Any Audiophiles here to help me choose some headphones?

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RyanMuller

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Hi all,

I regularly work from home and enjoy listening to music. I am after some over-ear headphones to listen to music and also watch films when the other half is asleep.

Does anybody have any recommendations for good phones under £500 which are similar to products like the Oppo PM3's , B&W P7 and such like?

Thanks in advance,

Ryan
 
I know somebody with the Grados and he swears by them. I think they leak a fair amount of sound as they are open-backed though?

Ryan
 
As above the Grados are excellent. They're open backed so do leak a fair bit of sound at higher volumes.
 
The B&W P5's are good to.
 
I've had some Bose noise cancelling headphones for about 7 years now they beat all of my other high end Grado headphones. They are light and come with two battery packs the sound is superb.
Just checked I think the nearest model now is QC35 if you can find a Bose outlet they have them on demo which is well worth trying.
 
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I have parrot zik, they are Bluetooth and have an excellent app that allows you to tune the sound to your taste. If you are listening to music and watching movies probably want a different set up for each.
 
I use a set of these

https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/headband-headphones/mdr-hw700ds

Sound wonderful and I can wear them for hours without discomfort. They do an amazing job of recreating virtual surround sound from Dolby encoded films. They also reproduce 2 channel stereo very well.
The WiFi connection is very strong, I wander all over the house, never loose signal.
 
I decided to buy some "decent" headphones recently, after tiring of earbuds.

I took my iPod down to John Lewis, where they had had umpteen different types that you could plug in and listen to. I explained that I'd need to test different ones and they said I could take as much time as I wanted. It took me about 45 minutes to decide, but at no point did I feel pressured.

In the end I bought some Sennheiser on-ear ones, at c. £170. They sound wonderful, and although it was a bit more than I was planning on spending, I didn't begrudge it given the fact that JL were so accommodating. Worth the trip, I think.

Cheers,

Gaz
 
Over-ear headphones

Lots of good advice here.

Sennheiser, Grado 325's etc are all great phones.

A few points come to mind:

Over ear headphones can be "wearing" over time, if you're not used to / comfortable with them, especially if you're moving around. They give great sound but it's an issue to be considered.

Grados are great but irritate anyone else in the room because of the open backed sound leakage.

Bulk needs to be considered as well. Bigger phones are usually "better," but if you don't use them because of their size, that's a downside.

As has previously suggested, the only way to judge these things is to listen to "your" music back to back on different phones. At £100+ it's hard to tell the difference, unless you're doing back to back comparisons.

I love proper headphones and I've owned Sennheiser 580's, a Momentum, and Grado 325's, but for simple logistics reasons I only ever use Sennheiser noise reduction earphones.
 
Go to your local Richer Sounds and try them.

I recently went in to the Reigate store with exactly the same remit expecting to walk out with Bose or equivalent circa £300.

After trying them what I actually bought were Pioneer SE-MS5T at £49.

Don't assume spending £100's actually gets you something more suitable. Mine are used predominantly on the laptop and will be taken on the plane when I travel.

https://www.richersounds.com/product/headphones/pioneer/se-ms5t/pion-sems5t-black
 
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Thanks for the feedback. Closest richer sounds to me is Southampton. I'll check it out next weekend and take a listen to a few pairs!
 
The headphones I use for field monitoring ( when filming ) are the Sennheiser HD 25 . They are closed back headphones which sit on , rather than over , the ears and I can comfortably wear them for extended periods . With both ear muffs in place they both isolate you from ambient sound and don't leak sound to the surroundings - when monitoring , though , I often have one ear muff hinged away from my ear purposefully to hear people talking off mic , and am only monitoring one channel with a live mic . The HD25's are quite decent for music listening .

In days gone by , for music , I had Sennheiser open ear HD 414 and HD 424 headphones , which were inexpensive , comfortable and very pleasant to listen through .

The best headphones I ever used were the Stax electrostatic series , which drove through an energiser box connected to the loudspeaker output of ones amplifier . These truly were the closest thing to electrostatic loudspeakers , drawing comparison to the Quad Electrostatic ESL 57 which was current at the time , and probably , like them , more open and analytical than the ESL 63's I have now ( although they are quite different , I now much prefer the , to my ears , more balanced and less 'beamy' sound of the ESL 63's which just don't draw attention to themselves and leave you to enjoy the music ) .

There are lots of decent headphones , but if listening for extended periods , comfort is by far the most important thing .

While I use headphones for field monitoring , I never use them for home listening : in the living room I have my Hi-Fi system , and on my computer desk I have a pair of JBL soundsticks which I use when editing . Before the soundsticks , I had ( still have in the attic ) Canford Audio BA400 mini monitors , which are tiny and do the job well . I just find headphone listening unnatural , and fatiguing , because , binaural recordings excepted , most recordings are made for stereo listening on loudspeakers , and hearing voices or instruments right in one's ear , or inside one's head , is both unnatural and distracting . Of course , others may , and are entitled to , feel differently .

Now , how about buying the wife a pair of ear muffs so you can enjoy your music while she sleeps .... :D
 
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Are those the momentums from Sennheiser?

Indeed. These ones:

https://www.johnlewis.com/sennheise...emote-for-apple-devices/p1919136?colour=Black

I went in figuring that at most a £100 set would do the job, but having to listened to everything on display (probably £30-£500) these ones just blew me away. My hearing is a bit unusual (i have high tone deafness from many years of working with machine tools) so YMMV, but the clarity and "depth" of sound of the Sennheisers knocked everything else into a cocked hat.

Like Pontoneer says, given the choice I prefer to listen to music through a decent set of loudspeakers (I suspect his setup may outshine mine from what I've read) but for music on the move, the Sennheisers and the iPod are a winning combination IMO.

Cheers,

Gaz
 
Indeed. These ones:

https://www.johnlewis.com/sennheise...emote-for-apple-devices/p1919136?colour=Black

I went in figuring that at most a £100 set would do the job, but having to listened to everything on display (probably £30-£500) these ones just blew me away. My hearing is a bit unusual (i have high tone deafness from many years of working with machine tools) so YMMV, but the clarity and "depth" of sound of the Sennheisers knocked everything else into a cocked hat.

Like Pontoneer says, given the choice I prefer to listen to music through a decent set of loudspeakers (I suspect his setup may outshine mine from what I've read) but for music on the move, the Sennheisers and the iPod are a winning combination IMO.

Cheers,

Gaz

These actually look like a stylised version of the HD 25 , possibly using the same transducers , and very similar ear muffs .

The great thing about the HD 25 , as a professional product , is that every part is replaceable - I've had mine for at least 20 years , and have replaced the ear pads a couple of times , and the cable once .

The good news is they've come down in price as I recall mine were originally £250 , but I've had many years of use out of them , in and out of camera bags , being dragged along the ground on the end of their cable , dropped off the back of cameras , and they just keep on working .

http://en-uk.sennheiser.com/on-ear-dj-headphone-hd25

I'm slightly bemused at them being described as 'DJ headphones' since they've long been the industry standard monitoring headphones for ENG cameramen , sound recordists and so forth .
 
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For as long as I've been buying headphones (35 years?) I've always gravitated towards Sennheiser, the best I can afford. This is after trying various other brands.
 
I started with them in the mid 70s with HD 414 and then HD 424s .

Never really had any reason to change .

Tried many others and , apart from the very expensive Stax electrostatics , nothing really bettered them .
 

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