New headphones £150 budget?

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Hi guys im after some new headphones for music and movie listening. They will be used with my ipad pro/note8/pc. They will also be used with my guitar through an effects pedal. So im looking at recommendations at whats the best out there atm in that price range.
 
Sennheiser HD25-1 II

My favourite headphones, so much so I have 2 pairs.

They isolate well and give a very natural/flat response. They’re rugged, reliable and all parts are replaceable.

Glorious headphones.
 
Sennheiser HD25-1 II

My favourite headphones, so much so I have 2 pairs.

They isolate well and give a very natural/flat response. They’re rugged, reliable and all parts are replaceable.

Glorious headphones.
Everything this guy said.
 
except they are on ear and not particularly comfortable for long periods of use.

My picks would be....

Sony MDR-1A
Beyerdynamic DT 770 pro (80 ohm)
Sennheiser HD569

or if you can push your budget to £180, the HiFiMan HE400i, which is a saving of £150 on the normal price.
 
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cheers guys i wouldnt mind two options one for home and one for outside.

I tried the senheiser hd 569 today just plugged into my note 8 and i wasnt impressed. The hd 599 sounded way better I listen to mainly metal/rock/blues. I tried some bowers and wilkins whilst they looked nice the p5 s2 sounded as good as my free apple earpods.
 
That would be because the 599 is a better headphone but is £50 over your budget, which is why I didn't recommend it :D

Also, the 599 are open backed whereas the 569 are closed back, so very different sound signatures. Closed back tend to have heightened bass response due to the internal reflections which are usually tuned to be additive, enhancing the bass frequencies. This tends to come at the expense of sound stage, so open backed will have a bigger, airier sound.
 
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I'd suggest some Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro if you want an open sound, and 770 Pro (80 Ohm) if you want a closed sound. Loved the sound of mine - very smooth sound.
 
I wouldn't call Beyers smooth, their highs can be akin to an ice pick and usually require a warm tube amp to smooth off those peaks a little.
 
refurbished from the Senn website will be essentially new as they will have brand new earpads at the very least
 
Some AKGs might be also available in roughly that price range assuming their UK pricing is similar to that here in Finland.

But like PapaLazaru said one of the main decision factors is are those going to be used for mobile use in more or less noisy environment or at home in quiet environment?
In first case closed design is mandatory unless you like hearing envinronment's noises.


I wouldn't call Beyers smooth, their highs can be akin to an ice pick and usually require a warm tube amp to smooth off those peaks a little.
Equalizer is lot better for controlling Beyer's trebble than arbitrary amount of requency response distortion tubes...
Whose effect you can't disable if connecting other headphones.
NwAvGuy wrote it best:
Using a headphone amp to compensate for a flaw with your headphones is like buying a music player that can only play one song.
 
You sure of that? Digital EQ affects the bit depth, so reduces fine detail, while a good tube amp operates in the analogue domain and detail is unaffected. The only analogue EQ I know of that is not only good but available at a decent price is the Schiit Loki and I intend getting one of those at some point for just this reason.
 
You sure of that? Digital EQ affects the bit depth, so reduces fine detail, while a good tube amp operates in the analogue domain and detail is unaffected. The only analogue EQ I know of that is not only good but available at a decent price is the Schiit Loki and I intend getting one of those at some point for just this reason.
Already 16 bits has easily enough accuracy for human ear in almost everything.
(audio CD standard was based on thorough scientific studying)
And pretty much every sound card supports 24 bit accuracy for "lots of decimals to minimize rounding errors".
Internal processing in Windows audio stack might even happen with 32 bit accuracy.


And likely everything you listen has already gone through plenty of DSP in mixing and mastering.
Even physical "equalizer tables" and such might actually control DSPs, because digital form offers advantage over analog signal.
(of course if used algorithms are bad then there's going to be "side effects")

Remember that in analog signal chain every single component and piece of wire would need to be ideal/perfect (not going to happen) to avoid any side effects.
Just to even keep changes similar in both channels...
So in analog signal path every single component adds some amount of "rounding errors"/signal degradation/distortion.
It's like that taking photocopy of photocopy/copying C-cassette and using that copy as source for next copy.

Even those analog potentiometers for volume control always have their own side effect...
No matter what some claim that only "bit perfect" audio with analog volume control is accurate.
With enough accuracy/bits and proper algorithms digital processing can keep side effects equally minimal/lower.


BTW, even 8 bit signal isn't such automatically distinguishable "door slammed to face".
http://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_16vs8bit.php
 
oh, fair enough, wall of text so you are obviously correct :)

Funnily enough, I was reading a presentation by Rob Watts, the lead designer of Chord Electronics, and he was saying that it's all the bits we can't hear that make sound realistic and accurate in our brains. It's the transients that go way up beyond what we can hear that allow us to pin point instruments in a sound stage - those are what will get deleted with digital EQ.

and I'm pretty sure he knows more about sound than NwAvGuY

Also, Mike Moffat really doesn't like digital EQ....

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/wha...n-robert-hunter.784471/page-322#post-13748153
 
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Some AKGs might be also available in roughly that price range assuming their UK pricing is similar to that here in Finland.

But like PapaLazaru said one of the main decision factors is are those going to be used for mobile use in more or less noisy environment or at home in quiet environment?
In first case closed design is mandatory unless you like hearing envinronment's noises.


Equalizer is lot better for controlling Beyer's trebble than arbitrary amount of requency response distortion tubes...
Whose effect you can't disable if connecting other headphones.
NwAvGuy wrote it best:
Using a headphone amp to compensate for a flaw with your headphones is like buying a music player that can only play one song.
Akg 550mk2 are on fleebay for £110 roughly, but imported from Ireland.
 
I ended up ordering some Sennheiser momentum 2.0 which can be had for under £150 atm. Never heard them but I guess I’ll find out in a couple of days. I kinda wanted a do it all headphone in the end for home and outside.
 
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