In my ongoing quest to decide on headphones for portable use, I realized that no single pair of headphones is good every situation (shocking, I know). So in order to come up with the best overall "headphone solution" I devised this scenario:

Say the only sound equipment you have is an iPod with the stock headphones. You have an approximate budget of $200 to spend on new headphones. How would you spend it? Would put it all into ER-4s? Maybe e3c and a ksc-35? A900? e2c + Grado SR-60 + MX-500 perhaps?

To me, using an iPod portably with an amp is counter-design. So amp-less, I suggest:

1. Ety ER4P - Best sound, most isolation. I found the iPod to drive ER4S's quite fine, but you may prefer the additional bass response to the more efficient 4P's. I believe Todd has a few B-stock pairs on sale for $200.

2. Koss KSC35 & either Sennheiser MX500's or Sony EX-71's. The Koss' are primary. Your choice between the Senn's or the Sony's is determined by your need for isolation (Sony's isolate more). You can get the Koss' and the other pair for less than US$70.

i'd break it down thusly..

- Grado 125 ($125 retail?)
- replacement VWAP pads for the grados ($15)
- Sennheiser PX200 ($33 shipped? is the ecost deal still going on?)

all in all you have all your bases covered here..
at home/office, you cannot possibly go wrong with the Grado 125's (specially when watching 'teh ****' ) and comfort with the VWAP pads (think sennheiser comfort but grado quality)

portability wise.. you're covered by the PX200 as well

there you go, $200.. that's how I'd spend it

..but then again maybe you can just go buy yourself e3c.. and just use that all over the place? But I can't speak on it in terms of comfort/quality/etc since I don't own any type of Shure gear, lol

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Actually they're back up to $50 on ecost.

I've just done exactly what you hypothetically proposed to this crowd - here's what I did...and I haven't found one perfect phone yet either.

Main used gear - 2nd gen 10gig iPod, Shure E2C, Senn PX200 (I also own koss ksc35, beyer dt250-80, koss portapro)

Shure E2C - eminently portable, great isolation, decent sound

PX200 - less isolation than E2C comes in handy sometimes (when you need to hear the phone, in a situation where it might be dangerous to not be able to hear the world around you, ie busy streets, etc) - very portable, decent sound.

Sometimes still use ksc35 when isolation is not important - great sound, very portable.

hardly ever use my portapro any more and they are redundant if you already own ksc35 which sound better IMO.


I mainly use these cans for portable use and even at home/work even though I have better sounding cans. I find that I use my E2C more than anything else with my iPod.

I also just decided to upgrade my E2C to E3 and should get them next week - no comment before listening to the E3 even though I *expect* E3 to sound better than E2C.

Hope this helps.

p.s. wait a week or two and I guarantee that ecost will have the PX200 on sale again - they always do and the countdown is meaningless - constantly rolls over during sales to pressure you into impulse-buy. Amazon or other vendors may have PX200 at good prices too.