Recommend me a headphone?

Can anyone recommend me a pair of Bluetooth/wireless headphones? My budget is ~$100. They will be used for mostly watching movies, and listening to jazz and hip hop. Noise cancellation is preferred.

Headphones with a really really long/stretchable chord also works.

I do not mind buying used or refurbished.

 

Not sure how much these go for in $'s maybe have a check on it, but these look nice

AKG K 830 Bluetooth Headphone: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

I have the AKG K450 Headphones, they get very good reviews (as does most of the AKG brand).

 

The headphones from Bose are absolutely amazing. The cable length is pretty decent and can always be removed for a longer/different cord.

I would also look into sets from Sennheiser.

 

are you a basshead? Do like to listen to music/movies/etc knowing that the bass is there with a good bump? Or more of a neutral sounding, less bass with a quick punch?

Best thing to do is to go to various stores and test out what ever they have on display.

I use Audio Technica M50 and I can tell you right now they're amazing. However, I can't go into too much detail on which one is better as I have not used many other headphones for a long period of time; other than just testing them out.

From testing out others though, I can tell you this, Sennheiser 400 series has more of a neutral sound with lacking bass and good sound stage.

Shure 440/840 pretty similar to Sennheiser sound quality, but had a tad bit more response in bass. Still note my taste. It was more prevalent that the bass was there though.

Both Sennheiser and Shure definitely gave some really good sound stage and Very clean high/mids.

For a basshead, DJ100 pros and XB500/700/1000 if you want some serious bass. I'll put SR80's in there too, the bass is pretty good on the Grado's.

What kind of cans do you want? Closed back will give sound isolation or open back which will cause sound leakage. The difference? - it's more of a personal preference really. Closed vs open do have different sound characteristics though.

BTW these are all cabled, some come in straight cable or coiled. They are all long cables.

 

I dont mean to interrupt but the jvc ha-rx700 is one of the best headphones i have heard so far.. Its only 30$ on amazon. It has a very very lengthy and durable cord.. its worth taking a look at it

 

I like closed cans. More bass is good, but more control is better. I love bass and I love trebles, but I don't like mids, and I don't like mid/bass overlaps.

 

DJ100pro

XB700's

If you can save up another $50 though, that opens a whole different range of better cans for you

or even $30 more, for M50's what I got from a dealer on ebay (registered authorized Audio Technica dealer)

But $50 more will put you in the range for akg 271, SRH840 and some ultrasones

 

Is there such a thing as 5.1 headphones? If so are any of those good?

 

There are 5.1 surround sound headphones but they're more of a marketing gimmick than anything. First of all the .1 refers to a subwoofer, which isn't really accurately used for headphones. There are some good surround sound headphones from a few companies such as Ultrasone, but they're on the order of $500+. The cheaper ones sound worse than the regular 2.0 ones IMO. You can get really good headphones for under $100 (though I prefer the open Grado/Alessandro), so I'd stick with "regular" headphones.

 

I always wondered the same thing. I was under the impression that these 5.1 on headphones, majority of them are just 2 speakers but is an emulated 5.1 - like surround sound. I have yet to see a pair of headphones that actually have 5 speakers, 2 on each side with a designated subwoofer-like-speaker.

 

I think the first looks more comfortable because there's more padding on the part that connects both ear pieces.

 

they're both very comfortable

but the sony xb's cushions are huge. Larger than the Koss DJ's. It's like pillows on your ears lol

dj's




not mine. Looks worn a lot, but that's relatively the same size New out of box.

 

i just got my Audio Technica M50's and so far so good. it has a really nice balanced soundstage that works really well with music, and games/movies. my favorite thing about them, so far, is that they aren't too bass-y. i've had these on for hours, up hours, and was not fatigued at all.

u can get find them for $110-$120 range once in a while.

 

Nice totally forgot you said you ordered a pair! Yeah once I got mine and listened to them with no eq changes and everything zeroed out; they sounded pretty good. Then I turned on my eq setting for bass, man... awesomeness where did you get yours? straight or coiled?

since you mentioned it, the dealer who I got mine from just got a new shipment of straight cabled. No coiled though =\

Audioplayroom aka ScitScat, Inc - registered Audio Technica dealer


M50 - straight cable

I got mine for $109 so wouldn't hurt to do some best offers. Legit M50's and not Chinese-cloned. Opened mine up and took apart the can to confirm it was a legitimate M50. Just putting it out there if anyone is interested! Grab them "soon", they sell out very fast.

 

i originally ordered them online, but had a little issue with my credit card so i canceled the order. i then called all around houston and finally located a local Guitar Center that had 1 pair left! too bad it was the straight cable version, but oh well.

they were worth every penny of the ~$160 i spent, and DEFINITELY worth it for $109-$120.

EDIT: ok...i just looked at this picture again...


am i trippin or something...??? how come the headphones are connected to the bottom of that iphone? the headphone jack is supposed to be at the top.

 

haha awww man, got lucky there; guitar center always seems to pull through some how

Yeah noticed the same thing, never had an Iphone but had a touch for a couple years. Strange. Unless the phone is just resting on top of that cable tip\male input.

 

? Its an iPod touch 4G

 

(shrugs) I had the 1st generation touch; never seen or played with the new ones since after I sold mine 4 years ago

 

While I was overseas I order some Sennheiser HD 202 headphones. I'm not much of an "audiophile" but they are the best headphones I've owned. I recommend them to anyone looking for reliable and inexpensive headphones. I bought mine for $26 on Amazon.com.

 

You are correct that surround headphones use some kind of emulation (called surround downmixing, virtual surround, or a few other names) to create the surround effect. You will never find a pair of headphones that truly does positional sound, without the use of some kind of software emulation.

There *ARE* headphones that have multiple sound drivers within the ear cups, that market themselves as "surround" headphones. But these kinds of headphones are intended to prey on the uneducated consumer that looks at the higher number of sound drivers, and assumes that more-must-mean-better.

The quality of a surround effect is determined by the quality of the software emulation algorithm used, and the clarity of the headphones used. It is not determined by how many sound drivers are in the headphone cup.

 

The quality of the surround effect is determined by the source. If the source is mono there will be no surround effect at all, the software surround filter has nothing to work with. It will sound like a sound delay because that's what it is, disregarding any low-pass, highpass or band-pass filter. If you have two channels it depends on the quality of the recording, it's still a delay to give you the impression of a surround sound. If you have 5 channels well then you don't need to add any kind of surround filters.

If you have Win7 along with Realtek drivers, click the speaker in the taskbar, choose Enhancements then Environment and select 'Parking Lot' for example that's the best surround you'll get from two channels.

 

That might be all fine and good for home theatre surround sound, but it doesn't apply for headphones.

The human ear detects positional sound using two pieces of information. First, there is a timing difference - the sound hits one ear slightly before it hits the other ear. Second, the sound reflects and echos off of surfaces like walls, the floor, your earlobes, etc. Your brain interprets this difference in timing + echo as positional audio. Once you understand this, you see that there is no possible way that a bunch of tiny speakers crammed together in a headphone cup can replicate that effect of timing + echo from "true" surround sound.

All surround sound through headphones use some kind of software algorithm. This algorithm calculates what your ears *SHOULD* hear if the sound had actually come from a true positional sound source, and plays it into the L/R audio channels of the headphones. This software algorithm may be a piece of software you install, it may be bundled with a device driver, it may be baked into a separate piece of hardware (e.g. Astro MixAmp, Turtle Beach EarForce DSS surround processor), or it may be baked into a set of headphones themselves.

So, every set of "surround" headphones achieves surround sound through software. Some implementations of that surround algorithm software are better than others, giving you better surround effects. But you won't find "true" surround in any pair of headphones. Because sound drivers pressed against your ears will never achieve the timing + echo that your brain needs to determine positional sound.

Every single implementation of surround sound in headphones uses some kind of software algorithm to "trick" your brain into thinking it is listening to positional sound.

This is all personal taste, but most people will find better surround sound representation from using a separate device that does true surround downmixing.

Realtek drivers use SRS3D to try and emulate surround sound. They take a 2-channel audio source, pick out certain frequencies, processes the sound to create localization of those frequencies (soundstage), and sends the processed sound through 2-channel headphones.

A true surround downmixing processor (like a Creative Labs X-Fi, Astro MixAmp, or Dolby Headphone processor like a Turtle Beach DSS processor) takes a 5.1 / 7.1 channel audio source, calculates the amount of timing + echo that a person would hear, and then sends that processed sound through 2-channel headphones.

Realtek's implementation of SRS basically takes a 2-channel audio source, and tries to "guess" information about surround positioning. A surround downmixing processor actually has that positioning information to work with, which is why it results in better surround effects than RealTek.

 

I agree you have to be in between the drivers to properly receive a surround sound. If you're not surrounded by it it's just noise, mono sound. Listening to a 5.1 true surround system from 10 or 20 ft. away? No way. You can't even tell what's what. Headphones have this advantage because the drivers are right there in your ears. But 2 channels on 5 is still called a delay, you can tell the difference. Each channel has to have its sound source, but since you only have two ears and the drivers are placed so close to each other(headphones) you can't tell the difference.

To OP I'd recommend A&H XD-40 which run from $79 to $99. They're not bluetooth or wireless, sorry!