[jerome]

simple enough question really. i bought myself a pair of HD 595's about a month ago, and my girlfriend took a test run with them recently and she's fallen in love with them utterly and totally. being shocked at the apparent huge difference between that and her default ipod earphones.

now, she's been moaning about having to deal with the noise in the tube(underground) etc for a while so i'm now on the look for a solid non-full sized closed pair for portable use as a gift. they'll have to be non-full sized because sexism or not; she's a woman and she wants to look good! full sized headphones look a tad silly for portable use.

any suggestions? budget would be £150 maximum, but the cheaper the better really. needs to really isolate/reducw noise though. oh, canalphones are a no-gbo. i've alkso got a pair of shures which she despises, she hates anything going in her ears etc. thanks in advance!

£150 = $300 obviously for you americans etc.

my initial choice based on reviews on amazon / etc is sennheiser pxc 300 and am looking for other options just in case and all that!

 

[jerome]

is there a difference between closed and noise cancelling headphones? which would be preferred? i have a feeling noise cancelling headphones probably have terrible sound quality compared to open and perhaps closed too, so i should go with closed yes...?

 

[BassheadJazz]

If you're looking for something that is not only closed but portable, I'd say your best bang for the buck would come in the IEM department. This will also be the best bet as far as looks go, since they're important to your girlfriend. I'm not sure what kind of sound you're looking for, but if you search around I think you'll find something. Some companies to take a look at in particular (I'm just going off the top of my head) would be Shure, Ultimate-Ears, Westone and Etys.

Hope this points you in the right direction!

 

[The Pieman]

My personal choice would be some Sennheriser HD25-1's. They are closed, light and have excellent sonic performance. And they are no where near as big as 595's!

I have some HD25-1's and I like them alot. Otherwise IEMs.

cheers
Simon

 

[kojebee]

Sennheiser HD25-1 will please your lady I'm sure.

 

[jp11801]

akg 81dj these little cans absolutely rock, but on the tube you may really want to thing about IEMs

In the cheaper category I recommend the ety 6i and it you've got a bit more cash then I would look at the shure 420. My recommendation is the signal is coming straight out of the ipod with no amp

 

[jerome]

iems aren't an option i'm afraid, she despises the notion of anything inside her ears or too close sort of thing etc etc

i'll check out those hd 25's and the akg's

 

[steviebee]

For sheer style that your SO will love (& a really nice, airy sig that's almost open-sounding. They're pretty/small too

): Audio Technica ES 7 - but I really don't think it'll block out the Tube in rush hour...I think you'd need something that almost hermetically seals your ears like my old Koss Pro4AAs used to do!

So...IEMS.

 

[episiarch]

I don't feel any of the available compact closed headphones will block out the Tube really well*. But at least they might block out a little, and also not leak her music all over the place.

I'll second steviebee's recommendation of the ES7. It looks great, very stylish**, and sounds anywhere from pretty decent to very good depending on whether you use an amp, and how choosy you are about sonics to begin with.

A cheaper alternative to consider is the Panasonic RP-HTX7, which is also small and not bad looking (in a retro sort of way), very comfortable, and sounds surprisingly good for its price, even unamped. However it does not fold flat as the ES7 does.

[size=xx-small]* except the Bose models, and we're all sworn to hate them, etc., etc.

** note, though to get it to look its best you may need to adjust the angle of the earpieces by bending the metal bits[/size]

 

[jerome]

what about Audio Technica ATH-ANC7? the active noise cancellation makes it seem more impressive than the ES 7's to me.