   Headphone Shopping
  I'm looking all over the place for a good set of headphones. Preferably cup ones. Can someone please recommend a good set of headphones? Somewhere    < US$100. I found that the   SENNHEISER HD 485  got really good reviews. Any recommendations?? The Other huge issue I'm having is finding a store that will ship to Canada. Amazon ships those exact headphones to Canada but charges 50 dollars "shipping and handling" when the actually headphones are 70 dollars for a total of 120. WASTE OF MONEY!!   
  Meh, I don't really see the difference between a pair of $30 headphones and $100 headphones in terms of sound quality. So I usually just pick up a pair for $30 or $40 . You can check out directcanada.com or ncix.com for shipping to Canada.   ;  I think the main difference is that the more expensive ones block out sound that isn't coming from the headphones. So you can't hear whats going on around you, just the sound. I also am too cheap for these, so I can't help you :/   ;Quote:Original post by deathtrapMeh, I don't really see the difference between a pair of $30 headphones and $100 headphones in terms of sound quality. So I usually just pick up a pair for $30 or $40 .Yeah, the earbuds that came with my iPod work just fine. I can even get holophonic sound with them.   ;Quote:Original post by deathtrapMeh, I don't really see the difference between a pair of $30 headphones and $100 headphones in terms of sound quality.Quote:Original post by cemediasI think the main difference is that the more expensive ones block out sound that isn't coming from the headphonesYou have to be kidding me. There are worlds of difference between $30 cheapo headphones and something along the lines of a good Sennheiser, Grado or Shure. When I got my first Sennheiser, it was like a shock. The dynamics, clearness and bass response was beyond anything I ever experienced before. After a few days of using them (and rediscovering my music collection !), even trying to listen to my old cheapo phones again caused me almost physical pain.Anyway, the HD 485 are very good headphones for their price. Just make sure that your amp can drive them, since like most high quality phones, they have a much higher impedance than the standard cheapo ones.And two words of warning if these are going ot be your first high quality headphones: first, respect the break-in period. The phones need some time to physically adjust to the signal, and their full quality will only appear after a couple of days. Second, you won't enjoy your 128kbps MP3s anymore - the compression artifacts become painfully obvious on such headphones.;Quote:Original post by Yann L[...]You have to be kidding me. There are worlds of difference between $30 cheapo headphones and something along the lines of a good Sennheiser, Grado or Shure. When I got my first Sennheiser, it was like a shock. The dynamics, clearness and bass response was beyond anything I ever experienced before. After a few days of using them (and rediscovering my music collection !), even trying to listen to my old cheapo phones again caused me almost physical pain.[...]Perhaps you have a quality sound card? Things like lower SNR and better frequency response don't matter much if you're using a low-quality card or onboard that introduces it's own noise and distortions.   ;Quote:Original post by Yann LQuote:Original post by deathtrapMeh, I don't really see the difference between a pair of $30 headphones and $100 headphones in terms of sound quality.Quote:Original post by cemediasI think the main difference is that the more expensive ones block out sound that isn't coming from the headphonesYou have to be kidding me. There are worlds of difference between $30 cheapo headphones and something along the lines of a good Sennheiser, Grado or Shure. When I got my first Sennheiser, it was like a shock. The dynamics, clearness and bass response was beyond anything I ever experienced before. After a few days of using them (and rediscovering my music collection !), even trying to listen to my old cheapo phones again caused me almost physical pain.Anyway, the HD 485 are very good headphones for their price. Just make sure that your amp can drive them, since like most high quality phones, they have a much higher impedance than the standard cheapo ones.And two words of warning if these are going ot be your first high quality headphones: first, respect the break-in period. The phones need some time to physically adjust to the signal, and their full quality will only appear after a couple of days. Second, you won't enjoy your 128kbps MP3s anymore - the compression artifacts become painfully obvious on such headphones.That helped a lot!! thanks. I'm going to be playing my music mainly through my laptop computer with an integrated soundcard (volume can't go that high if that's what you mean my "AMP"). Maybe I should just go for the cheaper ones. I'm obviously stupid when it comes to this stuff. and 128 won't sound good anymore?? haha, omg I don't know if I want that. Practically all my 10 gigs of music is 128 :*(   ;Quote:Original post by Yann LQuote:Original post by deathtrapMeh, I don't really see the difference between a pair of $30 headphones and $100 headphones in terms of sound quality.Quote:Original post by cemediasI think the main difference is that the more expensive ones block out sound that isn't coming from the headphonesYou have to be kidding me. There are worlds of difference between $30 cheapo headphones and something along the lines of a good Sennheiser, Grado or Shure. When I got my first Sennheiser, it was like a shock. The dynamics, clearness and bass response was beyond anything I ever experienced before. After a few days of using them (and rediscovering my music collection !), even trying to listen to my old cheapo phones again caused me almost physical pain.Anyway, the HD 485 are very good headphones for their price. Just make sure that your amp can drive them, since like most high quality phones, they have a much higher impedance than the standard cheapo ones.And two words of warning if these are going ot be your first high quality headphones: first, respect the break-in period. The phones need some time to physically adjust to the signal, and their full quality will only appear after a couple of days. Second, you won't enjoy your 128kbps MP3s anymore - the compression artifacts become painfully obvious on such headphones.All I said was that >>I<< don't notice a difference in sound quality. I guess I just don't pay enough attention to it :p   ;Quote:Original post by ExtrariusPerhaps you have a quality sound card? Things like lower SNR and better frequency response don't matter much if you're using a low-quality card or onboard that introduces it's own noise and distortions.Most dedicated soundcards have quite reasonable analogue output quality nowadays - except for onboard ones. Those are really complete crap. And of course, you cannot directly connect high quality headphones to a soundcard output. You need an external amplifier routed inbetween so to avoid impedance mismatch (which would mean instant death for sound quality).Quote:I'm going to be playing my music mainly through my laptop computer with an integrated soundcard (volume can't go that high if that's what you mean my "AMP").No, with amp I mean a dedicated amplifier. As I said above, if you connect headphones of the calibre of a HD 485 directly to the soundcard output of a notebook, then the quality will be quite bad, because the signal is not appropriate. It's like buying a Ferrari and trying to run it on truck diesel ;) High quality phones need a specifically shaped signal in order to function properly. An external portable headphone amp can do that.Quote:Maybe I should just go for the cheaper ones. Well, if you are going to connect them directly to a notebook onboard soundcard, then the signal quality has already suffered so much that you wouldn't even hear a difference between $5 earbuds and $1000 canal phones. Then you might just as well get the cheap ones.Quote:I'm obviously stupid when it comes to this stuff. and 128 won't sound good anymore?? haha, omg I don't know if I want that. Practically all my 10 gigs of music is 128 :*(This depends a lot on the listener. Cheapo phones will swallow and distort the signal so much, that most artifacts go unnoticed. It's like watching a DVD on an old CRT TV: the image is so blurry and full of noise that you can't even see the DVD compression artifacts. However, once you watch the same DVD on a Plasma HDTV, you suddendly notice all the compression because the reproduced image is crystal clear. The same applies to properly connected high quality phones. The sound reproduction is so much more accurate, that previously unnoticed artifacts become perfectly auditable. Also, if you have been using cheapo phones for a while, your brain is trained to process a (bad) signal and make it sound subjectively 'good'. This postprocessing can mask artifacts. When you switch to HQ phones, the brain suddendly receives information and frequencies far beyond the limited range it grew accustomed to. At first, this sounds very impressive. But after a while, the brain adapts to actually use the much wider and clearer signal. And while this really increases the perception of music and makes it sound so much better, you suddendly also start hearing compression artifacts. And it becomes worse and worse over time, the more the brain makes use of the signal. After a while, 128kbps becomes unbearable. Then suddendly you start hearing artifacts on 160 and 192kbps. After that it usually settles somewhere, depending on the sensitivity of your ears and the quality of the phones. For me, it stopped at around 270kbps, which corresponds more or less to LAME's VBR extreme preset. I now encode all my music with this setting, and have been very happy since.Sounds like a lot of hassle, but believe me, it's worth it if you love music. If I try to get back to cheapo phones nowadays (eg. the earbuds that came with the iPod), I just can't believe how much the music is distorted, and how I was once able to listen to that crap :);  All I can say is, I love my Grado SR60. They don't 'sound' particularly good, in fact, they don't 'sound' at all. They are very transparent and clear, no bass boost or that kind of crap, and thats what headphones or speakers should be.   