Any good headphones under $100

Philips O'Neil Stretch sound decent enough, look cool, and seal really well.

The Creative Aurvana Live is another great low budget option.

Sony MDR-ZX700

I also think these sound pretty good considering their price point.  I give them a vote.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bravo4588 

Sony MDR-ZX700

The Creative Aurvana Lives are pretty underrated. The Beyerdynamic DT235's and AKG K518's are also solid choices, and I believe their both quite a bit under your $100 budget. 

Or you could wait 'till the new Philips Citiscape & Downtown line of headphones(announced @ CES 2012) are on sale & reviewed.

They are around your pricepoint.

Tyll Hertsens from Innerfidelity seems to like them.

http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/ces-2012-best-show-philips-lifestyle-products

Jude also put in a strong recommendation for the Phillips Citiscape Downtown at 4:32 (four minutes 32 seconds) into the video at this link:  Head-Fi Talks New Headphones at CES 2012 with Tekzilla!

When he declared the Citiscape Downtown to be a "best value," I decided to roll the dice and pre-ordered a pair from Amazon, impulsively.  They arrived a week ago, Friday, and I am very impressed with the sound.  They are crazy good considering they sell for $99.00, especially for a closed design.  

The isolation of their marketing-hyped "MusicSeal" technology is spectacular, given that these are on-the-ear phones, not a larger over-the-ear closed design.  When you put these on, the world around you goes nearly silent (and you don't disturb the guy sitting next to you on the subway - as their sales pitch goes...) 

I prefer closed cans (and IEMs) for how they allow you to listen at lower volume levels, instead of trying to compete with and drown out ambient noise - and for such small, lightweight, inexpensive phones, the Citiscape Downtown works very well in this regard.  I am not disappointed in the sound, at all.  

The cable comes down from the left ear and is quite unique in that it's a flat ribbon cable that measures only 3.5 mm wide and LESS than one millimeter thick. This cable is so skinny it makes me wonder how the phones could sound so good.  It's not detachable and I'm a bit concerned about its longevity, but it seems to be holding up just fine, so far.  It's terminated with a right-angle 3.5 mm stereo mini plug.

My ONLY dissatisfaction with the Citiscape Downtown is that these things get hot on your ears - sad, but true. The pads are amazingly comfortable, but they warm up immediately.  I suspect the leather fabric on mine will eventually accumulate salt stains from sweating in them - seriously. My Audeze LCD-2 don't get anywhere near as hot as these puppies do. And it's not just me - several of my friends and family have commented on how warm they are after only a couple of minutes of listening to them - without my having mentioned anything about it or even solicited comments.  It's just the first thing most people say when they take them off.  Yep - they are that warm.  But everyone loves the way they sound - and also how they look - something that I'd like to think does not influence my purchase decisions, but yes, they look great.

Back to how hot they are: Using them on a summer day outdoors - forget about it - but with typical indoor temperatures your ears won't sweat too badly. With cooler temperatures, they're no problem at all.  They have made great ear muffs to keep my ears warm (while listening to music, of course) when I walk the dog every morning - at about 45 degrees F, lately.   YMMV.

Still, I highly recommend the Citiscape Downtown, for the listening experience.  They could be selling these for a lot more than they are asking.  

Mike

Also consider the Philips SHL5500.  They are very comfortable on-ear closed headphones.  (I know: I am wearing them as I type.)  There is a thread on them:

the philips shl5500: natural sounding can. You can also find two reviews in head-fi.  The consensus seems to be that they are very comfortable, provide very good isolation, and sound very good for the price. Some doubts have been raised about the reliability of the hinge design. There is some evidence that they use the same drivers as the new Cityscape Downtonwn (SHL5605), possibly with different "tuning."  As far as I know, there is no post directly comparing the sound of the SHL5500 to that of the SHL5605: I hope this will change soon.