Headphones for Rock???????

Allow me to be the first to suggest Grado.  Great headphones for rock.

Stiff at first and weird but once you get used to them, they are light and easy to wear

They are worn on-the-ear, so not as comfortable as some around-the-ear headphones.  Decently comfortable though, especially with bowl pads.

Echoing the Grado recommendations, and I'll throw the Alessandro MS1 (Music Series One) in as well.  It's $99, and the Alessandro has the advantage of being purchasable brand new outside the US, while Grado straight up forbids sales outside the us (last time I checked anyways).  Going off the symbol next to your budget I'm guessing this would be apply to you.

http://www.alessandro-products.com/main.php?p=headphones

Audio Technica M50's are a great all-rounder from the research i've done, never heard them myself but they're held in very high regard around here, should look for a used pair on ebay to suit your budget, retail for about £120 on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Audio-Technica-ATH-M50s-Headphones-ear-cup/dp/B000ULAP4U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311370700&sr=8-1

Quote:

Originally Posted by lish14 

The Grado Sr60i is on Amazon for £90 which is roughly 150 dollars, is that more expensive than the U.S.? How about durability, how many years can I expect before they break?

The SR60i goes for $80 over here.  Surprised to see that they're on the UK site.  Could have sworn that Grado only allowed them to be sold in the US.  At that price I couldn't recommend them.  The bang for buck factor is completely gone at that price.  As for durability, they're pretty solid.  Maybe not as much for portable use, but for home use I've had my MS-2i for several years now and they're as good as the day I got them.  May need some new earpads in a couple of years but that's it. 

I'd say it's still worth checking the shipping rates that Alessandro offers.  Going off what I've heard (haven't personally listened to the lower end Grados) they should be somewhere between the SR80 and the SR125 in performance.  The current exchange rate should make them within your budget before shipping, and for rock they're quite nice.  Nice punchy bass and they do electric guitars oh so well.  Zero sound isolation (both in and out), and they're not a basshead can of course, but for rock and metal they do the job quite nicely.  There's reviews floating around here that do a much better job than I at describing their sound.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lish14 

The most appealing thing for me about the XB500's are their comfort so I could listen to them for hours but I am worrying that the extra bass could overpower the music. I've also looked at the V6's and they look great but the only UK seller of them is a retailer on amazon and I know someone who brought from them and they were fakes.

The extra bass isn't that bad, I found it quite decent, it's not huge, it doesn't really overshadow the mids, they truly are very comfortable headphones! Like pillows on your head.

Yes there's a few V6 fakes around, and I didn't find them to be very special headphones, nothing really stands out, so I haven't used them much.

I'd recommend the ZX700 instead, very cheap headphone considering it's using liquid crystal drivers.

btw you should check out Fostex T50RP as well.

I haven't heard that model yet, but it's very popular and considered the best ever for the price, and the other Fostex headphones I've heard were very good for rock!

What about the ATH-ES7's? they do well with rock and the bass amount is decent. Not boomy. 

Yes, we do actually have Grados here in the UK. It'd be a sad state of affairs if we didn't. They are quite expensive over here, but it's not quite as bad as it looks - all of our prices include all tax, whereas I believe in the states, the prices are quoted before tax is added. They still work out more expensive here though. The Fostex T50rp is so expensive in the UK compared to the USA, I don't think it's even worth looking into - I checked myself once, and the best I could find is £115 at Digital Village (a store I personally despise). Even if the headphone sounds good enough to be worth that much, you'll have to live with knowing you paid twice as much for it just because you live in the UK. If that's not racism, I don't know what is.

Perhaps the Alessandro is one to consider. I've not heard one myself, but I believe it's based on the SR-125i from Grado, which I owned, and found to be great for rock music as others have stated.