Headphones, $100-$200 - Suggestions? (1 Viewer)

[Mike Frezon]

 

[mazersteven]

Exactly. It took 9 posts for someone (Jonny K) to ask. And even after Mike~Sileck stated "These are more for dorm room use, my computer, and my video games" no one asked what source he was using.

Mike~Sileck stated "My iPod and portable use is generally done with cheap Sony headphones, but I suppose on longer trips I'd bring these."

He is looking for headphones other then the Sony's he uses for his I-Pod and Portable use.

 

[Mike~Sileck]

Thanks Mike

Hope you saw my post about the pricing!

 

[Mike~Sileck]

Well just a little update, the headphones are sitting in my mailbox at school, and I can't get to them until tomorrow morning. I'll post a full review tomorrow or Tuesday sometime.

Once again, thank you to everyone who helped out!

 

[Philip Hamm]

I got here late....

But for posterity, I'd recommend looking for studio monitors at a place like www.musiciansfriend.com. I'm a big fan of AKG studio monitors.

 

[Mike~Sileck]

Well I opened up the AT's this morning. Beautiful packaging, I was very impressed. Put them on, and .. well...bleh..? Nothing special at all...So I put on a pink noise MP3 and let it run for about an hour while I showered, etc. Wow, a LOT better. Getting very impressive. I guess burn in is no joke..

At first I felt that a louder source was making them crack and buzz a little, and this wasn't LOUD mind you, just like average for my listening. After the "mini" burn in, they opened up a little bit, a little less cracking.

I'm gonna run that mp3 for a few days and hopefully they open up some more. They fit and feel great on my head also, and the construction is very top quality, I guess I just need to open up the drivers a bit...

Hoping the bass opens up slightly too .. maybe I just need to mess with the equalizer on iTunes.

I'll let everyone know how the process goes...

(btw thanks for your suggestion Phil!)

 

[Jonny K]

Remember: garbage in, garbage out. That cracking and buzzing you hear might not be the headphones - it's the electronics you've got them plugged into! I find when I plug my headphones directly to my computer sound card it doesn't sound anywhere near as good as when I run the audio into a receiver and listen through the receiver. If you plug them into a cheap source you will hear noise. An amplifier will make a big difference. Try listening to a CD playing on a home theater with the headphones plugged into the receiver (if you have such a thing). These headphones sound awesome, but they'll amplify any bad sound sources. And yes, some break in will help too.

MP3 audio is compressed and crappy sounding compared to the original. MP3 wasn't a big deal for me before with ordinary speakers, but after getting my headphones now I prefer lossless codecs like "FLAC" that are perfect originals. Also keep in mind that the Windows mixer and any equalizers you have enabled will also damage the sound. That's why the headphone geeks all use "Kernel Streaming" or "ASIO" plugins for Winamp and Foobar2000 (audio players) to bypass the windows volume mixer.

On my system I listen to high quality OGG Vorbis encoded music, or lossless FLAC music in Winamp using an ASIO plugin which bypasses all the windows mixers and sends the audio directly to the soundcard. When the audio hits the soundcard it's not decoded, but instead sent digitally via SPDIF to my receiver. The receiver then decodes the data into analog sound which goes to my headphones. There is no modifying of the audio at all, it's bit perfect. The only place anything changes is in the receiver which was built for this kind of work.

With these headphones I can even hear how some songs are cut and pasted together, as the quiet background static and buzzing noises will sometimes change slightly. A good example of this can be heard at the beginning of "Evanescence - My Immortal".

Consider adding a second sound card to your computer. The onboard sound cards are REALLY crappy, and even the Creative Labs ones such as my Audigy aren't great (though the newer cards are much better). Definately consider buying a Chaintech AV-710 soundcard. It's super cheap (only about $20 dollars US) and comes with an SPDIF out as well as a very good DAC:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?p=848255


Good luck.

 

[Mike~Sileck]

Jonny K - Thanks a lot my man.

I will do some research into all of that. I have a couple of Denon receivers at home, but at school I have my computer and my Logitech Z5000 speaker system, which is somewhat of a receiver / decoder combo. Anyways, I'll try ripping some lossless (is Apple Lossless in iTunes any good) and see if it works. I'll continue to burn in and what not.


I feel like they are VERY staticy with some of my mp3's at even quiet volumes, and that is def not good. I'll post my results.

 

[Jonny K]

I don't have any experience with iTunes, but if it's lossless then it should be the same regardless of what format you use. Do a comparisson test between an MP3 and lossless copy of the same song and see if you can tell a difference.

 

[Mike~Sileck]

You're definitely right, and even a few hours later they're like 100% more opened up than they were earlier.

Great headphones, can't wait to see what they sound like when I re-rip some of my fav. cd's lossless and burn these babies in a little more.

Thanks again ...