recd on this thread, but one of the channels went out permamently (had 'em for maybe four years). Seems like they're no longer being made, but Koss UR40 or UR 40 are real good. Big cans (look like flies' eyes) but light, comfortable even after several hours, good range--the bass might be less obtrusive than Porta Pros, but it's def there (I worked in Dirty South CD stores for many years---I must have my bass!) UR 40 is what they require: 40 bucks American, but worth it.

Good treble and midrange too.

I am gonna say this once. I am not a hi-fi guy. But I recommend my Panasonic RP HT225. These are the standard headphones at my work (a film production company). They sound very good, to me at least. I have been frustrated with my Sennheiser headphones that I bought for about £50. And my work headphones are genuinely comfortable to wear all day. I am not a hi-fi guy, but these headphones sound good enough and are comfortable enough that I googled them thinking I'd get my own pair for, I dunno, hopefully less than £50. Turn out they are around £15 (£12 in Argos even!). I recommend them very highly. I can't imagine you'd get better budget headphones. I only mention these things to contribute to eternity.

Not making Portapros anymore? Sadface.