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So wife has a new job which has her in bed at 9:30 pm, and as the hifi is directly under the bedroom negates my rocking out any later!
So time for new headphones to go into my Rogue Phoenix V11 seeing as a TSA scumbag decided to steal my Grado SR80" from my bag Christmas eve!
Talk about a grinch!
Looking at Grado SR225x or Monoprice MonolithM570 or maybe something in the HiFiMan line up but price will remain around the $300 mark.
Music choices involve pretty much everything from Anthrax to Mahler to Robert Johnson.
Have a pair of in ear Shure 225's but want something different.
Follow Ups:
PSBs are my favorites by far. And I own Grado, Audio Technica, Sennheiser
Don't wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
Mark Twain
The Grados you lost were among the best, and nowhere near $300. I use their little brother (SR-60) with a Class A tube amp. The SQ is superb.
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Buy Chinese. Bury freedom.
A lot of people find many Grado models to be extremely bright, so either listen before you buy or else make sure your purchase is returnable.
!
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
My Grado RS-1i's are my favorite headphones for Rock and similar music styles. They have an energetic sound that suits those genres extremely well. I call them the "King of Rock" headphones. But if I feed them with inferior components they can sound too bright and forward at times.
Mellower sounding amp and source components suit them best but once everything is right, they really rock.
So went a little above my price range and ordered the Hifiman Sundara's from the jungle site. They arrived today, box was immediately opened and phone placed on head.
Felt comfortable and then I plugged into my Rogue Sphinx, no right channel!
Switched around cables, no change! Back in box, print out return label and off to UPS.
So now I gotta wait another week for the replacements!
And yes, I did check the amp with another set of phones!
2nd set arrived yesterday and yeh they work!
Threw on A kind of Blue cd and was impressed. Amazing space, really broad soundstage.
Followed that with System of a Down Toxicity, playing Aerials first then going back to the start. Aerials is probable the last song that grabbed my brain and hasn't left for over 20 years! Heard it first on MTV (when it was a music station!) at about 5am and it just blew me away! SOAD are about the only band of that genre that I like, way better than Korn and the like but I digress.
So stuck on SOAD on repeat for 5 hours to break in then followed that by Beethoven's 5th & 7th overnight and just changed to DSOTM and I am well happy with how they sound!
Only issue I have now is the damned 4' cable! Need to at least double that!
Any suggestions?
There is nothing more subjective than headphones. Everyone's "room" is different. Everyone's tolerance for what they can have in their ear, on their ear, over their ear, weighing down their head...is unique unto them.
In the sub-$300 range for circumaural headphones the Drop/Senn HD6XX at $220 is a massive bargain - if...you like the Sennheiser sound and if...you can tolerate the clamping force. Weight isn't that bad.
Planar bargain of the year at $149 is hands down HiFiman HE400se...if you can handle the weight.
Most recently I have become very enamored of the Audio-Technica ATH-AD500x. A steal at $85. Super light for an over the ear full sized headphone. Very spacious presentation, no real clamp. Two caveats, the "wings" suspension system may not sit right on a small/narrow noggin but you can add tension with a rubber band; the cord is horrible. Really long memory wire essentially and not removable. I coil most of it and retain with velcro to make it usable as a desktop can.
All of the above need some eq, for me anyway. AutoEQ on computer, Schiit Loki Mini+ on the big rig.
I have the HiFiMan HE400S headphones, which as you probably know are planar magnetic. The usual devices - phone, tablet, laptop, CD player headphone output, etc. - didn't drive them to an acceptable volume level. (I don't listen *that* loud...) I ended up getting a headphone amp and that brought the sound level up to the point that I can really enjoy them.
There was a point here somewhere... Oh right: You should consider whether you can drive whatever headphones you get with the gear you already have. If not, you'll have to factor an amp into your budget.
Regards,
Steve
IMNSHO.
It's a combo of the best of the HD600/HD650 line, thus the name.
likely discontinued but still manufactured by Sennheiser for MassDrop.
You have to register with 'Drop' to see the price but at $220 I can think of nothing better. MassDrop (now called just DROP) has only sold 152,000 of them so I'd but with confidence if I didn't already have the HD600 from over a decade or two ago.
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I have Sennheiser HD600's and the Massdrop/Sennheiser HD6XX. They are very similar (I think identical), and can highly recommend them as a very physically comfortable, aesthetically pleasing and pleasant-sounding choice.
Some hear the HD6XX as sounding like a halfway-hybrid of the HD600 and the HD650. Others think it sounds much more like the HD650 than the HD600. And others (like yourself) think that the HD600 and the HD6XX sound identical, or nearly identical.
Some measurements appear to show that the HD6XX sound signature resides somewhere in-between the HD650 and the HD600, and this assertion would seem to back up what I think I'm hearing when I listen to my own pair of HD6XX headphones.
Hi peppy.m,
Thank you for that comment - that's interesting. I like them both, but you know, I've never really A/B'ed them, since they were used in different locations (office vs home office). The 600's were already fairly old and well-used when I got he 6XX's. I don't recall noticing big differences, but probably ascribed any to break-in and the comparatively noisy office environment. I've never heard the HD650's.
When we all retreated to home offices, the 6XX's went into a box to bring home, which I'll have to find so I can do a better comparison. For all its pros and cons, at least working from home allows one to conduct such experiments.
But, HD650 sounds slightly darker, slower, and bassier than HD600.
HD600 sounds slightly lighter, quicker, and airier than HD650.
And, HD6xx sound lies somewhere in the middle of the other two, but leans more toward HD650 than HD600.
This is what my ears have told me so far. But I could be mistaken because, in truth, all three headphones sound quite similar.
Not doubting what you are hearing 650 v 6XX but by all accounts they are electrically and mechanically the same headphones. Do they both have pads of similar age and compression characteristics?
Some have measured slight diffs between 650 and 6XX in frequency response. These diffs might be due to slight variations in production runs, but who knows for sure ?
That said, I'm guessing that a lot of people would not notice such slight diffs (if any actually exist) when listening to actual music.
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Just saved you $80. ;-))
Two to audition are the HiFiMan Sundara and the Drop Sennheiser 6XX..... The former is better for at-home listening with an amplifier, the latter is better suited for music on the go (although might have some issues with output level with some portables).....
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These would be my choice:
Look good but not looking for earbuds, want a big ol' pair of over the ear!
Have my Shures for traveling, a little too much emphasis on the lower mids, but sound pretty good.
Here's my choice for the best sounding over the ear headphones for $300. They come with a nice leather case and two sets of ear-pads. I also bought a special balanced silver cable for mine.
I own these and I think they probably sound just as good as my FD5 IEM earphones.
The FiiO FD5 IEM earphones are the best sounding phones I've found for the price of $300. I own a number of headphones and earphones, and the only ones better than these are the FiiO FD7's that sell for $600.
The FiiO FD5 IEM earphones sound better to me than my $1000 Koss ESP/950 electrostatics as well as both my Grado HP-1 and RS-2 headphones. If you don't want to buy the FiiO FD5's, I would suggest buying some Grado headphones within your price range. However, I seriously doubt you'll find any that sound better than the FiiO FD5's for $300 or less.
Good luck,
John Elison
I put my Grado GR10 in ear phones into a 400 dollar Walkman and am good to go.
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