Headphones in the 150 range.

I'm looking for replacement headphones around 150 dollars from amazon, +/- 20 bucks.

I have a a lot of brand loyalty towards Sennheiser, and towards Sony for the sub 50 dollar range. I'm looking for something with a looong cord or a wound cord that extends (I know that's an odd thing to place as a make it or break it requirement, but I need it for the way my room is arranged). I want an over the ear/circumaural design, I feel I get the best comfort and sound out of those. Also, they must be light weight, as I wear them for extended periods. Also, good soundfield is important to me for the minor gaming and extensive movie watching they'll be used for. I would prefer bassy to a flat monitor-style sound, but nothing too fake or pumped up.

I was looking at the HD380 pro or the HD558. These are literally within 9 dollars of one another in the 160's. Any suggestions as to which one between the two? What about outside of the sennheiser brand?

Similarly priced are the ATH-A900 and ATH-M50. I have no experience with AT though.

Or one of you could hook it up with those sweet beyer dynamic T1's! I can't afford any beyers

I know your sound fidelity is only as good as the file your playing and the sound card it's coming out of. In those respects it's pretty dismal, straight cheap lossy mp3's and the T400s' headphone jack! I usually plug my headphones into my HK 3390. If that makes a difference. Sweet little stereo receiver. I didn't really buy it for listening to music on the headphones though, they just happen to be used for that as well. But jumping into external sound cards and all that is not what I'm looking for. These will be used for 40% music, 50% movies, and 10% gaming. I listen to a wide variety of music, so I don't think that could be a deciding factor.

 

Check out Ultrasone HFI 2400 on Amazon website it's on sale at $179 ($349 original price). Punchy bass witch crispy highs and it's open good for movies and music (unless noisy area). The cable is about 9ft. with additional 6.3mm cable. Comfortable and light with surround sound effect.

 

edit: so after doing some more research I think I'm ALSO looking for a standalone USB DAC with line level rca outputs. No integrated amp, or at least the option to not use it. But most seem like you can either use the DAC+AMP or AMP, but not the DAC alone. does something like that exist? I want something like this:

Laptop USB --> USB DAC --> Receiver --> listen to headphones on headphone jack.

My reasoning behind not wanting an amp is because my HK should be plenty powerful to drive my headphones right? Or is there something unique to headphone amps that make them better suited to headphones. Is their dedicated solution better than using the headphone jack on my receiver?

And will I truly notice a difference in SQ here? All of my music is 16/48 or 24/96, but I am slowly shifting my music collection over to FLAC. From what I understand though most DAC's dont support higher than 16/48 over USB and not without additional drivers, but I can't find any of these companies that sell DACs with their own proprietary drivers that enable higher than 16/48. Will I not be able to hear my FLAC files if I use a USB DAC? So then, what's the point? I doubt the increase in SQ from simply moving to a higher quality external DAC is noticeable when your just listening to 16/48 mp3s right? Is there a way to get my laptop to output in coax/toslink digital .. even though it has no digital output?

What about movies? I'll watch downloaded bluray rips, but those are almost always compressed to DVD size, but I'm noob when it comes to understanding A/V encoding and don't know the quality of half the AVI's and mkv's I download..

 

If you watch these, they go on sell every other month or so:

Sennheiser 598



EDIT: forgot to mention that they get down to the 170-180 range.

 

The ATH-M50's seem insanely popular. They don't do anything particularly wrong, and have a 'consumer friendly' sound. The M50S is the straight-cord (3m) version. The curly cords aren't good for obvious reasons if you want to regularly stray a distance from the socket.

I'll also throw in the Shure SRH840 - I really like these for fit, comfort, and sound (as well as your stated need for a wide soundfield - the Shures are standout good for a closed phone) - though not for the goofy looks.

In your position I might avoid Ultrasones due to the odd / close soundstaging, which is the result of the S-Logic design.

One of us could

RE: Receiver, it depends on how good the receiver's headphone socket is I guess. Personally, from what I see in terms of measurements you're better off sticking something like a Turtle Beach Amigo / Micro into the USB and ending it there. If you want something which is actually better which you can plug headphones directly into, I'd stick with pro audio interfaces like this ( http://www.amazon.com/Focusrite-Saf...tronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1325439573&sr=1-1-catcorr) and not bother with ~$100 USB DACs, some of which can be laden with BS.

 

I've got a few headphones that I've come to own over the past few weeks. Here's a comparison for ya. Recently, I became headphonantic and bought Turtle Beach PX5, HD280 Pro, HD598, and now HD518! Which headphone is the best? HD 598 hands down. However, that headphone leaks so much sound it can only be used at my man cave. It can be heard from 30 ft away w/ "decent" volume. Anyways, HD518 was kind of between HD280 PRO and HD 598. For HD280, I use it at work and it leaks litterally zero sound! I love it. However, the open stage experience is very short and it's not so comfortable. You'll always be aware that you're wearing a headset which kind of gets annoying after a while. With HD598, it feels so comfortable... I forget I'm wearing it in less than 5 seconds and massive open stage sound. So, that's where HD518 comes in... right in the middle. Most of the time, I'll be using this headset and love the extra kick of bass. So, if you're looking for headphone that gives open stage sound that's less than $100 then this is it. If you have a man cave where no one can hear you scream then I would recommend HD598. You will definitely know noticeable difference between HD518 and HD598. HD598 feels like you're at a live concert and HD518 is more at a night club.

 

So after listening to a few different brands, not all specific models I was interested in, I still find it harder than ever to choose!

The closed back headphones definitely had more thump to them, but were also a bit harsher on my ears at louder volumes. The open back phones definitely had a better sound stage to them, but it was different. More like im surrounded by instruments, where as nice closed back ones sounded like the concert was right there in my head, it was very immersive but hard to pinpoint the 'location' of instruments aside from the obvious left/right. Both, unique. Can't say I preferred one to the other. But I can't buy 2 high dollar headphones right now, so I'm going to have to say I slightly preferred the open back sennheisers. They didn't seem flat at all, but they also didn't seem to beef up the bass as much, so it sounded more natural. Also, like I said before I definitely felt less fatigue on my ears when listening to heavier (relatively speaking) things like Unkle or DJ Shadow, and they sounded GREAT when listening to more airy and less electronic music.

@TreeBurner - that's awesome, I'll definitely sit on those if they drop to the 170's - 180's. They're beautiful and from the reviews they seem better than the 555/8's.

@Vogelbun - I totally didn't sleep and scoured the head-fi forums last night. When it comes down to it, I don't think I can afford getting a nice USB to Coax/Spidf converter, a DAC and a headphone amp, especially if I start nearing pro/am grade equipment. It's difficult to choose though because like you said there are literally TONS of dac/amp makers out there. I'm still trying to get some feedback on head-fi, but I think I will go with something like a LittleDot DAC I and a MK ? or just a DAC II. They seem to have high quality components and good reviews. But they are just one of many.

Sadly this means I won't be able to get the full quality of my FLACs until I get a laptop with a digital out or add a sound card into my desktop with a digital out. But I'm hoping the addition of a dedicated DAC, amp and high end headphones will bring me some noticeable (hopefully amazing) increase in audio quality for the time being.

I chose against using the receiver's built in amp, because although it can drive my headphones, most people seemed to say that low imp headphones benefit even more from an external amp compared to high imp headphones, and I don't know how the headphone jack is powered in my unit, but they said that most likely it is through series resistor drops which allows it to push a headphone with out destroying the voice coils, but isn't particularly SQ oriented. Also I think cable wise it would be cleaner to just have a dedicated dac/amp for the headphone, and then run my existing system through the outputs on the back of the DAC into the receiver. Less cable changing that way. Sadly I'm a neat freak so I zip tie and organize the crap out my cables. It looks sweet, but is a pain to undo.

I appreciate all the help!

Perhaps someone here can tell me how XLR balanced cables work?

 

@Pathfinder - thanks, I felt the same way in the difference between the closed and opens I tried out today. I'll definitely wait for those 598's to come on sale and get them. And I do usually listen to them in my study, sometimes the bedroom, always at home though so I don't think the sound leakage should be an issue. I didn't realize how open open back headphones were till I tested them out and heard other people listening to them. They're definitely not for privacy that's for sure!

 

Unless you're running something like an HD650 and above, an outboard USB interface such as the ~$30 Turtle Beach I mentioned is fine - yes, for FLACs even - and if you *really* want to take the sound quality up a notch and you're prepared to move to well beyond your $150 budget, do not bother with a budget "audiophile" DAC - make the jump to a decent pro audio soundcard or a higher-end ($500~$700 is where it actually starts making a worthwhile difference IMO - and even then we're talking really incremental improvements - but the rest of the chain has to be up to it) DAC that isn't a load of BS (not that they're easy to spot on Head-Fi among the hype). Really. You may feel good about some machined-aluminum audiophile DAC after the purchase but all you're doing more often than not is being a sucker.

I own some truly ridiculously-priced DACs, hooked up to similar classes of equipment down the chain. I do my PC listening on a variety of top-tier pro-audio soundcards. And even then, I'm absolutely aware of how miniscule-ly incremental the improvements are relatively speaking in the real-world listening scenarios beyond the <$50 single-chip codec based USB interfaces, especially in terms of what the human ear can actually make out. I buy them because a) I want the absolute insurance and b) it's not a stretch. Where to put your money or the best bang for the buck and often the only real improvement is definitely in the front end - i.e. the speakers or the headphones.

However, many "audiophile" gear actually throws additional spanners into the sound, and many people end up thinking it's better sound, not actually because it's better but because it sounds different - i.e. it can have a stronger bass while the actual sound quality is worse than a ~$30 USB stick. And the problem is, spotting the ones who're honest about what they do vs the ones who engineer some piece of crap in a really nice case - especially with the tendency of boards like Head-Fi to just baselessly hype stuff up. Which is why I say <$500 cumulative spend = forget DAC, blow it on phones and buy a cheap, decent USB stick just to divorce your audio from potentially noisy mobo audio.

 

Balanced audio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Ironically my search led me to that RME babyface (before I saw your post) because it seemed to have everything I wanted but then I saw the price and I can't afford another money-pit hobby right now and I know that's what it would become if I get too lost in this. I have other money pits that need feeding right now! And I don't do any recording, or critical listening, this honestly is just for great music n movies. To step up to pro/am hardware for that purpose is just dollar inefficient for me right now.

To give you an example of what I consider an acceptable upgrade: my logitech 2.1's died, and so I bought the HK3390, sony SAW2500, and SSB1000 for my computer desk. Basically the cheapest decent receiver I could find and the cheapest sony speakers I could find. I'm satisfied with it. It's a marked improvement over my logitechs, and it does what I need it to. It's probably not acceptable at all to most audiophiles, but I'm not trying to hear each individual instrument in mozart's final trilogy here. So in terms of improvement, that's the kind of improvement I expect. I figured it would be easier to compare to what I used to have, rather than what others have. For another comparison, the "nicest" speakers I think I've owned that fulfilled my needs were my father's old jbl studio 88's paired with his old pioneer stereo receiver (and later my own onkyo tx 88) and this ancient reel to reel tape mechanism that looked like it belonged on a 60's computer instead. But from what I can tell, adjusted for inflation and salary, he paid ALOT more for that equipment back in the 60's than I want to now, so perhaps the comparison is unfair.

I doubt the 650's ever drop that low in price, so I'll probably never own them or anything that surpasses them. I think I'll wait on those 598's and jump on em when the price goes down. That's as much as I can justify spending on headphones right now, and it's most definitely a step up from my 30 dollar MDRV150's and Vmoda vibe ear buds (painful, used for lasso-ing now).

Head-Fi doesn't seem to provide consistent information. And what different people hear is hugely subjective so it's hard to compare their experiences without hearing for yourself. It's a good outlet to discover new products in though.

I was looking at some products and I have a few questions. Functionally, what's the difference between something like the turtle beach audio advantage micro II, this creative product, Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD Sound Card powered | Creative Labs Online Store and the littledot dac II. As far as I can gather they do the same thing.. simply move the processing off the motherboard, and amplify. Some have more connectivity than others, but as you stated earlier, they both seem to be in the same class. So what's up with the price difference? And why don't people always go with the creative/maudio? They have experience with software/drivers and provide drivers enabling 24/96 over USB, where as tiny independent DAC makers rely on windows drivers which won't do more than 16/44. So why would you pay 200 for a little dot when an cheaper product from creative/maudio/tb would come with drivers? I mean your music is only as good as the file you play it from right, that's the first link in the chain, so what's up with a nice dac/amp that you have to play 16/44 mp3's through!? I'm missing something here..

And lets say I got that micro II and the HD598's. What would be the next link in the chain I would add/upgrade/replace to improve SQ?

Thanks for all the help vogulbung. I like the new cat.

I read up a bit on balanced audio. Looks like overkill for my needs.

 

I have the Bose AE2 headphones, they seem to fit your needs quite well:
-The chord is very long and is replacable
-The sound quality is fantastic and well balanced. Bass is good and goes quite deep, mids don't sound warm like older boses but very detailed and highs are not really ever harsh
-They are the most comfortable headphones i have ever come across and are very light
-They have quite good noise cancelation despite only being passive
-I think that they are quite durable (despite past bose headphones) and dont feel like they will break.

Check them out: Bose AE2 Headphones ? Bose AE2i Headphones - Bose Headphones and Headsets

 

This is where I have to disgree, they really jacked up the trebles to a level where I can't deal with it without EQ to depress the treble - it's *really* harsh and prominent. But they did tidy up the bloom-prone bass and in terms of detail, the phones aren't bad.

I agree with everything else though. If you need something much more portable than the ATH-M50 or the MDR-ZX700 in still an around-ear form factor, the AE2's are not a bad choice, although it is IMO sonically still slightly worse than both - but you do get the benefits of a really compact size and weight for a full-around-ear phone, along with probably the best comfort in a phone of this category. For me though, the MDR-ZX700 has a sound I like better, and while the weight, comfort and portability aren't in the same class I chose to keep it over the AE2 because I don't use *head*phones portably that often - and when I do, I prefer the signature of the Sony.