Of course different sets fits different taste and type of music, so here are my preferences:
- When outside I use earbuds instead of those that sit inside the ear canal (Creative Aurvana Air)
- I cannot stand the dead silence of total noise isolation. I don't care if others hear my music
- Genre I listen to is orchestra, EDM and modern synthwave (usually with vocals)
- Want to hear fine details from high pitch to rumble of distant thunder without anything overpowering.
- Wide soundstage and I want to be in the music, instead of the music in my head
- Must be able to work with my phone without additional amp
- Mic, inline controls, wireless or built in DAC not required. Prefer comfort for long listening sessions
I know $100 is not a lot, but its something I'll have to make do with. Hopefully I can take it with me on my holiday trip which is before my next paycheck. I have my eye on the Grado SR80e which from reviews seem to be what I'm looking for.
That's an extremely tall order for $100. Or not. It's not a tall order, it's totally impossible.
Biggest problem: you're not going to get anything but "music inside your head" imaging for $100. You're not even just going to get that for $300. Sure, there's the AKG K701, but even if you can get loud running it off a smartphone, it's going to sound like a tin can. With the Grado the best you're going to get is hear the cymbals and the drums to the left and right somewhere outside your ears - vocals will still be in your head along with the drums in the center, along with the guitars, etc. At best you're going to have to listen with some kind fo surround simulation DSP but even the best gaming virtual surround programs can't magically make a gunshot at 10m away in-game sound like it's actually coming from 10m away, much less tweak music to sound like the sound is coming from transducers that are far away from your head.
Second, regardless of whether somebody has to tell you to turn it down because they're the ones who care about
not hearing your music (regardless if you care or not), your other problem is ambient noise. There's a reason why people want that dead silence when listening. You hear more of the outside noise, you can't hear the details, regardless of whether it's "high pitched" or "the rumble of distant thunder," so you have to crank it up. That means the audio chip in your phone has to work harder, so you get more distortion and noise, which can also get in the way of the high pitched and distant rumble details, which can then broadcast your music to someone who cares about not being able to hear your music (which doesn't give a rat's arse about whether you care that they hear it or not), etc. On top of which, not only is it harder to hear sounds that are imaged farther from the listener in the recording, but when you crank it up, that effect is offset by all the sound getting pushed forward, which in headphones, means
inward toward your head. At best, you get cymbals that are slightly by your ears, outside the skulls, but at high volume it will be like a cartoon monkey waking you up by banging two of them together. Basically, that's a damning downward spiral in more ways than one that will just set you farther and farther from your already impossible for $100 objectives.
Designing a headphone that can do all your performance objectives already has compromises between imaging, neutral tone, and sensitivity, much less get this all at $100.
