Still checking out the post but to anyone looking at getting a nice set of headphones, the Sennheiser 600s (mentioned in the post) can be picked up (especially used or open box) much cheaper than $500. I'd actually recommend going ahead and looking at the 650s which run $350 and under on eBay or directly from Senn during a sale. Gotta be able to have open backed headphones though, they leak a lot.
Just keep in mind that the expensive and well regarded headphones aren't always the best for you. There's no best really, as far as subjective listening experience goes.
I have the Sennheiser HD650s and AKG K701s. Used to have the HD595 also. I tend to prefer the latter for most music, as well as speech. The Senns I find more preferrable for movies and classical music.
I also have an ancient pair of Grado SR-80s (or SR-60s?), which are by no means an expensive high-end headphone. But I still like their sound on some things.
Other people prefer considerably bassier headphones and I can see how that is a valid preference, especially considering how some electronic music is mixed.. in fact, I wouldn't mind having such a pair for myself.
Yeah, I have to agree that you really start to see diminishing returns. Going from Koss PortaPros to HD595's was a huge change and I spent most of my free time the next week listening to music. I just upgraded again to HifiMan HE500's and thought they sounded better, but my listening experience is more or less unchanged. Worse, they are quite heavy planar magnetic headphones and I don't enjoy wearing them as much. Maybe I need a better headphone amp, but part of me is convinced I might have hit my ceiling for my listening perception. Maybe I should have just gotten those Grados...
I have a similar setup than you do and bought the schiit modi and magni (~200$ dac and amp). I'm very happy with the purchase and recommand it as a first dac/amp.
HD595s aren't worth buying directly. It's cheaper to buy HD555s and mod them. They have the exact same driver, with a piece of sound dampening material that can be removed.
I'll note here that the Sennheiser 5x5 line has lately been replaced by the 5x8 line, which from all I've been able to gather is hardly different at all.
I've got a pair of HD558s which I quite like; indeed, they're the best headphones I've ever owned. What I'm curious about is this: Can someone who's actually done the foam mod give me an idea of whether the result is worth the risk? I'm pretty sure I can complete the modification without damaging my headphones, but I'd like to know it's worth my while before I carry it out. Thanks in advance!
> Can someone who's actually done the foam mod give me an idea of whether the result is worth the risk?
I'd be more interested in a carefully controlled double blind trial.
I suspect most people would not be able to tell the difference between modfied and unmodified headphones, and that is before making adjustments for the terrible source quality of most people's MP3 collections.
I'm not looking for an idea of whether the foam mod would be worth every HD558 owner's time and effort, but only of whether it'd be worth mine. Nor am I, at least in terms of my music collection, "most people"; I rip my discs via EAC to FLAC, and the only MP3s I have are the 320K CBR transcodes I use in contexts, such as my phone, where storage space or codec compatibility constraints preclude FLAC. (Before someone raises the point, it's not that I imagine I can hear a difference between FLAC and 320K CBR; I just don't see a point in throwing away any information I don't have to, and disk is so dirt-cheap any more -- my primary storage right now is a four-disk 1TB RAID-1 which cost me less to build than I paid for the first 500MB hard disk I ever bought -- that I really don't have to.)
I'd like to see a double-blind trial as well, but that's not what I'm after here; all I'm looking for, in the comment to which you replied, is a sense of whether it's worth my time to modify my headphones. Will I hear a difference? If I do, will it be genuinely there or simply a result of the placebo effect? Who knows? Who cares? If we were talking about $1000 cables, then, sure, it's worth asking those questions. But this is a non-destructive, easily reversible fifteen-minute modification to a pair of $150 headphones I already own, and can afford to replace if I slip and impale a driver or something. Given the minimal stakes, I'm strongly inclined to just go ahead and see what happens. If it makes, or seems to make, a difference, then great! I'll stick with it. If not, I'll put the foam back. Either way, I figure it's worth a shot.
None whatsoever, actually, with either music (1938 Karajan/Berliner Philharmonic recording of the overture to "The Magic Flute"), or the "Ultimate Headphone Test" files; any difference made by removing the foam is evidently so subtle as to be completely lost on me. I don't feel like dismantling my headphones again to put the foam back right now, so I'll leave it out (stuck to the inside of a Zip-loc bag, since I don't have any proper backing paper handy to preserve the adhesive) until the next time I take the pads off for cleaning, and put the foam back in then. I doubt I'll notice any more difference in sound at that point than I do now.
> I wouldn't do it because I'm a ham-fisted klutz and I'd probably damage something.
On the other hand, the modification really is as simple as its adherents purport it to be, especially since the cord is detachable; the only even vaguely dicey moment I had was when I took out the left driver and found that its connection to the cord socket PCB is made by a wire that's both quite short and very fine, and that the foam would have to come out past the wires to both drivers. If I'd dropped the driver, I'd probably have needed to trim the wire and heat up my iron, so I'm glad I didn't do that. Other than that, it was a snap; anyone can do it in ten minutes who has screwdriver, tweezers, and reasonably steady hands.
Edit: Now I think about it, what I really should have done was take the foam out of one side, but leave it in the other, and see if I could pick out any difference that way; having both sides in the same state makes it essentially impossible to compare. Perhaps, when it next comes time to clean my pads, I'll give that a try.
Absolutely agree, I was more wanting to point out to people not fully in the know that $500 was either an old price or a non-US price.
I've got a nice set of GE monitors from probably the mid 70s and they sound fantastic for music that's not incredibly bass heavy and were a quarter so that was nice.
Have you tested the Senn Momentums? They are closed and have a lot more low end than the 600/50s. I really liked them but, since I'm mostly alone at work, I went with the 650s.
I had Grado SR225i's, and they were probably the best sounding headphones I've used. Unfortunately, they caused fairly intense and immediate ear pain. The headband has the tightest I've ever encountered (I might have a large head, but most other headphones I've used have fit well), and the ear cups are apparently designed for people with tiny, perfectly circular ears. After doing a bit of research, it seems a lot of people do extensive modding on Grado's to make them bearable to wear. I didn't feel up to that, so I returned them.
I now use the Beyerdynamic DT990's (32 ohm version, because the FUD about needing a headphone amplifier scared me away from the higher resistance versions) and couldn't be more happy with them.
I'm not sure what they were thinking with the SR225i. I found them unbearably bright, sound-wise. And really, really uncomfortable. Something about having the drivers so close to my ears with the bright Grado sound is way too much for me. (I admit I may be used to the darker sound of Sennheisers, since I beat a $40 pair of them into the ground and loved them.)
I've been dragging my feet selling them. Now I kind of want to. Thanks. :)
I was listening to a lot of progressive metal at the time, so "the Grado sound" worked really well. But I would agree that they don't have the best sound for a broad range of music.
If you're going high end, the head-fi meetups can be great, listen to hundreds of pairs of AKG, Beyer Dynamic, Shure, ATH, Denon, Grados etc, many more than any store stocks. (I also like the gear reviews in Recording mag, which are pitched at people building their own studios
Everyone has them, but my ATH-M50s blew those tests away. I had thought originally they were shitty because the music I listened to through them sounded like it would distort on occasion, but I'm pretty sure now it's just how poorly those songs are mixed, and the headphones were impartial observers, and they're right around the $100 mark.
Most popular music produced in the last twenty or so years has been horribly mismastered, with effectively no dynamic range whatsoever; once they're done smashing the shit out of it, the result consists of nothing but silence and peaks, which can easily produce distortion and clipping at any volume level high enough for the music to be audible at all.
A lot of older music gets remastered the same way when it's re-released; this is one of the legitimate reasons for preferring vinyl, since you can be sure you won't find that problem on an LP. (Granted, you'll have to put up with Rice Krispies instead, but some find that preferable to trying to suffer through modern mastering, and I can't really say I blame them.)
To add, if you're looking for a great overall performer that isn't super expensive ($300+), look at the Sony MDR-7506 (~$100 on Amazon) or AudioTechnica M50 (~99-$130 depending on model).
These plus a good USB-DAC (like those based around NwAvGuy's ObjectiveAmp) will make your listening experience much nicer.
I'll chip in my experience with the ATH-M50, which I bought after my Sennheiser HD280 Pro died (after 10+ years; cracked the headband). They have great reviews, but I simply did not enjoy the sound. The high frequencies were far over expressed, and I was genuinely surprised that others seem to like them. Maybe I just got a bad pair.
I returned them and grabbed the V-MODA CrossFade LP. Its bass response is heavier than even the ATH-M50s, and a much better high frequency response. Their only downside is a dip in the middle frequencies. It gives them that club sound (DJs general dip the mids in clubs, as it makes it easier for people to hear one another). I like it for most of my music, but they definitely suck the life out of classical music and other similar, balanced sounds.
I'll probably grab pair of open Sennheisers to compliment my V-MODA. I'm hesitant only because Sennheiser, despite the HD-280 Pro being built like a tank, they've burned me multiple times now on shoddily constructed portable headphones.
Just a note; the band on my HD280 cracked, but I contacted their support and they sent me a new one... the fix required soldering, but was easy enough. I can't believe that I am still using the same pari of phones after 8 years (they get a lot of abuse). They have a lot of good pro equipment (I am especially fond of several of their microphones, the 441 and 421), I just stay away from their more consumer-oriented products.
I came here to vouch for the v6 as well. With the Beyer Dynamics velour pads, they're just incredible. Comfortable, great all around sound and doesn't break the bank.
(source: I was an audio engineer in a previous life. I also own 3 pairs)
I'm using Sennheiser HD280 Pro, and they performed perfectly in the tests. Really excellent headphones. They're closed cup, so people don't hear what I'm listening to, and I use them on flights to cut out flight noise.
I used a pair of HD 280 Pros for about a year before I got my 558s, and I have to say, isolation is the only area in which the former outdoes the latter; in particular, as far as comfort goes, the 280s made me feel like I was wearing a bench vise on my skull, while the 558s sit so lightly that I barely notice I'm wearing them at all.
Since I was working in a cubicle environment at the time, I figured I'd keep the 280s at work, primarily for their excellent isolation, and the 558s at home, where I maintain a quiet environment in which open headphones' lack of isolation doesn't pose a problem. That lasted about a week before I started carrying the 558s to work, because I could simply no longer stand to wear the 280s.
It really is a shame the 280s are so big and clunky, because they are, as you say, quite good headphones otherwise, albeit IMHO a little weak in the lower part of the frequency range. HD558s being as cheap as they are, and from all I can gather being also the price/performance sweet spot of the Sennheiser 5x8 range, my experience leads me to suggest that it'd be worth your while to consider picking up a pair.
(And I hear elsethread that the 558 foam mod makes them effectively indistinguishable from the twice-as-expensive and even more neutral HD598; I can't speak to that from personal experience, as I have yet to do the mod, but if true then the HD558 is most certainly the standout performer of its range.)
I use HD280's for guitar practice from my POD. They work really well in this case: as they're very analytical, and they don't leak. The closed cup helps me focus on listening to my playing v. the drums/bass.
However, they're really hard on most music that hasn't been mastered well. And that is pretty much all modern music.
That's what I'm wearing right now. Since I almost entirely away from horrifically mismastered stuff, it works out OK. Bass may not be the strongest but I'm not personally a big bass person. They're definitely monitor-style headphones meant for accuracy rather than "bass-boosting". If you're looking for a closed headphone set with that as the goal, it's a decent buy as they seem to run ~$80, given how many people are tossing around multi-hundred dollar recommendations.
It really does seal you off from your environment a bit... I can't hear my cell phone ring in my pocket when I have them on.
I own Grado this and Sennheiser that, even a decent pair of JVC the other, but one of my favourite, best sounding and most comfortable sets is my Superlux HD681s. €20.
I believe they use the same drivers (and superficial design) as AKG K240s.
In this case, they passed the tests reasonably well I think. Great frequency response (cut in at the limits of my hearing), no rattle, all the rest... I might put together a few sets for this test, though I suspect the Grados will fail rattle :)
I have a pair of HD681s that I was using until just a moment ago. The sound isn't as good as my Shure SRH440s, but for 1/3 the price and greater comfort they're sure (heh) close enough. Great value, indeed.
If you want closed cans check out PSB M4U 1. They fold up for transport and are low impedance for use with phones, laptops, etc. Obviously they sound better with an amp but they still sound very good with a MBP's crappy DAC + amp. For $300 they're very hard to beat.
I have a pair of Sony CD-1700 and they're really wonderful headphones, I love them. Light, comfortable, and great sound (hardly distinguishable from the CD-3000, quite close to the Sennheiser 600 but more aerial and comfortable). Probably bought 15 to 18 years ago.
