Best available headphones for music?

Scott Salisbury

Scott Salisbury

Scott Salisbury

Associate
Joined
26 Jan 2005
Posts
1,586
Location
Newcastle, UK
I think its time I got a set of decent headphones for listening to music at the PC (when the parents are in bed my music still wakes them up), and low volume is not possible for me. It's loud or nothing baby.

It will be for strictly music only and comfort/quality/bass is the most important. If they can block out any outside noise too, that is always welcome.

Willing to pay no more than £100 for a decent pair, wired of course. No microphone needed.

If anyone can point me in the general direction of what I should be looking for, I can let google do the rest.

Quality of sound and bass is the most important.

Thanks in advance,
Scott.

Are the surround sound headphones any good for music or just meant for gaming? I woulnd't imagine they're too comfortable?
 
Thanks for the replies :)

Curio said:
They do take a lot of running-in tho - don't judge them on first listen!
Click to expand...

How do you mean exactly?

fish99 said:
Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic make great headphones but I don't know their ranges well.
Click to expand...

Intersting. I'll take a look at them all and see which one takes my fancy.

I listen to music pretty much any time I'm on my PC or whenever in the house so I don't mind forking out a bomb for the best money can buy.

I'll be mainly listening to electronic/trance music, Armin van Buuren, Tiesto sort of sounds.
 
fish99 said:
Those HD515 look ideal. Relatively low impedence (50 ohms) means they're easy to drive, so you won't need a headphone amp to get the best out of them and they should be fine plugged into a PC soundcard. Open back means they should sound lively and entertaining and having used open back sennheisers I'd be surprised if they were short on bass. They look light and comfy too.
Click to expand...

That's the kind of response I was hoping for, since I'm no audio expert I wanted to know what makes headphones better or worse on a PC. You've just answered what I was about to ask.

I'm still doing some research and I would have prefered a closed back ear cup, bt I've seen a lot of good reviews about the open cup sennheisers.

Decisions decisions :p

Or should I fork out that little bit more to get the 555's?
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the reply.

I like trance/electronic music, Tiesto and Armin van Buuren are some examples of the sounds I will be listening to. As you may know this type of music is pretty heavy-going on the bass.

I've currently got the 515 in my shopping cart ready to buy, but I'm almost tempted to change it for the 555. Still reading reviews.

I've just tested my dad's very old Sennheiser 445's (which are almost broke) but I managed to test them for sound and loudness and they were perfectly fine.
 
Hey all.

After reading through all your replies and doing research into all your suggestions, specifically Grado, I decided to settle for the Sennheisers. My original choice was the 515's, butt changed my mind to the more expensive 555s, as most of the reviews I found about the 515s recommended to pay the extra and go for the better 555s.

They just came and I'm currently listening to them now and I have to say they are bloody fantastic. I've tested them on all my types of music, mainly trance and hard trance and some ambient chillout, they work very well with all of them.

What TooNice said, you are right in saying that these aren’t particularly aggressive cans, but I'm actually glad, as they do my music so much more justice elsewhere other than just the heavy bass.

Another reason why I went for Sennheiser is something else TooNice mentioned, that they “lend” more towards classical. I quite often like to listen to (not classical) but electronic chillout, which can be very tuneful but not too heavy.

As for an amp? Definitely not, they’re so loud as they are. I’ve even tried them on my Creative Zen:M for the hell of it and they’re impressive even on this (many reviews said they were almost useless on mobile devices). Though, I won’t ever use these cans outside the house :)

Thanks for all your help and input, I am very impressed by these and definitely recommend them to anyone who is looking for something similar.

Main disadvantage, holy hell do they leak! Definitely NOT for public listening, lol. I knew this before I bought them and it doesn’t concern me, but if you don’t want to annoy other people in the room then don’t go for these.

Other than that I’ll give them 9/10 (the last point for the leakage) and they’re definitely worth the investment.

Comfort: 10/10 (had thme on 2 hours now and I forgot I was wearing them)

I also tried them with low quality mp3s too, and I bearly notice they're low quality.
 
Last edited:
Curio said:
..my Sennheisers actually sounded awful when I first got them - took about a month of solid use for them to sound sweet.
Click to expand...

Oh right, didn't know that. Well I knew all audio stuff sort of needs breaking in a bit, to break the newness, didn't think it would take that long though.

I already like the quality of these cans, so if they're going to get better then I can't wait :)

They just sound so clean and crisp.
 
Ah right. Bah now I'm interested!

I just done a quick google search for pimeta, can't you buy them straight off the shelf? I just find pages on how to make your own :confused:

What's a good headphone amp that you can just buy? Don't know if I would buy one, don't really think I need it. But just out of interest.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom