A good pair of closed headphones?

A

Attean

Gawd
Joined
Oct 24, 2004
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I currently have the hd497s and love them. However, my roomates are annoying and listen to horrible music. I need a good pair of noise cancelling headphones, pherhaps splurge a little bit and buy an X-fi with my new system as well as the said headphones. ;) I may even go a bit beyond the $50 range, if you guys assure me the benefits will be incredible and I will listen to all my albums in new bliss (and drown out the metal and jpop in the background).
 
Attean said:
I may even go a bit beyond the $50 range, if you guys assure me the benefits will be incredible and I will listen to all my albums in new bliss (and drown out the metal and jpop in the background).
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Oh, that made me laugh.

Anyway, only you can determin if the extra money for better headphones is worth it. Go to your local professional audio shops and see what they have. Bring a CD your familer with and listen to them.

Some people here will recommend the Sennheiser HD280pro's for 100$us, but to be honest with you they have almost the same sound quality and characteristics of the HD497's.

Do you currently have a sound card? Because honestly, if you have something like an Audigy 2 ZS, the money spent on getting the new creative sound card would be put to better use in just getting better headphones.

Having said all that, I recommend you listen to the Beyerdynamic DT770pro's. They go for about 170$us.

~Hope this helps, and keep us posted.
 
(Active) Noise cancelling wont do a great deal against music, its mostly for sort of constant background noise, and bassy at that, stuff like engines and things. I too would reccomend you go listen to some at a proper audio place, im sure they can put a cd on in the background so you can see what the isolation is like.
 
I'm new to the whole headphone addiction. I've been using Senn px200 for about 5 months, and have been happy, but I'm not sure they will isolate enough for you. Yesterday, I got my ATH-A500's (~$110). They're closed, with good isolation, and sound fantatstic for my varied musical tastes as well as gaming. I'm running them off my audigy 2z. You might find them to your liking.
 
towert7 said:
Having said all that, I recommend you listen to the Beyerdynamic DT770pro's. They go for about 170$us.

~Hope this helps, and keep us posted.
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I also recommend these, but that's a link to the dt770/250pros, they're 250ohms making them a bit difficult to drive properly straight from sound card? I was directed to go to Guitar Center, who sells the dt770/80pros, which should work fine with without an amp, goes for 200 bucks. Nobody sells dt770/80s online, guitar center in-store purchase is the only way to get these.

If blocking noise is really important to you, you could try buying canalphones. The Shure e2cs go for 50-70 bucks and block around 30db of noise, way more than closed headphones or noise canceling ever will. It's also closer to your price range. However, some people don't like the idea of putting things inside their ears. www.headphone.com can give some idea of what headphones are available at each price tier(not the exact numbers though, they sell at release price rather than current market price).
 
You might want to try earbuds. I use Panasonic canal phones (forgot the model number, they're not the HJE-150s and they're not sold in the states) which cut out a decent amount of sound. You can get some Shures for $50 - 100 (have not demoed any, no stores around here offer them for demoing), or some Etymotics (like the ER-6, around $90-100)

Other than that, you'll have to demo headphones at an audio store if you can, best way to determine what's right for your ears (I got some Grado SR60s because the bass was great and I listen to a lot of bass-y music, but sometimes the treble almost stings).
 
kelbear said:
I also recommend these, but that's a link to the dt770/250pros, they're 250ohms making them a bit difficult to drive properly straight from sound card? I was directed to go to Guitar Center, who sells the dt770/80pros, which should work fine with without an amp, goes for 200 bucks. Nobody sells dt770/80s online, guitar center in-store purchase is the only way to get these.
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I still don't really know the specifics of what makes volume with headphones, but I have been told by MisterX that for most headphones, its not the imdeadence that determins how they are driven, but the "sensitivity", much like a speaker.

I'm not sure if the 250ohm have a diffrent sensitivity then the 80ohm version found at guitar centers. I personally have DT990pro's 600ohm version (older version), and to get them to my prefered volume with the Audigy 2 ZS, I had to put it to about 75%. My older Sennheiser HD590 V3 headphones only need to be driven at about 25%.

If you do decide to spend a pretty penny on headphones, make sure the store has a good return policy. That way you can take them home, try them and break them in for a few days, and see if it works fine with your computer.

~Hope this helps
 
AKG K 26 P
Mini, collapsible, closed, bass head phones that you can pick up for less then $50. :)
 
I've been using my Aiwa HP-X223 for about three years now without complaint. They don't have noise canceling, but they do a really good job isolating anyway. My roommate and I each got a pair back when I lived in a dorm, and he still uses his too. They were about $40 back then, available at Best Buy.

Since the site says "Coming Soon," they might be getting an update/refresh. I'd keep an eye out.
 
thanks everyone!

I do have an audigy 2 zs and am going to a guitar center soon. I'll let you guys know what I pick up. Thx again.
 
Mister X said:
AKG K 26 P
Mini, collapsible, closed, bass head phones that you can pick up for less then $50. :)
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Amen. Go to Guitar Center and you can grab em for 39.99 or pricematch lower, or just ask the salesperson to lower the price (the latter worked for me).

Way to preach a recent FOTM on a certain H-Fi :)
 
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