Inexpensive Headphones

Price Range: Preferable $50 or less. No real limit, but don't want to spend lots just to have the best. I can't tell that much of a difference.

So for the past 6 months or so my headphone situation has been in a rather sorry state. Right now I have the Altec Lansing ahs515 - which has been OK, but far from great. Sound quality in itself is good enough. But there's a few issues with it:

*Comfort. The design with two overhead parts isn't all that comfortable - the lower one can become uncomfortable on the head.
*Build quality. I'm a college student, and this is kind of important. The connectors that keep the headphone part on the frame break very easily - within a year all six of them had broken. Duct tape kept it together for awhile, but needed to be replaced often. And eventually the right headphone connector broke, which resulted in the sorry state of only the left earphone working.
*Size. It's a bit too large to practically carry in my laptop case, and it doesn't easily fit in a desk drawer. I need something smaller.

So what am I looking for? It has to be:

*Comfortable.
*Somewhat smaller. It should easily fit in a standard desk drawer (the kind of shallow type, like the type you put silverware in, not the deep type), which should help it last longer even if the build quality isn't brilliant. These were always getting jerked off my desk by mistake, or else the cord/volume adjuster being stepped on, because of the combination of the long cord and them being too large to easily stash. Also should either be small enough to carry without too much hassle or fold up so they're easy to transport.
*Fairly good sound quality. Obviously I'm not looking for anything brilliant on this budget, but if I didn't care at all I could just use the Dell earbuds that my laptop came with (and I have used those at times in the past six months due to both ears working and their portability).
*Partial blocking of ambient sound would be nice, but not essential.

I'd also like to have volume control on the headphones themselves. Otherwise I have to keep XP volume very low, to which I don't always remember to reset when not using headphones, which can be unpleasant.

My dad has the Sony MDR-V600, which I generally like. It seems to have better build quality, and is more comfortable. And, although my most audiophilic friend says it doesn't have that good of sound accuracy, it sounds to me much better than my current headphones, even when both ears worked. However, it doesn't have the on-headphone volume control, and seems to accumulate sweat more easily than most. A bit less expensive would also be nice.

From what I've heard, the on-speaker volume control isn't common on higher-end headphones...but I'd rather have it than go high-end. I'm not an audio professional, I'd just appreciate listening to my music from both ears with headphones at higher-than-earbud quality when using the (actually pretty good) Inspiron speakers isn't feasible.

Oh, and a somewhat small cord would be nice. My current headphones have a ridiculously large cord for my purposes.

 

try the ones from logitech and creative. cheap and good. try bose if u have the dough.

 

Sennheiser HD 202 headphones are really good.. and cheap as well. $29.11 on Amazon. Although they don't have volume control.. i suggest you check out the rest of the their HD headphones. The are very very nice.

 

I have had a pair of Sony MDRV250s for a few years, unfortunately I recent managed to get the cord stuck in my computer case and cut though the cable. I liked them because they were cheap, compact, and sounded pretty good. They are $30 on the sony site, and $20 on amazon.

 

I've had Sennheiser PX100's that I used through out school, they have lasted me over 2 years getting shoved into and yanked out of my bag twice or more a day. They don't block out much noise, but I used them on the public bus anyways. They have really good sound quality for their price, they fold up and come with a hard carrying case(I lost mine, so they got the abuse without the protection of a case) they'll easily fit in a shallow drawer. They don't have volume control in the cable, but from my experiences most headphones that sound good don't have volume controls in the cables.

 

PX100 is your answer.

 

Try the Sony XD-300 headphones they work very well and have excelllent sound

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826159225

 

another vote for Sennheiser PX100