Headphones?

[Haplo]

@plasmaniac

Dude! 300€?! Where do you live? The price i get is 149€ for any of the DT 770/880/990…

Hehe, there are two different DT990’s there is the DT990 Edition and the DT990 Pro.
The “Pro” is €149 and the “edition” is €299 at e.g. Thomman.

[pleasuretrail]

@Jonas

Been on a listening mission today and checked out some of the recommendations here, but ended up going for Audio Technica ATH - T500 because of the good price/quality ratio / way it sounded, subjective taste surely, but I liked em a lot better than a bunch of Senheisers & akg’s in the 150 euro price range and the Beyer Dynamic 990 pro, listening to the same tracks. The Beyer being the most expensive one, having much more bass (emphasized?) and a broader stereo field, probably less tiring after hours of listening, but too expensive imo, compared to the audio technica which sounds flat and direct.

I have Audio Technica too, ATH-M50. Pretty good for the buck! they enclose around the ears real nice, really good if you record vocals, like I do. plus you can twist them phones around, so they’re really good for dj-ing or if someone talks to you when they’re on or whatever

they’re great actually.

[mSepsis]

Just bought a pair of Vmoda’s “Military Grade” Crossfade LP2s.

Best damn pair of cans I’ve ever owned. WAY better than the Sennheiser HD280s I recommended here previously, which I now would consider an utter POS. Plus you can run them over with a tank and they still work, which is good because that’s how my year old HD280s were put out of their misery after the right channel started to crackle after 8 or so months of normal use. #@$

[uhuh]

imo:
porta pro: reeeally muddy but cool bass and highs, but really nothing to try to master with it imo
superlux 668b: overall cool sound, deep but a bit muddy bass, very weird highs (dip+peak)
hd 558: a bit muddy, not bright and not very detailed, but cool bass and good overall sound/soundstage
hd 598: can’t remember, they’re a bit ugly, but sounded cool, probably like 558 since same driver
hd 600: quite detailed, really balanced, not dark, “funny”, can rather easily distort with loud bass
hd 650: without proper amp you can forget these, detailed, dark, very cool lower mids/bass and so great for movies and orchestral
k701: very detailed (but a bit bright), tight (little, varies with burn in obv) bass that tells much without gaining all your focus, very good mids, fatigues ears a bit with certain tracks
dt 880/250: overall most balanced maybe, detailed, fatigues ears rather soon (the peak at 10khz), mids not enaugh forward
dt 990/250: bombastic no-mids sound, i felt joked with these
hd 280 pro: headband breaks easily, punchy bass that goes low, some peak in the highs, used them a lot for some reason

but imho speakers give allways a better bass, monitors have more flat freqency range, the right loudness of instruments (drums) and the right (full crossfeed) stereo sound, so that nothing is located in my brain, ears, head etc

and… i’ve never had comfy headphones, aaalll are uncomfortable, the headbands hurt after some time and you move them and in-ears hurt the ear… and i’ve never found any click or pop in a track with a headphone, so i won’t really bother using headphones anymore

gonna have cool behringer monitors soon, they just cannot hurt anywhere unless i drop them onto my feet

[niNja_pWn (niNja_pWn3d)]

One pair and one pair ONLY Audio Technicas m-50’s period.

Thats all

Bless.

-Kid.

[keith303]

another very subjective, but humble opinion:

for a moment, forget about grado, sennheiser (especially sennheiser), akg, beyerdynamic, ultrasone, whatever (never heard audio technicas tho).
i’ve been looking for years to find a pair of headphone that matches my list of preferences, which looks somewhat like this:

• rich and detailed overall sound
• high transparancy
• appealing stereo image / broad stage
• satisfying bass response (lotsa “audiophile” cans seem to be solely designed for classical music, since they start to distort easily at higher levels)
• unintrusive yet detailed representation of the high frequency range
• able to cope with high levels without distortion
• least-fatiguing
• doesn’t cost a fortune

the one that has it all (for me) is the “Denon AH-D2000” (or D5000/D7000 if your wallet is prepared)
it’s a brand which is seldom seen on a head-fi’s shopping list, but i guess that’s actually due to ther ignorance towards that brand. ("denon? how can they be good where there are brands like sennheiser, akg or grado?)
those headphones definately need some run-in phase until their membranes get “less stiff”, because elsewhat you’ll have the impression that it simply tortures you with a bass that literally makes your entire ears shake (which is funny at first feeling-wise, but get’s annoying after a while and is besides that anything but honest to the source audio).
i had mine play at pretty high level for one night, i went to bed and when i woke up to take them for another listen, those cans were ready to continuously put smiles on my face.

the regular price here in germany is about 270,- EUR. i bought mine like 2 years ago for about the same price.

amazon.de sometimes has a good deal on them. i’ve seen them for 199,- and they’re currently available at 239,- EUR there.
the D5000 / D7000 sound even better (ofc) - a bit more balanced, more detailed - but as i’m not crazy enough to blow 900 EUR on a headphone, the D2000 have to suffice and i am really overly content with them.

so if you’re looking for to make a purchase in that price-range, give them a chance at least !

[kazakore]

Read head-fi.org or other quite audiophile websites and you’ll find that those Denons are generally very highly regarded! Most seem to say the 5000 are a lot better than the 2000 but the 7000 aren’t worth the extra price jump again.

[keefbaker]

@uhuh

hd 600: quite detailed, really balanced, not dark, “funny”, can rather easily distort with loud bass

HD600s are my main headphone and to be honest, the distorting with bass thing I use a lot because I have a bad habit of putting too much bass on things, it lets me know it’s time to take it down a bit.

[Beatslaughter]

Own the Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro since a few years and i’m really satisfied with them. They sound good and are comfortable to wear even for long sessions. Another plus is, that you can buy replacements for the ear cussions or even cable if needed.

[krixa]

@niNja_pWn3d

One pair and one pair ONLY Audio Technicas m-50’s period.

Thats all

Bless.

-Kid.

True words! +1

[td6d]

@keith303

i had mine play at pretty high level for one night, i went to bed and when i woke up to take them for another listen, those cans were ready to continuously put smiles on my face.

I have always found that quite strange since your hearing is different after a nights sleep too. You’ll be able to hear high frequencies better after you’ve just awoken in comparison to when you’re going to bed.

[keith303]

@td6d

I have always found that quite strange since your hearing is different after a nights sleep too. You’ll be able to hear high frequencies better after you’ve just awoken in comparison to when you’re going to bed.

strange in terms of “audio voodoo”?
i never had any audio equipment which proved to change its sonic characteristics this obvious after a prolonged, stressful way of usage like the D2000’s.
believe me (or not ), it was definately no subjective misconception.

reading reviews of the AH-D2000 in particular have descriptions of similar experiences btw:

My first impression was that the bass was really emphasized and a bit bloated, rest assured this goes away after about ~12 hours of burn in, the bass now is well defined, and has nice impact, overall I think the bass reproduction is faithful to the recording

[i]

The great thing is these Denons will just keep sounding sweeter after burn in time!

[/i]
source: http://www.audiocubes.com/product_reviews.php?products_id=2071

[i]

They also require a decent amount of burn in before the sound balances out.

[/i]
source: Amazon.com

[i]

This review will provide a brief yet informative info during the first, second, and third stage burn-in before reaching the driver’s settling phase in which the headphone will sound its best.[/i]

[i]

Now back to the burn-in at hour-120, the Denon D2000 is showing signs that a burn-in to settling phase is fast approaching. The sound signature has changed for the better with cleaner notes, better instrument separation, the three-dimensional sound-stage further expanded as though the listener is truly getting a private listening session, and the sound is fuller. [/i]

source: The Audiophile World: Denon AH-D2000 - The Sennheiser HD800 Killer Maybe

(…)

[carmazine]

@Croco

I bought the Beyerdynamic DT 770 pro based on Carmazine’s and others posts without doing any research first…

I’m absolutely thrilled with them. They are beautifully engineered, super comfortable and produce fantastic sound.

I’m glad I could help. Have fun with them

[Se4ever (Gotthelf)]

I ended up buying a pair of Koss Porta Pros, which was sort of a short term solution to be sure to have something - the sound didn’t dissapoint me, I actually think they are pretty good, but on the other hand I haven’t had any really expensive headphones to compare them with…

BUT after about 3 months of (normal) use it seemed that the plugin had a lose connection and I lost the sound on left pad at times - i wrote to Koss and they sent me a repair kit, which basically just changed to “sound-system” of the headphones.

Nice and quick repair service, but a much too short “lifetime” imo!

Now I’ll see how long the new ones will do to make a final judgement