Headphones?
 

Who here uses headphones to any significant extent?

What kind do you have and how do you like them.

I have two sets.

Grado SR-125-

Great sound for the money, sadistically uncomfortable. Plus, at 32 ohm, they are somewhat incompatible with my Bottlehead amp. Sound nice with my McIntosh and Luxman equipment but the bass is loose and sloppy with the OTL BH Crack. At any rate, I have written Grado and told them that I, for one, would love to upgrade and go with Grado, if their headphones didn't possess comfort features designed by the Grand Inquisitor.

Beyerdynamic DT880-

Glorious comfort, highly refined sound, but also twice the price of the Grados.
The only fault I find sound-wise is the bass is a tad lean. The Bottlehead drives them beautifully. It has been suggested that I upgrade to the Sennheiser HD650, if I want deeper bass with more body. But.......$500?:eek:

Dave

Sennheiser HD201 used mainly when editing music on the PC as the PC speakers wont tell you if there is any 60/120 Hz hum present. They were must useful in editing the Mozart Requiem tape we have where Florence was singing the soprano part. I had not realized how much low frequency noise was on that tape.

I don't used them alot. When mowing I have a cheap pair of school over the ear ones that also work to deaden the outside sound.

Sold a nice pair of B&W P5's that were real nice. Liked them in every way. Just never used them. Don't miss them either. Picked up a couple of new Koss PRO4AA's in the box that I need to listen to.


Barney

My sister has a pair of those. Excellent sound for a $40 headphone. If that's the tip of the iceberg for Senn sound, I might decide to upgrade to Senns after all.

(I recently had to repair the cord. She walked away from her computer with them on her head one too many times.:rolleyes:)

Dave

I listen with cans more, now because of my night owl lifestyle/work arrangement. Can't blast Black Sabbath when others are sleeping.

I was quite surprised at the sound quality for the price. I had previously extracted all the music from the tape and thought that I had cleaned them up. PC speakers went west so I bought a pair that happens to have a headphone jack. I was looking for something else and happened to hear one of the segments with the cans - ouch!

Well Cool2000 has some nice filtering setups so first I ran all 14 sections through a 60/120 notch filter. After that I used the reverb feature to add some open church ambience as the whole tape was only voice quality and it was made on a small portable cassette machine of not exactly concert hall quality.

There is another use for cans that few realize. Back in Quebec my dentist had a pair for his patients to use. Sound at sufficient levels can block out pain. When our son was four he accidentally scratched the cornea of my right eye. The hospital emergency people put in eye drops that dulled the pain but when it wore off we had nowt in the house. Remembering the dentist I put on the cans and cranked up a classical music station, blessed relief!:)

Just me and the wife now. I can go up stairs close the door and let it rip! But my ears ring most of the time and listening at high volumes or headphones will really get them going.



Barney

I never could find a comfortable pair, plus I dread the nearness to my eardrum.

So I avoid the format.

AKG K240 Monitor

I picked up a dirt cheap headphone amp to push the 600 ohm load and they went from good to stellar.

All of my listening is headphones, currently.

Fans of the Bottlehead Crack recommend 250 ohm or higher and I see why. They will drive lower impedance cans, but not with much volume as you're driving the transducers straight from the output tube.

Zeke,

How are those AKGs comfort-wise?

Dave

They're not weightless earbuds but they're not designed to be.

They wear well on my enormous melon.

Rank Arena HK 500 with leather finish.

The young boy is my father at the age of 10.

I have a pair of Beyerdynamics DT880s and, like Dave, I find them to be really comfortable and, also like Dave think they'd be basically perfect if they had a little more bass.

Enter the DT 880 pro. Basically, they're the same as the 250 ohm version of the regular DT 880 but with a coiled cord and a bit more bass. Maybe one day I'll get access to a pair so I can compare them to mine.

I also have two pair of modded Sony MDR-V600s that I use for the computer and for the TV. They have s good bit more bass than the Beyers (slightly more than I prefer) but somewhat less detail. The mods were to remove the foam plug from the center of the hollow poll piece and cut out and screen the backs. The open backs really increased detail.

I'm pretty happy with the Grado SR125i on an Einar Sound headphone amp. Good rich full range sound with clarity only limited by the source.
The alternative is a set of Shure E5 ie monitors off a good source. Clean full range sound, very sensitive needing no amp.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

All I have these days is a beat-up set of Panasonic DJ-120, that I use with a beat-up Zune 120. I've bought some newer Panny cans twice when the headband hinges broke, but they didn't sound as good, so I transplanted the old drivers into the new headband.

I can't use in ear monitors due to middle ear conduction issues, so I cart around the portable cans.