Hi all! One of my side interests is headphones. A good pair of 'phones will provide for a very special, intimate music listening experience. I've been a long time member of www.head-fi.org and recommend anyone else who has even a passing interest in headphones or other various music listening related gadgets have a look at that site. I personally listen to music through a pair of Symphones Magnums V4.

Cheers!

I have a whole bunch of over-the-ear headphones, from a lot of different decades. They pop up a lot at flea markets and thrift stores, and seem to have pretty good sound reproduction, and as a musician, I'm sure as hell not able to pay $100 (or far more) for 'em.

Some notable models:

Pioneer SE-20A
Pioneer SE-30
Realistic NOVA Pro

...and some first-class United Airlines headphones that fold up that I'm pretty sure were made by Kenwood. They're probalby my go-to favorites because they're comfortable, portable and sound fantastic. I had to modify them a bit to use 'em, but meh.

All I know is, for the $5 I paid (average) for each of them, screw it, I've got good sound. Most of the gear I have is hissy, noisy synths and samplers from the 80s, anyway, so all high-end headphones would do for me is make my setup sound even worse. Gotta love Studio Trash.

More side notes... I disagree that scale you put out is identical to pipes. It's close, but... you can get into a good pipe for $60, have a great pipe at $150, an exceptional pipe for $250, and high end begins around $400 and ends around $600 before the "ultra high-grades" kick in at four figures-plus.

But I get what you're saying. The difference is, there isn't some guy able to make me high-end headphones in his garage for an unbelievable price on his lathe.


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Re: Lo-Fi--

There's a difference between "style" and "work with what ya got." The goddamn trust fund kids are screwing up my deals because they can't keep their filthy, entitled hands off my $5 gear anymore. That's the only thing that makes it stylish. I remember days when rich kids were taught to fear and think poor people were "icky," now they all want to live like them (but know they're safe from poverty).

Go over to THE SITE and preach Beats or Bose... LMAO.

The vast majority of people do not have the ears to enjoy a true high end set up. Even among the self proclaimed audiophiles the diff between a $40-50 pair of phones and a $400-500 pair is name recognition placebo.

You're right, PB. In a blind test, the results are usually quite different.


Anyway, I bought a $100 pair of Sony's from Sears back in 1992. Best sound i've ever heard from Headphones. The accuracy and low-end freq. response was incredible. They blew away anything Radio Shack had at the time.

Wish I still had them....

what I said was Most People.. the vast majority.. if your one of the truly gifted ears that can tell good on ya. Really none of my business. I'm not. To many years around firearms and big trucks

PB, it's obvious joequo's eyes ain't as good as his ears.

Yeah, most people will not be able to tell the difference between a white noise frequency shift at 18,000Hz to 20,000Hz. I have fantastic, sensitive Asperger's hearing. I can. I'll repeat, there are two reasons why I don't have perfect, ideal headphones: 1) I can't afford them 2) Nothing I own can reproduce sound as good as the headphones.

What I laugh about on many of these guys on audiophile sites about spec numbers, ranges, names and costs is almost no mention about the receiver or unit they're using to replicate the sound, the media in which the sound has been recorded, how it was mastered, or even the cables used in capturing/mastering the sound in the first place. All of that has electrical resistance or interference possibility, all leading to sound degradation.

Much like how the much-loved digital camera can have "One BILLION MEGAPIXELS! WOW!" if the lens is a piece of trash, all you're going to see are one billion megapixels of really bad lens.

When it comes down to it, replicated sound is NEVER perfect sound, for a majority of people who might have excellent hearing (me), even they (me) don't have perfect ears. So much of the lauded headphone/speaker talk is about as solid as "which pipe is best" here on BoB. Pure speculation mixed with some damn fine engineering and design, and unfortunately, name/specification stigma.

Want to hear unadulterated sound, perfectly, as it was intended (or rather, as only your ears perceive it)?

Attend a symphony performance at an architecturally-suited location designed for that purpose. Aural purity at its finest.

I've got a pair of Sennheiser HD 280 Pros that I recently picked up that I really like as well as my MDR-7506 studio monitors (might even be the same as Rob used to own). Both are very good as studio monitors, which is my preferred listening experience.

...does this mean a "speakers" thread is gonna pop up now, too? Go for it, make one, I'll join. I can't move my setup to check for model numbers at the moment. Figures as much pipesters would like good sound, too.

I've got some $40 JVCs and some $120 Sonys and I honestly can't tell the difference. In my case, headphones let me keep the listening hours I like without disturbing the upstairs neighbors, who's bedroom is right above my living room. To me, they're pretty utilitarian, but 99% of my friends see me as an old school audiosnob for the mere fact that I own a pair of full-sized cans, and have them plugged into an old Pioneer tube amp with a turn table sitting atop it, rather than earbuds and an mp3 player. I see no reason to correct them.