dsf3g
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2009
- Posts
- 96
- Likes
- 18
I wasn't intending to buy a pair of headphones tonight. I left the house intending merely to listen to some. Well, in all honestly, I left the house intending to listen to one pair in particular. A couple of weeks ago I dropped by the Apple Store and stated listening to a few of the headphones they had on display. The Apple Store and Best Buy's Magnolia Home Theater department are two of the few places I'm aware of locally where you can actually listen to a selection of moderately decent headphones, Sennheiser, Audio Technica, Bowers & Wilkins and other such names you sometimes read about on these forums. So it was that I I started moving from headphone to headphone, looking for a pair that appealed to my decidedly un-trained, un-audiophillic ears. And I was struck and most pleased by one pair in particular: the Harman Karndon Classics. They listed for $199.00, but to my ears, they sounded far better than everything else in that price range and at least the equal to the second best sounding cans in the store, the $299.00 Bowers & Wilkins P5. They were far better sounding to my ears than the B&W P3s that also retailed for $199.00 and the headphones I had brought in to the store for comparison, my trusty Sennheise HD238s... well... no contest. Not even in the same league. I'm not an audiophile, whatever that really means, and I find it difficult to describe the sound characteristics of a pair of headphones and hardly know how to begin writing about it. All I can say is that in comparison to all the other headphones in the store, the Harman Karndons struck me for their wide-open sound, the clear and distinct separation of the instruments, there was a sparkle to the music and an openness to the sound that reminded me of what it is I like about my Sennheiser HD238s in contrast to the more muted, somewhat claustrophobic sound character of the Sennheiser PX200s I also own. But, as I said, these things are in a completely different league from the HD238s. There is a fullness and weight to the sound produced by the Harmans that the Senns just can't touch. It's not even close.
So I went to the Apple Store again today and plugged in my 5th Gen iPod and Fiio E6 and verified that they sounded as lush and full as I'd remembered them, even with my own equipment. And I sighed, because... well, I knew full well that I wan't going to be dropping $199.00 on a pair of headphones today. And so, after doting on these things for maybe half an hour, listening to various tracks and savoring their heavenly sound I finally unplugged by iPod and left the mall for Best Buy to see what they might have that was worth listening to. Well, Imagine my surprise when I noticed that Best Buy was stocking the bluetooth enabled version of these headphones for $189.00, and right beside them were the regular CL model, hanging on a hook with no price sticker. I was sure that the headphones had been switched, that the CL model must have been the one listed at $189.00 and the BT model probably sold for another $100 on top of that. But just to satisfy my curiosity I took the CLs up to the register and asked for a price check. The answer that came back stunned me. My jaw nearly dropped when the sales-guy told me that they were $99.00. Yeah...ninety nine dollars!
And so now I'm the proud owner of a fairly decent set of headphones. No way was I going to pass up what I suspected was a once in a lifetime stocking error. I went online when I got home and verified that Best Buy does indeed list these on their website for $199.00, same as the Apple Store. So it looks like someone made a mistake. Lucky me!
So I went to the Apple Store again today and plugged in my 5th Gen iPod and Fiio E6 and verified that they sounded as lush and full as I'd remembered them, even with my own equipment. And I sighed, because... well, I knew full well that I wan't going to be dropping $199.00 on a pair of headphones today. And so, after doting on these things for maybe half an hour, listening to various tracks and savoring their heavenly sound I finally unplugged by iPod and left the mall for Best Buy to see what they might have that was worth listening to. Well, Imagine my surprise when I noticed that Best Buy was stocking the bluetooth enabled version of these headphones for $189.00, and right beside them were the regular CL model, hanging on a hook with no price sticker. I was sure that the headphones had been switched, that the CL model must have been the one listed at $189.00 and the BT model probably sold for another $100 on top of that. But just to satisfy my curiosity I took the CLs up to the register and asked for a price check. The answer that came back stunned me. My jaw nearly dropped when the sales-guy told me that they were $99.00. Yeah...ninety nine dollars!
And so now I'm the proud owner of a fairly decent set of headphones. No way was I going to pass up what I suspected was a once in a lifetime stocking error. I went online when I got home and verified that Best Buy does indeed list these on their website for $199.00, same as the Apple Store. So it looks like someone made a mistake. Lucky me!
