Best over/on ear headphones for around £80?

Akagi

Akagi

Akagi

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hey people :)

I am interested in buying some headphones which are in the £80 area. (Absolute maximum is £90)

I listen to all kinds of music (litterally, from death metal to classical, from rap to blues etc)

I would like the headphones to have really good clarity and also very good bass response as i do like bassy music, and if my music has all of the bass washed out of it, i generally get little enjoyment out of it.

The headphones will be used with a Cowon i9 mp3 player, or with a Creative SoundBlaster XtremeMusic (or similar sound card), i will mostly be listening to mainstream WMA's or MP3's but i will listen to some FLAC's as well.

I had previously been looking at the Grado SR-60i's, but i got slightly put off when i read that the bass is not as forward as it is in some other headsets.

Please no headphones made by Dr. Dre or Skullcandy if you can help it :p, they don't impress me too much with thier sound quality :)

*edit* of course, if you know some amazing headphones which are cheaper, then please let me know :) (i did quite like some £50 marleys in HMV the other day, but i only had my motorola to plug them into, so i got no real idea of quality)
 
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Sony XB-700? :D

Currently gone back to those as my monitors are currently dead and need to go back to the US. Have to say I enjoyed using them last night, the bass response is excellent as the drivers are huge.

Good choice of player too, I just sold my Cowon D2 a few months back on the bay for a pretty good price, they are pretty sought after, brilliant headphone amp.
 
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I think the above recommendation is worth considering. If you are after some decent bass, you will get far better quality of bass with Sony's extra bass headphones than you will with a set of 2.1 speakers for around the £60-£80 mark.
 
i have never been particularly impressed with the audiophillic sound quality of headphones and/or speaker solutions made by mainstream companies such as Panasonic or Sony :p

I was particularly looking into less well known quality companies such as Grado, Audio Technica, Sennheiser, Teac, Denon etc, but i shall have a mosey around and look at some reviews of the cans you guys have recommended regerdless :)

A pair which caught my eye recently were the Audio Technica ATH M50's, but they are a bit out of my price range.

*edit* the sony's do look nice though i have to admit :D hopefuly i can locate a pair to test out. I did look in a very popular shop in town and tested thier display models, but they only had Dr. Dre's and Marleys.

really starting to like the sound of the XB700's, but there are some reports that in bass heavy songs the lows drown out the mids. is this the case? if so i would assume that it is curable in the EQ settings?

*edit again haha* if i listen to some old bluesy music as well, surely the X-Bass headphones arent a good choice? man this is confusing :p if i had the money to throw at two diffeent sets at headphones, i would buy some xb700's for my heavy bass music, and some sr-80i's for everything else... but alas, i lack sufficient funds :(
 
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bearing in mind that the best sound quality for music which i have used on a day to day basis, has been either IDE HD Integrated sound and my Cosonic £4 headset or my old Walkman phone with some CHEAP walkman x-bass earphones or CD's in my Panasonic SC-AK270 mini system, anything will blow me away to a certain degree hehe.

But though i did say that i love my bass, i do listen to bands like Flyleaf, Unsun, Three Days Grace, Crossfade, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus etc as well as melodic death metal and other guitar heavy music, and i have also heard some reports that the XB700's arent too great for reproducing guitar heavy music?

*edit* all reviews seem to be using just electronic music. any suggestions for more 'universal' headphones?
 
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any comments on headphones made by House of Marley? they look a little gimmicky. like skullcandy's (but in a different sort of way)

the revolution midnights look good visually.
 
I bought a pair of Audio-Technica ATHES55 for just under £100 and am well happy with them. Good for home and portable use.
 
denon ah-d510's? anyone..?
*edit* ignore that, they are apparently not too brilliant.
 
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titaniumx3 said:
Creative Aurvana Live! Headphones for £50.
Click to expand...

hi, i just searched these and i found nothing but good reviews :D

i'm assuming that you own/have owned a pair then..?

if you have, could you tell me what the bass is like? xD

this is my problem, its difficult wanting great quality and MEGA-BASS lol.

Grado SR-60i's all the way for quality, and Sony MDR-XB700's all the way for MEGA-BASS but i need something that covers both as well as is possible for <£80 :p

*edit* actually, i will be using sennheiser cx300's most of the time anyway with the cowon, and the headphones would be for use at my pc, and occasionally when i want to listen to dubstep etc on the cowon.. i might just scoop up some xb700's :p
 
To make the XB700s work, you need a decent source / amp and EQ setup.

I was running them off my cowon d2 at one stage and they were almost shaking off my head with DnB :D.

Can't say for guitar music unfortunately, I mostly shove these on when I want to zone out with some bassy tunes, then etymotics for classical stuff etc. Gave them a whirl last night with some Einaudi and they didn't perform too bad, managed to keep me entertained for 2 hours on my bed chilling out.

I would personally build up a little set of headphones, you'll never get a pair that is PERFECT in every genre. Expensive hobby being an audiophile :D.
 
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rexehuk said:
To make the XB700s work, you need a decent source / amp and EQ setup.

I was running them off my cowon d2 at one stage and they were almost shaking off my head with DnB :D.

Can't say for guitar music unfortunately, I mostly shove these on when I want to zone out with some bassy tunes, then etymotics for classical stuff etc. Gave them a whirl last night with some Einaudi and they didn't perform too bad, managed to keep me entertained for 2 hours on my bed chilling out.

I would personally build up a little set of headphones, you'll never get a pair that is PERFECT in every genre. Expensive hobby being an audiophile :D.
Click to expand...

i will mostly be using a creative sound blaster x-fi xtreme music with the xb700's... mostly crappy audio files, but a few FLAC's here and there. and i realise that :p, i just want some great quality to last me a few years until i can hopefuly afford to be an audiophile lol
 
acme15 said:
hi, i just searched these and i found nothing but good reviews :D

i'm assuming that you own/have owned a pair then..?

if you have, could you tell me what the bass is like? xD
Click to expand...

The bass is great, not super accurate but deep, powerful and well controlled - easily goes down into the 30hz regions without any obvious distortion. Also, it doesn't spill into the midrange very much.

The midrange is very 'lush' sounding and musical, gives vocals and acoustic instruments a wonderful warmth.

The treble response is crisp and clear, very polite sounding with little or no sign of sibliance.
 
titaniumx3 said:
The bass is great, not super accurate but deep, powerful and well controlled - easily goes down into the 30hz regions without any obvious distortion. Also, it doesn't spill into the midrange very much.

The midrange is very 'lush' sounding and musical, gives vocals and acoustic instruments a wonderful warmth.

The treble response is crisp and clear, very polite sounding with little or no sign of sibliance.
Click to expand...

hmm sounds promising.

I know you can never judge a book by its cover, but the looks really do put me off :p

This just took me by surprise, because until you mentioned these cans, everything that i had read about everything made by creative minus sound cards was bad :D
 
Yeah, from the outside you'd think they would sound like junk, but once you put them on and start playing music, all that change.

They actually share the same drivers and have almost the same driver housing as the Denon AHD-D1001. The same company manufactures the drivers.

So you Creative comment still stands, haha. :)
 
titaniumx3 said:
Yeah, from the outside you'd think they would sound like junk, but once you put them on and start playing music, all that change.

They actually share the same drivers and have almost the same driver housing as the Denon AHD-D1001. The same company manufactures the drivers.

So you Creative comment still stands, haha. :)
Click to expand...

:P
You wouldent happen to secretly live next-door to me would you? :p
 
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