Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello.

Recently there was a thread about good, cheap headphones. It was HERE.

I, however, want some good heaphones and am not too concerned with price, as long as they are awesome.

I favour in-ear headphones. I have rpeviously had some awesome Shure e2c phones and some good Sennheiser CX300s (or was it 100s... the kind that literally everyone has). I liked the Sennheiser's, but they broke all the time. Grrrr.

Anyway, my money pot is now full, and will likely contain over 150 quid in silver coins. Since I've been frugal and not splurged my cash on unnecessary goods (too much) for the past half year, I am allowed to spend this cash on anything I want. Since I'm currently using standard iPod headphones (URGH!), I need better ones, and quickly.

Does anyone know if there are any Shure headphones to avoid, or which are better value than others? They have several different kinds within the 50-100 price bracket, but I don't really know if any are considered 'better' than others.

I could consider getting headphones that are not fitted into my ear, but would need some assurance that I can still hear the music at a decent volume without anyone else being forced to listen to whatever I'm playing.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Etymotic Research hf2's - the ones I have for my iPhone. They're beyond awesome, but they also cost £100. Of course, the versions that are regular earphones and don't have the built-in mic are probably going to be a little cheaper. But seriously, they're the niceset sounding earphones I've ever used and they make my Sennheiser CX300-II's sound like the earphones you used to get free with the Gameboy.

I recommend these. They are big, but sound delightful. And keep the sound in well. You won't bother people on the bus, put it that way.

Unless your willy's hanging out or something.

[edit] There are some in-ear ones of those, but I haven't used them, so cannot vouch.

I have two pairs of good headphones, one for in the house, and one for out and about.

As good as in-ear headphone technology is these days, I don't think anything can compete with a more traditional over-ear design, a proper pair of cans, it's simple physics IMO. If you're sat in your house listening to music via in-ear headphones, you're doing it wrong.

For in the house I use Sennheiser HD595s, but they're not cheap (around £100) and they're totally unsuited to use outside the house, they also leak huge amounts of noise, so they're very anti-social even in the house. (I only use mine if the missus is in bed or she's doing something on her laptop with her headphones on, I can hear my 595s down in the kitchen (one floor down) when I've got them cranked.) They also take a while to break-in (50 hours plus) and you'll need a 3.5mm > 6.3mm adapter LEAD (not just a straight-through jack) or you will fry whatever you've got them attached to.

The payback for all that faffing about is audio fidelity the likes of which you wouldn't have thought possible through headphones - http://www.audioreview.com/cat/headphon ... 50crx.aspx

As for in-ear headphones, iPhones and the like are pretty shit as players go, and you'll generally be listening to compressed music files anyway, or just playing games. I wouldn't recommend spending much more than £50, but it's certainly worth replacing the appalling headphones that most devices come with as standard (iPhone/iTouch/iPod included). The Shure SE110s are a nice pair of in-ear headphone and shouldn't cost much more than the £50 mark, you can spend a lot more than that but you're on a curve of diminishing returns, especially if you're just listening to bog-standard MP3s.

For your £150 you could get the Sennheisers and the Shures!

I can quite easily tell the difference between my A-Ts and Grado SR-60s on my iPhone. When it's working.

But I do use lossless files.

I'd agree with not spending a foutune on "in ear" buds as well, primarily as they're not very robust. If you were totally anal about looking after them and always wound them carefully and stored then in a hard case I still reckon they'd be knackered within a year.

Indeed, you could arguably just start off with a basic £10 pair of Sonys, even they'd be a quantum leap over the default iPod headphones.

Certainly the bulk of anyone's music investment should be spent on their at-home systems, unless they live in a monastery or something.

Mine are wound around two trainers and tangled with a ball of wool, and I've had them for four years. I once lost on of the little rubbery things, but someone on here was ind enough to send me a couple in the post.

The things that come packaged with iPods and the like are terrible, because you have to have GIANT ears to wear them. I have to wear the tiny size rubbery things that the squidgy earbuds come with.

On a related note, any idea where the best reliable place to buy sennheiser's at a decent price is? None of the ones on Amazon seem to come from Amazon, and there's a lot of fakes out there it would seem.

I used to have Shure e2c headphones and they were ace. I'm only using the iPod ones because the Sennheisers I had just died on me (again).

I'm tempted by those cans posted above. Mmmm.

Thanks for the help thus far gents. Much appreciated.

Try these ones:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000S8EUNM/

Wait, scratch that: £14 all-in from Play:

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electro ... oduct.html

Cheers,
Ordered from Play -
I saw the Amazon one, but that indigo starfish co that Amazon use are crap. I have had 3 duff DVD's from them.

I have Goldring GX200s, which are supposed to be around £50 but occasionally turn up for less than £20 from various guys (play.com last time). They are £35 now. I really like them as in-ear phones go, which (by definition) are used out and about where the ear-blocking nature of them helps keep background sound down. I agree with DBSnappa; I lose and break my in-ear phones so frequently that I refuse to spend that much on them.

If you are considering serious 'cans in the house, consider an inline headphone amp. They'll be running at 16-32ohm and you'll be working the iPhone's fairly weedy amp quite hard to get much volume out of them.