Recommend a pair of headphones for me

see also http;//www.headphonereviews.org

i know this is more than you wanted to spend... but grado sr-60's frequently out-perform headphones 3 and 4 times it's price.

m.

i yanked the cord on mine on a door and now they don't work. anyone have any experience with their full guarantee thing?

To Osco I will go!

I'd like to think the Etymotic earplugs are like ear diaphragms, Kenan. Lube 'em up and you're good to go for hours, mang.

I want some for home listening but I can't find anywhere to ship them to me

: /

I bought a pair of koss porta-pros which are great but I want a pair of those big bulky ones for lounging about at home; the porta-pros are spindly, and dig into my neck when I'm lying down

anyone have any experience?

I think she bought them from amazon

I picked up the HD20s first, because they were huge earmuffs and because they said on the package, "Perfect for DJs." Well, if they're good enough for DJs... actually, that didn't work. DJs have different needs than I do, apparently. The highs are tinny, the mid-range is muddy, and the bass is ri-freakin-diculous. It's boomy and with wayyyy too much sustain. Real crap for everyday listening. Avoid.

So I brought those back to the store and ended up with the PXC150s, and they sound BEAUTIFUL. Balanced, crisp, and the noise cancelling works wonders. (I'm afraid I'm setting myself up for being hit by a car.) Of course this means that I have an extra piece to my portable audio setup now -- the battery pack -- but I spend so much time with headphones on and they sound so great it's totally worth it to look like a bit of a dork wearing a belt clip.

Just ordered some CX300s for that.

Plane Quiet NC6
Has anybody had any experience with Plane Quiet headphones? Recommendations yea or nay?

Might nbe better to get in ear ones that will block out the noise physically.

I just bought some Shure E2Cs and on the short run out they've had so far they're absolutely fantastic and a mile better than the sonys I've just replaced which I thought were pretty good in the first place but kept losing the sleeve (including once in my ear canal - resluting in some worried rummaging while walking along a tube corridor)

I mean, I'm assuming my head shape must be weird based on this, but I'm not sure how it is weird.

Ime my ears become over heated before i notice any head strain

Re: cheap earbuds, there is a pretty big difference in sound between the cheapest and something of some quality that is worth some $ imho

the skullcandy ones have been fine. i bought the first pair in a supermarket as a replacement for a ~£20 pair that broke when i was on my way somewhere (crystal palace) and they were better than those and 1/4 the price (on sale). i think they may be recently discontinued though.

(actually, if i'd've kept the receipt they are still under warranty. or were before i cut them to pieces)

have also noticed that 90% of the detachable cable alternatives are those around-the-back-of-the-ear type which is not great if you wear glasses. it's probably to get the weight of the cable off the connector but still...

amazon have some that meet all my criteria for £13 so maybe i'll try those first. after that they jump to ~£40

yeah not a whole lot of cable-down IEMs around with removable cable. Though you can find cheap cables without the loop-around molding that should be ok worn downwards on anything that isn't shaped like the inside of an ear.

You might have more luck if you are open to the old style, flat head earbud. Something like the TRN EMA fits the budget. I haven't heard it.

Alba I got a couple of pairs of these for the family during lockdown and they’re very comfortable. Almost “loose”. Hard to imagine them hurting.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/AKG-K72-Performance-Closed-Back-Monitoring/dp/B01AYSNHVQ

I find over-the-ear headphones the most comfortable type. They're even more comfortable if I can remove my glasses while listening. The only part that gets uncomfortably is where they press against the temples.

I haven't got on with over ears before but the Anker Q20s are v comfy and sound great for £50.

new earphones have arrived, TRN-M10, and do feel like an upgrade.

the actual in-ear bits are labelled L and R but there's nothing to say which cable plugs into which driver or, indeed, which way around the two-pin connectors go, which could mean they are out of phase. checking L-R ness will be easy enough, i think, but the phase thing? there's a 50/50 chance it's right, i guess...

haha that was fast. You found a down-wired IEM, cool. I think you can just turn that cable around if there are phase issues?

How's it sound?

not listened yet. trying to think of an mp3 i have that i can check the stereo with.

it does mention the L-r thing in the manual

"IMPORTANT NOTE: Whether the left or right earphones are placed in the ear in the correct direction does not affect them Listening experience you experience. L applies to the left ear. R applies to the right ear."

so that's good...

Since they're not ear molded or anything, they are exactly the same. Assuming they wired the polarity right on both!

each individual lead can be attached to the driver in two different ways though, they are completely unmarked. it would be easy to do the earphone equiv of this
https://www.instructables.com/How-to-phase-your-speakers/

that said, this site suggests that they are correct L/R and are in phase.
https://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_polaritycheck.php

and, of course, there's the question of if i'd even notice

tested them in the park this morning. they sound good, obvious inprovement in sound quality (although almost everything that played was unfamiliar. maybe i ought to try it on tracks i know)

the metal cases are slightly bigger and heavier. and colder!

the cable is stiffer and twisted, not smooth, but not importantly so - i was worried it would scrape against clothes

when i pushed them in slightly too far they did some odd kind of bone conductivity thing(?) where my footsteps were really loud. re-seating them helped. not clumping around also helped.

so the cable microphonics aren't bad but the occlusion effect is. You didn't get that with the previous ones? Using smaller silicone tips could help. But this is generally why I prefer flat-head buds if I'm using anything while walking around.

i was thinking the larger tips would stop me putting them in so far (which i think the previous ones did just because of their shape). will experiment.

yeah, you can see here the chamfer meant the body wasn't in my ear at all, just the rubber bit

https://i5.walmartimages.ca/images/Enlarge/658/879/6000198658879.jpg

compared with these where the actual barrel can end up inside

https://trn-audio.com/trn-m10.html

Oh I see. At times I have needed a little extending. There's ways. For example, flipping your tips

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/flip-tips-or-fliptips-prepare-to-have-your-mind-blown.906357/

if you don't flip your tips are you even really listening to music

i wouldn't generally recommend that site but that comes in pretty handy lol

I have a pair of Sennheiser HD 4.50BTNC wireless headphones (with an optional wire). I love the noise cancellation and the sound reproduction. The earpads were fantastically uncomfortable; I replaced them with some soft, kind of fuzzy ones (described as "Velvet") and I can now wear them for hours.

^ i see that one can get the Sennheiser HD 350BT for about $40 cheaper than the these. are they comparable?

at this point i'm waffling between a pair of $40 soundcore BT noise-canceling headphones (essentially the cheapest option?) and a pair of Sennheisers in the $90 - 120 range.

do I need a headphone amp if I’m already going through a stereo receiver? I’m not having volume issues at all. Do they make music sound better? Warm tubey goodness?

I've gone done that road (without spending all that much) and I would say no. Not unless your receiver sounds obviously noisy or is under-powered (like you're almost maxing it out to listen at a comfortable level).

Light dabbling in tubes I also found kind of a waste of time. And reading accounts of people with higher end stuff (who could be honest about it) it's really kinda like, well the lights look nice. Sort of like digital vs vinyl.

I have a tubey headphone amp, but I needed something as my amp didn't have a headphone jack.

The headphones I have are Beyer Dynamic DT 990's, which I mainly bought because the guy in front of me at the hifi place looked like Jimmy Page, and he bought a pair of them. He wasn't Jimmy Page, but just the fact that he looked like him made me think that there must be something to the product. They're really comfy to wear.

xxp that makes sense, kind of what I suspected. Thanks!

I very much recommend Phillips Fidelio X2HR, very very very comfortable.. and they sound really good to me too.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51JL0AFHjfL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

april 2023 to jan 2026 is, i guess, better than the usual 6 months but i'm back again looking for earphones, iems.

actually, i could just buy cable for the existing ones given that they are detachable - the problem this time was the cable near the jack, it's obviously been rubbing against the cuff there. but nobody seems to sell cables with the right connector (qdc) without also being moulded for around-the-ear, and i don't think that'll work with my glasses. i could by around-the-ear cables and cut off the plastic sleeves but i don't really want to mess.

(or given that the current cables are 4 distinct cables, maybe i can trim and solder a replacement plug on. nothing to lose...)

i'd buy an exact copy of the pair i currently have (trn-m10), only they stopped making them.

Sennheiser Momentum TW4 are the best earbuds I've ever used, highly recommended.

i'm not really a wireless person (another thing to charge, bluetooth wasting phone battery). that's also about 10x what i normally pay 8) it's nearly as much as my phone was

Linsoul KZ ZSX

For over-ear iem I like Linsoul 7Hz x Crinacle Zero:2.
Tanchjim One gets good reviews for straight connection.

I need new headphones. A friend convinced me that her Sony noiseless were the greatest thing in the world (she put them on me and they did sound great), so I bought a pair, but prolonged exposure to the noise cancellation makes my ears feel like they’re getting microwaved and I hate them v v much

I have become a Porta Pro true believer over the last several months. I am extremely finicky about headphone comfort. IDK if I just have a weirdly shaped head and ear canals or what. I loathe the way earbuds feel, and every pair of over-ears I've tried give me serious jaw discomfort after a few minutes. So for cheap, lightweight, good-sounding on-ears that don't make my head/ears/jaw hurt, it's Porta Pro all the way. The only disadvantage is that they don't block sound, and I live in a fairly noisy neighborhood.

If anyone else here relates to this and has recs for actually comfortable sound-blocking headphones, I'd love to know

Wow at the price of those Sennheisers!

In mitigation, they sent me them free of charge because I had a pair of TW3s (which were slightly cheaper) that packed up while they were still under warranty.

I ~hate~ noise cancellation. I do not want headphones that have it as an option— you’re not “cancelling noise” you’re just feeding your ears additional information to mitigate that noise. It’s entirely intuitive but I am absolutely sure that they’re terrible for your eardrums and will cause hearing loss

I’m really into the Audeze concept of “open back” headphones that attempt to not “cover” your ears from ambient sound— makes more sense for what I want my headphones to do. They did make open-back buds and a friend of mine swore by them for usage while recording (like having one ear on, one ear off) but they sadly discontinued that line

it's amazing on flights or on busy trains/buses. i never use large noise cancelling headphones day to day tho, too big to carry and i don't need noise-cancelling when walking around.

some of you do not work in an "open concept" office

fgti Option is right.. hope you've turned it off!

Passive noise cancellation is underrated. A chonky IEM can block more sound and in a less aggravating way than many active setups can.

That said I love open back stuff most for when it fits the use case.

+1 on Koss Portapro.. and all their other stuff that uses that driver, or the titanium coated variant (KSC75.. for anyone who can't take headband pressure at all). Wireless forms are great too, and even include wired USB to 3.5mm passthrough that doesn't utilize the battery.. so they won't necessarily be trash when the battery dies out.

Love porta pro. They make everything sound like an LP somehow. Someday I want to try the 3rd party foam pads

I also really dislike noise canceling, but I wear the older wireless Sonys (WH-1000XM4) for commuting, because they also feature the opposite setting: there's an ambient sound pass-through, tilted toward speech frequencies, so you can hear what's happening around you. I didn't especially care about this feature when I bought them, but now I doubt I'd ever buy daily-outside-use headphones without it; even wearing regular closed-backs at home has started to feel slightly claustrophobic. It works well for the obvious handy stuff — catching train announcements, knowing what's happening around you on crowded streets, being able to one-touch dim the music and have quick conversations without taking the cans off — but it also makes the music sound nicely open. So the tools of noise canceling can also be used for good! Instead of phase-canceling ambient sound those mics can be piping it in!

I forget which model I have of those but on mine you can hold your hand over one ear and all the sound comes in. Quite handy.

I typically only use full noise cancelling if I'm locked into an activity or at work, or in a generally noisy environment. nabisco otm that the transparency modes are really nice, especially if you might need to hear certain things.

I don't live somewhere with a subway or commuter trains, but having visited places that do have them it's nice to be able to pop in earbuds with noise attenuation and still be able to hear announcements. Or walking under the L in Chicago, definitely a plus

Love porta pro. They make everything sound like an LP somehow. Someday I want to try the 3rd party foam pads

Kinda like a worn out needle? Drilling some holes in the grilles helps with that!

Yaxi pads overrated imo. Plus makes the things look too big for my head.

are you talking abt the oversized yaxi pads? cos the ones i have are more or less the same size as the stock pads

that said i have a slightly different setup, i call them The Liar's Portapros: KSC75 headphones with the earclip things removed, an aliexpress knockoff portapros band attached (this is very easy), and yaxi pads

image of them (cw: the most cat hair in the world

Yeah those. Good work. Nice and bright sounding I'm sure.

I'll sometimes browse the "kossmods" subreddit for fun.

In all seriousness this stuff is what I'd recommend to someone taking an interest in decent headphones. poke around that lineup until you're good. $20 KSC75 might be enough. I love those earhooks, can wear them all day and forget they're there.

i went with some cheapish KZ-ZSN PRO X ( https://kzmusicstore.com/products/kz-zsn-pro )

haven't worn them in anger yet but a quick two minutes in a zoom meeting sounded fine. lots of passive noise reduction.

around-the-ear is new for me. not sure i like.

annoyingly the cable isn't quite compatible with the previous pair i had (whose cable broke last week)

the KSC 75s are good but the cables are fragile and like to break where they're soldered to the drivers, so I've been through two pairs. I ended up modding mine to connect to an IEM cable, then that broke too :( the Porta Pro cable has so far held up.