best headphones

[Necroghast]

so, my headphones recently broke again. 11th pair i think? i need some new headphone but i dont want them to break as easily as all the other pairs ive had. does anyone know of any good headphones that dont break easily but at the same time are still pretty affordable???? thanks

 

[mattrock]

I\'m a huge fan of the Bose quiet comfort headphones, but affordable they are not.

 

[rextalon]

You should put your broken headphones to good use... like I did.

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e235/rextalon/minis/BB Lights/Amp1.jpg

 

[COG]

i thought skullcandy made some good ones if my buddies taste can be trusted although im not sure it they are global or just north america

they seem to be reasonable (the lowrider and recruit) although they have some odd designs

linky

 

[Legacy Account]

Portable or for home use? Just listening or doing a bit of mixing?

Throw us a bone!!

 

[Dragonsreach]

Yes some good reccomendations for Spectacle wearers as well.
Can\'t get any form of comfort wearing my Sennheisers <sp> and glasses.

 

[Cleezy]

Also are you wanting in ear headphones or the MASSIVE ear muff style ones?

was gona say sennheiser (but bad if you have glasses it seems) and would agree on bose if you dont mind paying a few quid.

Also what is it for?like mp3?computer etc

 

[MPJ]

The tiny earbud thingies sold by Apple for their iPods sound quite good for tiny earbud type thingies. :drunk:

 

[Legacy Account]

Mike, try these:

Shure in-ear jobbies

Not cheap mind. Suppose it depends how much you use them

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Necroghast
so, my headphones recently broke again. 11th pair i think? i need some new headphone but i dont want them to break as easily as all the other pairs ive had.

Do you fall asleep on them every night or what??!

You looking for walking-around headphones or something only for home?

Someone\'s already mentioned a Skull Candy product, I was going to plug the Skullcrushers as a solid mid-range possibility. Although not cheap they might still be within your standard for affordable.

Sennheiser is a great brand and their high-end stuff has a great rep; no real idea what their cheaper stuff is like but they have a good selection of sub-$50 sets on Amazon. But for that kind of consumer electronics I\'m a great fan of Sony or another Japanese maker anyway. I have a set of MDR-V50 headphones from Sony which are cheap and cheerful, definitely lower end of the scale. But they\'re well over 10 years old now and just about reaching the end of their useful life (vinyl coating on the foam has nearly all peeled off). I\'ve fallen asleep wearing them more than a few times, stuffed them in a rucksack for months on end back when I got a new Diskman and was busing it to and from work most days and I\'ve dropped them on the floor a fair number of times. Still in one piece and the sound is fine (although I like the idea of superb sound quality in theory, I\'m not that fussy about it that I\'d pay through the nose for it).

Einion

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach
Yes some good reccomendations for Spectacle wearers as well.
Can\'t get any form of comfort wearing my Sennheisers <sp> and glasses.

Do they press too hard on the earpieces of your specs? I have the same problem with many headphones.

Originally posted by Spacemunkie
Mike, try these:

Shure in-ear jobbies

Not cheap mind. Suppose it depends how much you use them

Bloody \'ell! You can get decent in-ear phones for a tenth of what they\'re asking!

Einion

 

[Bengoodall]

In ear head phones are bad for your ears, cut out most of your ears defence mechanisms.

Highly unrecommended.....

Though about AKG ones at all, they have some bloody nice sound in them, and tend to sit on just about anything, dreads, glasses etc.

 

[matty1001]

Originally posted by Einion
Sennheiser is a great brand and their high-end stuff has a great rep; no real idea what their cheaper stuff is like but they have a good selection of sub-$50 sets on Amazon.

I have a pair of in ear Sennheiser CX300\'s and they are fantastic. But there are a lot of knock offs so be careful where you get them from, and when you do get them (if you get them) check online for articles on how to tell if they are fakes. There are a few little differences, I ordered mine from Amazon and paid about £20 and luckily they were the real deal.
They blow Apple\'s Ipod headphones away.

 

[squidders]

Another vote for Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones, I have a pair for my iPod and they are great... no cheap granted but they are VERY well made and might outlast 10 cheaper pairs making them good value for money.

For use at home I have some Sennheiser HD 600 headphones which are huge but sound fantastic and are comfy even with glasses (though oddly only with one of the 2 pairs of glasses I wear).

My advice with all things audio visual is to buy the absolute best available as often saving a few quid... or even a few hundred quid can work out to be false economy in the long run.

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Bengoodall
In ear head phones are bad for your ears, cut out most of your ears defence mechanisms.

Ear defence mechanisms?

Listening to music on heaphones, period, is supposedly bad for the ears. Personally I think this is one of those things: for most people, long as you don\'t overdo it, nothing much to worry about.

Originally posted by matty1001
They blow Apple\'s Ipod headphones away.

That wouldn\'t be too hard! They\'re okay but nothing to write home about and ergonomically they sure don\'t fit my ears well.

Originally posted by squidders
My advice with all things audio visual is to buy the absolute best available as often saving a few quid... or even a few hundred quid can work out to be false economy in the long run.

I used to feel this way, after being at a single-speaker demonstration from Ireland\'s premier audio retailers.

Build quality/longevity aside, I realised that for me good enough is good enough... and I certainly wasn\'t willing to fork out £3,000 for a single speaker! And there\'s also the issue: can you hear the difference between a €1,000 consumer-model stereo and a €10,000-€50,000 audiophile setup, both playing the same CD?

For those that are sure they can, how much placebo effect is there?

Einion

 

[Necroghast]

k thanks a lot guys, ill look at some of the things uve suggested. as for what i need, its for my ipod; think busses. that kinda thing. if i have to go with some of the huge earmuff things i will, but i would prefer something smaller. anyone know anything about the philips SHN5500 headphones? thats a kind a came across that looked good. on epinions, there were two ratings. 1 star and 5 stars so idk.

thanks a lot for the help!

 

[squidders]

Originally posted by Einion
Build quality/longevity aside, I realised that for me good enough is good enough... and I certainly wasn\'t willing to fork out £3,000 for a single speaker! And there\'s also the issue: can you hear the difference between a €1,000 consumer-model stereo and a €10,000-€50,000 audiophile setup, both playing the same CD?

For those that are sure they can, how much placebo effect is there?

Einion

Well, there is always the law of diminishing returns, that to eek out an extra 1% of performance costs 10% more etc and I do agree with you to an extent.

The difference between a £1000 and £10,000 system should be vast in terms not only of build, but also, service and sound quality.... £10,000 and £50,000 not so much.

It also depends on the CD you\'re listening to, how well the producer has done their job and if they have sacrificed sound quality for a compressed sounding ultra clean sound.

I have a good few CDs either end of that scale as well as some beautiful vinyl.

Everyone has their limits though and everyone listens to more or less music so the only ones who can justify how much is spent is the individual buying.

I personally stopped buying when getting an improvement in sound would have cost me double... it\'s a slippery slope in to poverty and purchasing hell.

I saw the philips ones you like the look of here: http://www.headphoneworld.com/p/Philips_SHN5500_Noise_Cancelling_Headphones.htm

and again, they got one glowing review and one damning... I guess they are made of marmite and this would make me find somewhere to try them out first.

 

[Legacy Account]

Originally posted by Einion

Bloody \'ell! You can get decent in-ear phones for a tenth of what they\'re asking!

Einion

You can say that about anything. Buy cheap, buy twice! Those Shure \'phones will stack up against larger ear-muff styles in terms of dynamics and quality.

Suppose it depends on the quality of your system - if you\'ve got expensive electronics and use \'phones a lot, why use el-cheapo ones? They\'re ok for listening to compressed mp3s on the go, but I find them lacking for listening to vinyl or CDs on my proper systems.

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by squidders
Well, there is always the law of diminishing returns, that to eek out an extra 1% of performance costs 10% more etc.

Roger that.

Originally posted by squidders
The difference between a £1000 and £10,000 system should be vast in terms not only of build, but also, service and sound quality....

Yeah, should be As you say, the quality of the source may play a biiig part (more than they\'d like to acknowledge). I still find it hard to believe that some audiophiles insist that digital sound is inferior to analogue. But then 20 years ago some makers were still sticking with vacuum tubes; I think that\'s a clear indicator of personal preference rather than an outright quality issue.

Originally posted by Spacemunkie

Originally posted by Einion
Bloody \'ell! You can get decent in-ear phones for a tenth of what they\'re asking!

You can say that about anything.

Well yeah you can of course make any claim about anything, but here I think it\'s not just lip-service.

Originally posted by Spacemunkie
Those Shure \'phones will stack up against larger ear-muff styles in terms of dynamics and quality.

So they\'d like us to believe; I\'ve seen far too many examples of things where paper performance isn\'t matched by the actual product in independent reviews and tests.

This isn\'t like a supercar v. something that only costs a tenth as much (assuming a specific driving experience is the goal, not just a vehicle to drive from A to B; which is the spirit of what quality headphones are for). You get something very concrete for the additional 90% of the money with a car like a Ferrari/Lambo/Maserati/Aston Martin.

Einion

 

[Legacy Account]

Originally posted by Einion

This isn\'t like a supercar v. something that only costs a tenth as much

No you\'re right, it\'s absolutely nothing like that. You pay your money for a car, that\'s that. It performs as it performs.

A better analogy would be parts to upgrade your car and help it perform better. If you own a 1985 Toyota Corolla, spending several thousand pounds on new wheels and perhaps something like carbon fibre brake discs could be seen as a poor investment.

Spend that money on a Ferrari or an M3 or similar.... My point being that if you care about your music and listen to it enough, then you\'ll likely be playing it on a decent system. Why plug shit into it? Mike asked about \'phones he could wear without knackering his glasses. I assumed he was meaning for home listening to replace a big set of cans. Sixty to a hundred notes for something of that quality seems quite reasonable to me. It\'s certainly a tiny percentage of what I personally spend on music itself, so I see it as an investment.

As for analogue versus digital, it depends what your criteria is as to which you prefer or \'find better\'. The term digital is fairly broad as well and emcompasses a whole host of compressed nastiness.