The Headphones Thread - Page 15

The MDR-605 is a passable headphone if you only plan to use with computer games, mp3's etc.

The foam actually degrades audio quality. Remove them (see if you can remove the pads first) and see if the driver is exposed. If you can see the driver then it is probably good to keep them on. If you can find...um...whaddya call em in america...stockings? nylon stockings make good foam replacements. Make sure you ask your sister/mom/wife/girlfriend for permission before you work with the scissors

The pads are pleather right? The platicky thing that flakes in summer when sweat is available and drinking water is not

Headphones can last several decades. I have a pair of Koss Electrostatics and Dynamics that are close to 20 years old. I wouldnt wanna keep any headphone more than 5 years though...some serious improvements are made in this time.

Besides - I like to keep rotating my gear. I always have something new...headphone, headphone amp, cables, cd players...SOMETHING! to play with.

I think the time is ripe for you to retire those old headphones (hint - give them away for free to a relative or someone on the forums here or headfi) and get a classy sounding new pair that fixes all the problems you had with these old ones.

If you should decide to keep them - be happy - you are one of the few people who has succeeded in avoiding the disease known as "upgraditis"

Cheers

Except for the foam covering (or rather formerly covering) the drivers they are in pretty good shape. I only use them to listen to audio from PCs so it doesn't seem to make sense to upgrade just now.

Oh, and believe me, I am a chronic sufferer of upgraditis. Just not with headphones.

nice. I had a pair of MDR-F1's that looked almost the same and I actually dug those headphones. Why? Because in summer - no other headphone was wearable without making me sweat. The best would have been the AKG K1000 but the MDR-F1 was pretty close

I have the Echo Audio Indigo soundcard plugged in the PCMCIA cardslot feeding music to Sennheiser HD280 headphones.

I like the Echo soundcard, good sound and compact so I never remove it from the cardslot.

The HD280 headphones give good sound and excellent isolation from external noise. I am using the headphones in a very noisy houseparty DJ environment so the isolation is imprtant. But the 280s do not give much bass, although the specs indicate they have flat response down to very low frequencies. As a DJ I find the non-boosted bass is OK as it lets me beatmatch the music better.

The 280's are quite big so you look dorky. The worse thing about these phones is the ends of the headband are not strong enough and the stress causes small cracks to appear and grow eventually, and finally the ends of the band just break off! They break about every 6 months even though I'm very careful with them and don't use them a lot. They have a 2 year warranty which helps but still they are just not well designed if they easily break.

I weill probably be replacing these with other headphones, maybe the Sennheiser HD25.

For casual listening I got some Apple iPod in-ear headphones, big mistake, I hate them. No bass and excessive treble, unless they are very snugly inserted in the ear, which I am unable to do. I think the current in-ear designs are terrible, the cheapo earphones they had 25 years ago with a simple plastic tube that went in the ear were better.

Senn HD-280 and almost all the Ultrasone headphones and Beyer (certain models) have this problem with the cracking headband. Bad design...its no secret

HD-25 is an AWESOME headphone for DJ's

Ultrasone has a new lineup of headphones for all you music lovers and DJ's - I will post the link when I find it - Duh!

Ciao Gsferrari!

Have you got the details of the M-audio yet?
There's no hurry, since I don't have money in two months anyway. I'll be checking the thread every couple of days.

Do you know if the Ultrasone HFI-650s has the cracking headband -problem?

Anyone have a suggestion for a pair of good gaming headphones that have a mic (150$ or less)

gsferrari, you of all people should know that above the $30 point, nothing is actually worth the price tag. It's true that a pair of cd3ks are more overpriced than say v6's, but they are both overpriced.

The truth is that from my experience (I have owned the sony v6, ex-71, senn px200, mx500, grado sr-60, sr-80, shure e2c, phillips hs900) that the best value in headphones is a gem called the Philips HS900. Someone recommended it on head-fi about a year ago and since then lots of people have been buying them. They're closed, super super comfortable, sound really good (close to sr60 in my opinion and in the opinions of many of my friends) and are less then $16 from buy.com. I recommend these to everybody. The only con is that Philips has no customer support so if these break, I wouldnt count on any warrantey help from Philips.

Just my 2-cents; enjoy.

edit: i just realised that my first paragraph is in reply to a post you made 10 pages ago. whoops

Thank you GS!

I just got back from my vacation and wanted to pass on some info. First of all thanks for taking time to answer all these questions for us noobs out here. Secondly, I really like my Senn 212's! They sound great for my gaming needs. They cut outside noise down to almost nothing. Thirdly, they can get uncomfortable after a couple of hours. Next time I will go with a full size model to try and remedy that. I had great service from Jamie at headphone.com and since I was in the US at the time got my headphones in two days. That was great.

Congratulations Terry I am glad it all worked out.

A full size headphone that can still be loads of fun is the Beyerdynamic DT-440 / 531 or the Ultrasone HFI-650 Trackmaster.

I can think of many more but only if you want me to

Cheers!

depends on what you want for your money. I want ultimate sonic perfection. I have a tube amp that costs $1500.00, a Sennheiser HD-650 that costs $400.00, Cables that cost $200.00, Power conditioner - another $400.00 and so on...

My audio equipment costs almost $4000.00 and there are times when I derive just as much enjoyment with a $30.00 Koss PortaPro2 + Rio Karma 20GB ($200.00).

$250 vs $4000.00

Sobering isnt it?

And yet there are other times when my setup absolutely THRILLS me.

Here is a pic of my current rig

Before I became an audio nutcase :-





After I became an audio nutcase :-















I still havent made pictures of my desk with the Klipsch Ultra 5.1 speakers

In reply to the guy with the Sen 212's. I demod a set of those at Guitar Center once. I found the sound to be amazing - much better than the V6's that i owned. To get rid of the clamping feel of the 212's the guy there showd me that you can just bend the headband a little to loosen up the vice grip. This is similar to what most people do with the Grado headphones.

gsferrari, I of course didn't mean that high priced audio equipment isnt worth the money. I understand fully that to the right people, anything could be worth any amount. And that to some people, some stuff is worthless no matter how cheap it is. What I meant though is that the value per dollar greatly diminishes the higher you go in audio equipment. Ie: The sound on the Grado 225's is nowhere near 3 times as good as on the 60's everthough it's more than 3 times as expensive.

I wasnt trying to point out anything new - I was just replying to a post which at the time I didnt realize was 10 pages old.

Absolutely. I just sold a pair of SR-225's because they were nothing "special" compared to my SR-60's.

It is a case of diminishing returns. A wise man should know when to stop. A rich man can go on and on

However I spent the money I got back immediately on a pair of Alessandro MS2's

Life sucks eh?

My two cents:

The way I look at it, if I'm going to buy a good pair headphones and use them for many years, for example 10, paying an extra 100 bucks for better comfort, better base/sound or other slight improvements is well worth it, since it'll only cost me an extra 10 bucks a year or so..
..however, I wouldn't go over the magical 200 dollar line - just to be on the safe side
Amps are even more dangerous for the wallet!

BTW: How 'bout those specs on the m-audio, gsferrari?
Sorry, don't mean to be annoying, am just very interested in that machine

M-Audio Firewire is an excellent tool with your laptop. It supports full 24/96 upsampling and ASIO. However - only the EMU1212 supports this in Windows Audio therefore DVD Audio will still playback at standard sampling rate.

For music the Firewire is a great soundcard.

Get the firewire version

Cheers!

$200 will get you some awesome headphones :-

* Grado SR-225
* Beyerdynamic DT-880 (used)
* Sennheiser HD-25-1
* Alessandro MS-2 (used for less than 6 months go for $250 or $230)
* Beyerdynamic DT-531 / DT-440

I would get a used Grado SR-225 and a gilmore lite amplifier.

I am building a Gilmore Dynahi amplifier now...will post pics...should cost me $600.00 in parts but it will kick the arse of any headphone amplifier out there...this is a 40W monster!!

gsferrari, my budget is around $300.00 . Sorry for the late reply, and thanks for your help!

BTW, these sites need to start giving you commission!

When you love what you do - money doesnt become a variable in the equation.

I do get plenty of gear to play with though...no money...which is good news for me because this way I can audition $4000.00 CD Players and $3000.00 headphones and nobody will give me that kind of commission. I dont need it anyway...I like taking care of myself even though I have a high 3 figure bank balance.

Ramen noodles is my friend

I forget what this is about. Budget for headphones or amp or source?

Yo I have these Sony MDR-G52 street styles and they are da sheaaat. They play punchy base are awesome for games