Hey all,
 
I want a versatile, solid pair of headphones for use with many genres of music, video, some casual gaming, and for playing with electronic drums. They should almost definitely be closed because when playing electronic drums the pads do make a significant amount of background noise when being struck. As much as possible I would to not hear those things.
 
 
Comfort is important to me as well.
 
I was thinking of trying to find a clearance Denon D5000 but I am in Canada and it seems I am a few months late to the game with that.
 
I will not be using an exterior headphone amp, and I will only be using a phone, laptop, my nice Marantz receiver or my vintage Kenwood Amp.
 
I am trying to feel out the market options but would prefer to spend less than $500 if I can find what I am looking for.
 
Any thoughts or help would be appreciated!
 
BeMurda

Heya,
 
I think you'll find the closed back market for $500 is fairly thin.
 
The D5000 was my initial thought. Or a modded T50RP (Mad Dog by Mr Speakers). From there, perhaps the new Denon D600 is worth a try for you.
 
Alternatives that are well under budget would be: Brainwavz HM5, Beyer DT770, AudioTechnica A900X, Ultrasone PRO 750, AKG K550.
 
Very best,

Quote:

malveaux said:

Heya,
 
I think you'll find the closed back market for $500 is fairly thin.
 
The D5000 was my initial thought. From there, perhaps the new Denon D600 is worth a try for you.
 
Alternatives that are well under budget would be: Brainwavz HM5, Beyer DT770, AudioTechnica A900X, Ultrasone PRO 750, AKG K550.
 
Very best,

Click to expand...

 
MalV, you forgot to mention Mad Dogs by Mr. Speakers so I will. 

Quote:

matttcg said:

 
MalV, you forgot to mention Mad Dogs by Mr. Speakers so I will. 

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Doh!
 
Yes, the T50RP Mad Dogs definitely were forgotten and definitely should be an option here too. I always forget modded headphones.
 
Very best,

K550s respond well to electric drums imho.  A lot of 80s songs used a drum machine to create beats, and they sound amazing through the K550s.    Real drums are pretty good too on the K550s.  Some of the best drums I've heard through headphones was in "Tom Sawyer" by Rush, and they were through my K550s.  Well under your budget btw.
 
If you have a good stereo receiver/amp, you don't need a dedicated headphone amp.  I still have yet to hear my DT990s sound as good as they do through my Yamaha Receiver.  Not sure how good the headphone jack on Marantz receivers are, but I'm guessing pretty damn good.  The good thing about the K550s is that they truly are a 32ohm pair (i.e. they sound amazing without an amp).  I hate carrying around a portable amp with my pmp.  They sound amazing straight out of two cowon devices, the Z2 and the E2
 
Personally, I think drums are one of the best instruments to test speakers/headphones.  Drums cover almost the entire frequency spectrum by themselves.  Not too many other instruments that do that.  So I would recommend a pretty balanced pair of headphones to cover everything from the bass drum to the hi-hat/cymbal.  And K550s are pretty balanced and seal great.

I am a big fan of AKG and found a deal on the K550s for $200 CAD, ordered them. Will get them in a few weeks, and let you know how they sound.

Quote:

bemurda said:

I am a big fan of AKG and found a deal on the K550s for $200 CAD, ordered them. Will get them in a few weeks, and let you know how they sound.

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So how do you like your AKG K550 so far?

Quote:

boyfrombluesea said:

 
 
So how do you like your AKG K550 so far?

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I found the K550 cups so be a bit too shallow and my ears would hurt from rubbing on them (I don't have big ears either) but I got used to it over time. Besides that, these are great headphones all around.

Aren't Denons semi-open/vented and/or with poor external noise isolation?
 

I guess it will be VM Audio SRHP15. Make sure to get a genuine one though. 

From what I remember, the D5000 was closed and had okay isolation.

I'm sort of surprised that the Sony MDR 7520 didn't make its way into this conversation.
Great sounding headphones for $400.00 USD.  IMO an improvement over the AKG K550
in every way (with the possible exception of soundstage size).

Quote:

zazex said:

I'm sort of surprised that the Sony MDR 7520 didn't make its way into this conversation.
Great sounding headphones for $400.00 USD.  IMO an improvement over the AKG K550
in every way (with the possible exception of soundstage size).

Click to expand...

Well glad to hear that as I just purchased a pair today haha