a narrow fence to walk on, indeed.
Back to the OP...
...and I know many will laugh that this response...
After listing to my modestly powered L100T rig for about 10 years, and suffer through total BS headphones (including large "can" types), I bought a set of (now long discontued) Sony MDR EX-81s in 2007 for $40...
Frankly, it took me about $10,000 in my home rig to catch up to those little $40 guys off of my iPod Classic.
I'm a Mechanical Engineer by trade and do a fair bit of design work. I can't really focus while my coworkers do "their thing" so it's headphone city for me if I need to get in "the zone". I've been playing the same set of headphones for 6 years, through EXTENSIVE abuse (both to my hearing and their composition) without complaint. I'm not a huge Beethoven guy... Crystal Method, Eazy-E, Daft Punk, Rage Against The Machine, TOOL, Genesis, Stevie Wonder, etc, et al... Lots of very demanding tracks, generally played at absurd output levels (because that is what it takes for me to genuinely focus on my work [fear not, my latest hearing test was perfect]) for any speaker to keep up with in my selection of artists on a day-to-day basis. The "cheapie" Sony's never let me down.
I'm so impressed with them that after I lost one of the ear canal cushions on a flight I bought 3 spare sets of cushions in my size...
If you don't like Sony (I really don't), or think I'm a complete crack pot, take nothing else more than this with you: BUY IN-CANAL EAR PHONES!!! PHENOMENAL!!!
they are cute , but I can't see cans when in use ..so Senn industrial black is fine.
YES ...cans play in a protected environment (esp. IEM's), much better for sound than an open room. I have some Shure's that are very nice.
Well, there is sony and there is SONY. their low end can be crap ..their high end can be fab, they were a very innovative company in the last century. I'm a big MD (mini disk) fan and for me the Sony MD decks are the best bang for the buck.
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
My $40 guys are "sony" and came from a box store. I was/am very impressed with them regardless of their cost. I've never heard a $300 set of head phones and don't intend to. I guess that is sort the direction my endorsement was going. In canal is definitely the way to go for noisy spaces. Even on a regional CRJ-7 jet (you can converse with the person across the aisle, but it is a bit of a shouting match) I can still hear my music quite well and can't hear crying babies (a life saver for one leg of a trip).
The only "SONY" equipment I've been exposed to is the 90s and up ES series. Every single piece of it, car audio or otherwise, has failed save for one ancient pro-logic receiver a friend owns. All of the other "sony" equipment I've had has failed too (except for my 150-1992-Dollars Walkman... auto reverse, 20 radio presets, etc... quite high rolling for its day... used the snot out of it too), but generally it gave me 3-4 years of heavy use.
Not really in the same league as all the models discussed so far, I recently purchased two sets of these for the kids, a friend of mine recommended them to me, I figured the kids can beat the hell out of them and it was no big deal at under $4.00 how bad can they be?
They're actually not that bad at all, quite decent in fact, for what they are, have certainly paid more & heard worse.
I'm actually ordering a few more for when the kids inevitably destroy them or they finally wear out.
Just Play Music.
Sold off my DT-880s and got Audeze LCD-2s. BTW, Audeze is pronounced "odyssey"; yeah, kind of cutesy. Despite the cutesy company name, they are nice headphones. Smooth response and great detail. Far more natural & "roomier" sounding than the DT-880s. They're on the large & heavy side, but I mostly use them as a reference to set up the speaker system.
Oppo BDP-95 DCX-2496 RMX-850 Parasound A21 First Watt J2 Dayton RSS390HF-4 MTM Quads of SEAS W18E001 511Bs TAD TD-2002
I picked up a pair of Plantronics USB phones at a liquidation outfit for $5 last week. There is no model number on them. They sound very nice and clean. They also have a fold-away boom mic that I can use for VOIP apps and even Dragon.
They have a very convenient volume control inline with the cord.
Their website is vague and I could not ID this set from what was online there.
If anyone here knows about these types, what is the pushbutton below the volume rockers for? It turns red when pushed, but there is no audio change when cycled.
This USB device self installs as a "USB Audio Device" in Device Manager, but there may be additional software for them which involves the pushbutton and no doubt more. But as mentioned, their website was not of much help.
D_E -
The Beats With a Billion Eyes
He’s conquered the headphones market, but Dr. Dre isn’t selling great sound. He’s not even selling celebrity. He’s selling the concept of “bass".
http://www.slate.com/articles/techno...he_market.html
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
Dating myself. Koss Pro4-AA
had L25,L36,L40,L120,L300,AquariusIV(2),S1,4408 have L65,L100,L222,DorianS12,B380
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
wow...my first set of headphones... had to save up from $1.85/hr job .... Koss Pro4-AA
I was quite pleased and proud to have them.
Speakers therefore came a bit later (which was probably good for
domestic tranquility with the parental units).
Even with the original earpads (fluid filled?), the 4-AAs were comfortable for ~2hrs max
then they started getting irritating to wear (mostly mesh/screen pressing on the pinnae).
last night I hit the sack early, but the OL was busy watching a flick, so I grabbed the iPod Touch and plugged in the Sennheiser HD-25is mk2's. The touch doesn't really have the power to push them real hard ..... I found that out when the MFSL copy of SWCB/BMW/GQ* came up.
pushed it to the max and Santana did not disappoint. My skin felt electric (hope there wasn't a short somewhere ) .... really , Carlos's wham,wham,wham at the end of "Gypsy Queen" (just before the feedback ending) really gives me goosebumps at good volume.
Now I've got to find a way to get a higher gain copy to play mobile. Maybe record it to minidisk since that player seems to drive the phones better.
TRIVIA: Did you know that most versions of Abraxas were pressed with the channels REVERSED ??? Google it ...lots of chatter on the subject.
But just like 1969’s equally essential Santana, lays claim to one of the biggest (and unfortunate) production gaffes in music history. Until now, Abraxas has never been heard correctly. After securing the original analog master tapes, Our engineers realized a colossal mistake had been made. For nearly four decades, copies were produced with the left and right channels reversed, meaning that everything was placed in a backwards manner. This even extended to compilations on which individual songs from Abraxas were included.
http://www.mofi.com/product_p/udcd775.htm
*Singing Winds, Crying Beasts-Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles
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