[julsme]

Hi everybody!
 
I'm new to posting in the forum but not to reading it, I've been following this site for quite some time. Now however, I'm in need of some überaudionerd advice About 1-2 years ago I became the proud owner of a HRT Music Streamer II+. I already owned a pair of Grado SR80i headphones, which I learned to love a lot after I gave them a nice forceful pull that permanently reduced their skull-crushing clamping force (got a large head ). I do have one problem with them however, which is that they bleed sound like hell so everybody around me "enjoys" my music with me when I'm not at home and - much more importantly - I hear everyone and everything around me right through them. This makes them absolutely useless on the go or in a quite working environment.
 
So now I'm looking for a closed pair of headphones that will go nicely with both the DAC and a non-hifi-nerd-grade MP3 player. My budget is somewhere in between 100 and 200 euro's which apparently makes me the only European who has some left at all, but that's another story. I listen mainly to classical music, and I like the big stuff (romantic period and after, symphonies, concertos etc) better than chamber music. I listen to some other musical genres as well, but although I care about sound quality in general I'd rather have equipment that's optimized for the classical stuff than going for some middle-of-the-road cans. Headphones I'm considering so far are Audio-Technica ATH-M50 and Sennheiser HD598, so I think that would be considered entry-level HiFi stuff on this forum
 
I hope somebody has some experience with a headphone-II+ combination and has some good advice for me!

 

[julsme]

Ho wait HD598 are open, never mind them. Hm there's a one-day offer for the Shure SRH1440's for 180 euro's, but I don't dare to spend that kind of money without some feedback first

 

[BrezicR]

I think, the Beyerdynamic Costum one pro would suit your needs, as you can use them with your home setup and with a portable MP3 player. As the name sugests they are very costumisable. I don't have any experiance with them though.
 
You might want to look at somethink like Sennheiser HD449 or Shure SRH 840 too.
However combining indoor and outdoor listening, at least to me, doesn't sound like a good idea as the headphones usually have different caratheristics. 

 

[julsme]

Thank you for your reply! Let me clarify my usage scenario; I would definitely like to optimize for the DAC. Apart from that I'd like them to be closed and low-impedance so that they CAN be used at work, hooked up directly to an mp3-player. Any >100$ headphones would improve the sound quality of standard buds enormously so I don't really care how much, let alone trying to match them to my specific MP3-player or something. So the question is what closed cans would go best with the DAC?
 
I don't have an amp by the way, o horror of horrors.

 

[MikeF93]

I will second the Beyerdynamic Custom One Pro and the Sure 840s (I'm not sure what the price difference is but the 940s are noticeably better).  If you are worried about build quality then the V-MODA Crossfade M-100s have a sound similar to the Beyers, but are built like a Nokia, they run about $270 on Amazon or $310 on V-MODA's website (I think that translates to about 190 Euros on Amazon). 

 

[MikeF93]

Nevermind, I just checked Amazon's UK website and the V-MODAS are 270 Euros, I didn't realize that international shopping was so expensive.

 

[cel4145]

Isn't the HRT Music Streamer II+ just a DAC? What headphone amp are you using with it?

 

[julsme]

Yes it's just a DAC, like I said I don't actually have a headphone amp. It's hooked up to a Grundig Fine Arts A-9000 amp combined with Translator Impact 30 speakers (all have been nicely restored by an enthusiast friend of mine, the combination sounds fantastic). Is having a dedicated headphone amp necessary? Can't you hook up a pair of cans directly to the DAC? I thought that if an mp3-player can deliver the power to drive the cans, the DAC itself should be able to do so as well. Please shatter this dream if it's ******** I would like to have a separate headphone amp at some point but I simply can't afford it now
 
 

 

[julsme]

Or, for that matter, can't I connect the cans to my Grundig? Hm this is getting way more complicated than I realized. Perhaps BrezicR was right and I have to split my usage scenarios. Is it even worth spending 150 euros on a pair of cans to connect to a run-of-the-mill mp3-player?

 

[cel4145]

You should get a headphone amp to go with it. DAC output is typically not meant to drive headphones. Something like a FiiO E11 would probably work very well.