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cheap headphones?

S

stringcheeseincident

Gawd
Joined
Aug 7, 2003
Messages
807
i made a dumb choice of wearing my nice headphones skiing and busted them. im looking for a comfortable pair, needs to be real comfy. i have a big head and a lot of hair. i listen to music a lot and will use them once in a while for gaming. needs to be around $40-$50 or under. suggestions?
 
Originally posted by stringcheeseincident
im also looking at the sennheiser 497s. any good?
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If you plan on using those for portable use, you definately need a headphone amp; otherwise they're gonna sound like complete crap. However, for home use, they definately sound incredible.
If those headphones dont get enough juice, they just wont perform and as a result, you'll be surely disappointed.
 
Originally posted by Tuvok
If you plan on using those for portable use, you definately need a headphone amp; otherwise they're gonna sound like complete crap. However, for home use, they definately sound incredible.
If those headphones dont get enough juice, they just wont perform and as a result, you'll be surely disappointed.
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do you own them? There is no need for an amp at all :confused:
 
Originally posted by zachary80
do you own them? There is no need for an amp at all :confused:
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Yes I do. I hooked them up to my RCA Lyra MP3 player and they sound awful. The headphones do not produce any highs at all when connected to them. However, they do sound good when connected to the receiver. Which player did you try hooking them up to? A lot of portable players just dont provide enough juice to make the 497s work the way they were meant to work.
 
Originally posted by Tuvok
Yes I do. I hooked them up to my RCA Lyra MP3 player and they sound awful. The headphones do not produce any highs at all when connected to them. However, they do sound good when connected to the receiver. Which player did you try hooking them up to? A lot of portable players just dont provide enough juice to make the 497s work the way they were meant to work.
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I used them with my RioVolt sp250, my Rio pmp500, and my iPod.
 
i have a generic sony walkman cd player and a sony minidisc player, those are the only ones i use on the go. and i mostly use those, i barely use headphones on a computer. any suggestions for portable use?
 
i 2nd the porta pros
But you mentioned "a lot of hair" so i sould mention that the metal head band sliding adjustment thingy has a tendency to pinch and pull hair. other then that they sound like they are worth twice what you pay for them. I do get sick of wearing them for very long periods because they pinch your head (they stay put) but a few tugs should loosen its grip. It has a short cord but i've never found it to be a problem outside of trying to listen to headphones on my computer. (i eventually turned the computer backwards so the ports were closer. it was a temp config anyway)

as for the senns, i want to pick up a pair of my own. I got my brother the HD 212. Despite them (apparently) not being the best senns on the market, i found them quite nice. even more so for portable listening. low impeadence so it doesn't need a headphone amp to sound good. they have a super long cord and are super comfortable, i could listen for hours on end with them. i'm going to assume that the 497s are of the same build only open.
 
Originally posted by XLShadow
as for the senns, i want to pick up a pair of my own. I got my brother the HD 212. Despite them (apparently) not being the best senns on the market, i found them quite nice. even more so for portable listening. low impeadence so it doesn't need a headphone amp to sound good. they have a super long cord and are super comfortable, i could listen for hours on end with them. i'm going to assume that the 497s are of the same build only open.
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The hd212's are fairly similar sounding to the hd497's, and look exactly the same. I borrowed a friends pair to compare with my hd497's for a week and found that I preferred the 497's, but the 212's were great when I needed a little isolation. Out of the two, I would recommend the 497's.

However, I wouldn't recommend either if you are going to be using them outside of the house.
 
Yes I do. I hooked them up to my RCA Lyra MP3 player and they sound awful. The headphones do not produce any highs at all when connected to them. However, they do sound good when connected to the receiver.
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Either the Lyra has an absurdly weak headphone output, some other problem in the output or decoding stages, or you're a victim of the placebo effect (or listen to your music at really, really high volume levels).

I use HD497's exclusively for portable use, and have never experienced any degradation in sound quality with any mp3 CD player I've used (four different models).

They are very efficient and do not require more than a portable CD player headphone output.
 
Originally posted by Tuvok
Yes I do. I hooked them up to my RCA Lyra MP3 player and they sound awful. The headphones do not produce any highs at all when connected to them. However, they do sound good when connected to the receiver. Which player did you try hooking them up to? A lot of portable players just dont provide enough juice to make the 497s work the way they were meant to work.
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It's not the lack of power per se that produces such rolled-off highs on your portable setup; it's the fact that most recent RCA-branded portable players of any type that roll off the highs severely. Those RCA players actually sound muffled - even more so than usual - with their stock headphones, to boot.
 
I've seen some complaints about the 497s being a bit tight if you have a big head, but you can generally alleviate it by storing them stretched out a bit. Then, they're quite comfortable. I agree that they're quite good for portable use: not too bulky and efficient so they can maintain sound quality.

The only problem is that they only dip to <$50 when there's a deal around. Otherwise, they're more likely to be $60 online.
 
I have a huge head and I find the HD-497s quite comfortable...

They sound good without an amp, but like most headphones, sound better with one.
 
Actually most high end large Sennheisers sound like shit w/o a decent amp, you people saying otherwise just don't know good sound(if you did you wouldn't be using a RioVolt:p )

Get the KSC-35's, well known as some of the best portable phones in existence for under $150 or so, they use the same drivers as the afore mentioned portapros except they are clip on's, should run you about thirty bucks.
 
Originally posted by kleath
Actually most high end large Sennheisers sound like shit w/o a decent amp, you people saying otherwise just don't know good sound(if you did you wouldn't be using a RioVolt:p )

Get the KSC-35's, well known as some of the best portable phones in existence for under $150 or so, they use the same drivers as the afore mentioned portapros except they are clip on's, should run you about thirty bucks.
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hd497's aren't high end Sennheisers

I bought the RioVolt sp250 before my hd497s when it was the best mp3cd player on the market (and even then I didn't use it most of the time that I was listening).
 
lol 497s are definitely not high end phones...

They're actually quite efficient and only have 32 ohms impedance, not hard to drive at ALL which makes them pretty decent portables. Its interesting that you insult all of us for not knowing good sound when you don't even know the headphones you're talking about :rolleyes:.
 
Originally posted by zachary80

I bought the RioVolt sp250 before my hd497s when it was the best mp3cd player on the market (and even then I didn't use it most of the time that I was listening).
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Oh oops I thought you said sp50, little different there...
 
Just went up from an HD202 to an HD497 and I think it is a really good budget cans.

Used it on my Powerbook and it sounds amazing.

I agree with the whole being tight on the head thing. It does get a bit tight, alot actually. I just use the original box that came with the HD497 to stretch it out.
 
If you can find a pair of AKG K-110M headphones, they sound really nice for the price.

I bought mine about a year ago for $30 or so. I believe the model has been discontinued since then.
 
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