[Ketonic]

Beats Studio were my first pair of $20+ headphones, shortly followed by Bose QC15s after they broke. I know neither of these are very respected on this forum or the headphone community, and I went out searching for another pair.
 
I'll be using these exclusively for music listening at work and home. I prefer a closed-back headphone as they won't disturb my co-workers or roommates, and I won't have to hear anyone else as much. Before I get into much, I have to say that I love the noise canceling of my Bose. I'm sitting 4 feet from an AC running full blast and I can't even hear it! However, I've been looking for gaming headphones (separate story) and have come to realize that the Bose don't have the best sound quality out there (despite popular opinion among non-audiophiles). I mostly listen to rap and rock, with some relaxing stuff such as Animal Collective or MGMT as well (not sure which genre this actually is 

). 
 
So, here we go. I stopped at Guitar Center and bought both the Beyerdynamic DT 770 80 and Audio Technica ATH-M50S, both of which are highly regarded among audiophiles. Just to preface, I'm not an audiophile by any means. I can barely tell a difference between these two sets to be honest. The Beyerdynamics seem to be a little smoother and natural sounding, while the ATs sound a little more muffled, but not as much as my Bose.
 
Comfort is a huge factor for me as I wear them for long periods at a time, and the Bose are the best for this. The other two are pretty good, just a little heavy for my taste, especially the Beyers. I have a pretty pointy head and the Beyers felt uncomfortable to me after a little while.
 
So, can an audiophile out there help me out? To be honest, I don't ever just sit and listen to music. I'm always working or doing stuff on the computer, so I feel like I don't notice the audio quality as much. I also can't tell what's considered good audio quality when I'm actually paying attention either!
 
Please, please, help me out. Do I keep using the Bose? Keep one of these two? Try something else? Thanks for listening to my rather long story

 

[Makiah S]

Honestly, you liked the Beyer Dt 770 and I can attest that it's a great can and it's comfy. Try to find the Beyer Dt 770 250 ohm and grab yourself a Fiio E07 or a Fiio E17, you'll want a Dac amp combo to listen to music with your Beyer cans, this will REALLY give you a nice sound
 
For gaming though you'd need a slighty different headphone and amp. So I'd recommend you stick with the Fiio Amps and the Dt 770 250, the sound quality will be great,
 
and chances are as a gamer you are not used to or aware of the postional sound cues that come from a set of real gaming cans pair'd with the right software and hard ware for surround sound, something like the Ath AD700x and astro mixamp, for example
 
So being that you like music, I'd stick with again the Dt 770 250 ohm [if you can find it] and a Fiio E07k or E17, those are USB powerd Dac/Amps, a dac gives you a cleaner more detailed signal to amp, chance are your used to sound straight out of a computer Headphone jack [which sounds terrible] so the portable Dac will allow you to pair it with almost ANY windows based PC and get a much cleaner sound, in addition the amp will provide the power you need to retain that detail and make the Dt 770 250ohm headphones sound really nice! 
 
There is also the Audio Technica a900x which sounds simmilar to the Dt 770 pro 250 ohm, the Audio Technica is cheaper and does not need an amp, although I would still recommend you get the Fiio E07 or E17 as an amp improves their sound

 

[ChavaC]

If you can't tell the difference between the three then I'm not sure you're going to get very far here, and might as well go with whatever is more comfortable. Two things that would us a little more insight into your situation would be the source/amp that is driving these phones. Are they plugged into an iPod/iPhone? A green jack on a random motherboard? Dedicated sound card? If your listening experience is bottlenecked before the music gets to your ears then you probably won't get colossal returns from the headphones. Also, what bitrate is the music you're listening to? Do you generally listen to radio/internet radio, mp3's, CDs, flac/lossless files? Again, poorly recorded/ripped material is limited at the level of the file itself, and will hold back anything you listen to it through.
 

 

[Makiah S]

Quote:

If you can't tell the difference between the three then I'm not sure you're going to get very far here, and might as well go with whatever is more comfortable. Two things that would us a little more insight into your situation would be the source/amp that is driving these phones. Are they plugged into an iPod/iPhone? A green jack on a random motherboard? Dedicated sound card? If your listening experience is bottlenecked before the music gets to your ears then you probably won't get colossal returns from the headphones. Also, what bitrate is the music you're listening to? Do you generally listen to radio/internet radio, mp3's, CDs, flac/lossless files? Again, poorly recorded/ripped material is limited at the level of the file itself, and will hold back anything you listen to it through.
 

Indeed, those things would help... but the OP seems to have a general idea of the sound. Granted not a HUGE ability to tell the differance, but listening and hearing are two different things. You kinda need to know what to listen for to be able to hear the differeance. I was in the same boat as him about a year ago -.-, crappy bit rate files, trust me I used to get everything in like mp3 v6 because it was small file size, and for working on the pc [I'm a computer Networker studen IE lot's of time on the pc] I find that I enjoy having high quality music when I work. 
 
When I get over whelmed or frustated with a Pc issue, it's nice to have good music to listen to, even for 5 mins just to de stress from what ever i'm trouble shooting 
 
So if your interested in getting into the hobby, and feel like you'd like to learn how to listen to and appreciate high quality music we are here to help, and a lot of what you need to know you'll just get after you hear the differances between low quality and high quality headphones, 
 
go listen to a pair of Sony MDZ zx300 and the very same Beyer Dt 770 80 ohm, and I'm sure you'll notice a differance, the fun and learning of this hobby is from starting with cheap stuff and getting into more expensive stuff. If you want to get into the hobby and you enjoy music, you'll start to notice the differances
 
trust me I spent 12 years with crappy headphones, low bit rate mp3s and poorly made music players, 
 
still please do tell us what your listening to, as well as what you plug your headphones into! As Chava recommended 

 

[Ketonic]

Thanks for the help so far guys. I'll typically be plugging them into my motherboard sound card, as I don't have a dedicated one yet. I can tell that the MOBO I have at work produces better audio then the one I have at home. I'll be using them with my iPhone a little bit too.
 
I also stream my music with Spotify, so I'm not sure about the quality. Like I said, I'm very new to all this audio stuff and would love to learn enough to get some decent cans that will last me awhile. 
 
On a separate note, can someone explain how my sound quality actually is on my computer? My motherboard has Realtek HD Audio as its built in sound card. The highest settings appear to be 24bits and 192,000hz. Is this good? Thanks for all the help so far. You guys have been super nice! I was half expecting to be made fun of for not being able to tell much of a difference between Bose and Beyer 

 
EDIT: From what I've read it looks like 48khz will give me the best quality. Is this true?

 

[Makiah S]

Quote:

Thanks for the help so far guys. I'll typically be plugging them into my motherboard sound card, as I don't have a dedicated one yet. I can tell that the MOBO I have at work produces better audio then the one I have at home. I'll be using them with my iPhone a little bit too.
 
I also stream my music with Spotify, so I'm not sure about the quality. Like I said, I'm very new to all this audio stuff and would love to learn enough to get some decent cans that will last me awhile. 
 
On a separate note, can someone explain how my sound quality actually is on my computer? My motherboard has Realtek HD Audio as its built in sound card. The highest settings appear to be 24bits and 192,000hz. Is this good? Thanks for all the help so far. You guys have been super nice! I was half expecting to be made fun of for not being able to tell much of a difference between Bose and Senn 

Indeed the 24bit 192khz sample is a decoding option, your mobo can decode up to that level of audio quality, although you would need music files at that rate. I think Spotify most likely tops out at 320k mp3, which is... I don't know like 20x smaller than a 24bit song
 
I have a 24bit 88.2hrz Lossles file on my HDD, at about 5 mins long [typical song] it's 100mbyt your average mp3 is about 5mbyt, so again you'd need those files [which are about 20 times the size of an average mp3] to get the most out of your On board sound, which... it just sounds bad. I can't even explain it... it's like looking through foggy glass, remove the fog and everything is better [I have the same On board Mother Board unit, trust me it sucks xD] 
 
Even 320kmp3 is better out of a proper dac, so I'd start by ditching Spotify, getting your self a $100 1TB hard drive, and visit this site http://www.whatinterviewprep.com/ Learn everything it has to offer, so that you will be able to know and undersatnd how to rip high quality music, in addition if you pass their intver view, it's a great place to get semi-free music. [pm me about it later if your interested]
 
More importantly, the what.cd Prep site will teach you what you need to know to start playing and aquireing high quality files, that will maximize the sound quality of any pc your at. 
 
If your interested as well,  tell us what kind of music you like, and we can find some Band Camp free downloads, and honestly... 320k mp3 is more than sufficent when your just starting out. Only when you go to drop like $300 on an amp should you consider moving to Lossless. 
 
In addition you can also listen to Spotify Preimum, which should stream at 320kbs. 
 
And the differance between bose and semm depends on the headphone! 

 

[Ketonic]

Quote:

Indeed the 24bit 192khz sample is a decoding option, your mobo can decode up to that level of audio quality, although you would need music files at that rate. I think Spotify most likely tops out at 320k mp3, which is... I don't know like 20x smaller than a 24bit song
 
I have a 24bit 88.2hrz Lossles file on my HDD, at about 5 mins long [typical song] it's 100mbyt your average mp3 is about 5mbyt, so again you'd need those files [which are about 20 times the size of an average mp3] to get the most out of your On board sound, which... it just sounds bad. I can't even explain it... it's like looking through foggy glass, remove the fog and everything is better [I have the same On board Mother Board unit, trust me it sucks xD] 
 
Even 320kmp3 is better out of a proper dac, so I'd start by ditching Spotify, getting your self a $100 1TB hard drive, and visit this site http://www.whatinterviewprep.com/ Learn everything it has to offer, so that you will be able to know and undersatnd how to rip high quality music, in addition if you pass their intver view, it's a great place to get semi-free music. [pm me about it later if your interested]
 
More importantly, the what.cd Prep site will teach you what you need to know to start playing and aquireing high quality files, that will maximize the sound quality of any pc your at. 
 
If your interested as well,  tell us what kind of music you like, and we can find some Band Camp free downloads, and honestly... 320k mp3 is more than sufficent when your just starting out. Only when you go to drop like $300 on an amp should you consider moving to Lossless. 
 
In addition you can also listen to Spotify Preimum, which should stream at 320kbs. 
 
And the differance between bose and semm depends on the headphone! 

 Thanks! Would it be a good idea to get a dedicated sound card then? I was thinking about it anyways to get virtual surround sound for gaming, but I wasn't sure if it would be better than my Astro Mixamp. I was thinking about the Asus Xonar DGX.
 
I don't really download music too much. Like I said, I'm no audiophile, and probably can't tell the difference between lossless and Spotify anyways, so I'm not going to waste my money on anything. I know some (most?) people can tell a difference, but I just can't, especially when I'm working at the same time. Right now, I just want to get a decent set of cans (or keep my Bose) that will last me awhile. Thanks for the help!

 

[Makiah S]

Quote:

 Thanks! Would it be a good idea to get a dedicated sound card then? I was thinking about it anyways to get virtual surround sound for gaming, but I wasn't sure if it would be better than my Astro Mixamp. I was thinking about the Asus Xonar DGX.
 
I don't really download music too much. Like I said, I'm no audiophile, and probably can't tell the difference between lossless and Spotify anyways, so I'm not going to waste my money on anything. I know some (most?) people can tell a difference, but I just can't, especially when I'm working at the same time. Right now, I just want to get a decent set of cans (or keep my Bose) that will last me awhile. Thanks for the help!

Nice on the Astro Mix amp, I'd say shoot for an external dac, that would be your best bet, and use the Astro Mix amp as your amp. Stick with low impedance headphones, like Audio technica, and you should be fine! In addition, some one else will have to confirm if an external dac will allow for surround sound to be processed... you might want to try a better dedicated sound card as well 

 

[Ketonic]

Quote:

Nice on the Astro Mix amp, I'd say shoot for an external dac, that would be your best bet, and use the Astro Mix amp as your amp. Stick with low impedance headphones, like Audio technica, and you should be fine! In addition, some one else will have to confirm if an external dac will allow for surround sound to be processed... you might want to try a better dedicated sound card as well 

Thanks for the help! I was actually thinking about selling my Astro system in favor of a dedicated sound card and headphones now that I'm into PC gaming. Would an Asus sound card be better (or as good as) the Astro mixamp? 
 
I actually just tried the Mixamp on my Xbox to compare the A40s and Beyers. Quite the difference! The A40s put a lot of emphasis on bass, but it sounded very artificial compared to the Beyers. And the soundstage sounded bigger and better on the Beyers. Are these good judgements? 
 
Thanks so much for all of your help!

 

[Makiah S]

Quote:

Thanks for the help! I was actually thinking about selling my Astro system in favor of a dedicated sound card and headphones now that I'm into PC gaming. Would an Asus sound card be better (or as good as) the Astro mixamp? 
 
I actually just tried the Mixamp on my Xbox to compare the A40s and Beyers. Quite the difference! The A40s put a lot of emphasis on bass, but it sounded very artificial compared to the Beyers. And the soundstage sounded bigger and better on the Beyers. Are these good judgements? 
 
Thanks so much for all of your help!

Wow, yea man good use of terms there! For pc gaming I don't know what's "better" than the astro mix amp, as honestly it's pretty good, unlike the headphone. but check this thread out for advice on cards and what not! 
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/534479/mad-lust-envys-headphone-gaming-guide-updated-8-17-2013-cal-nuforce-hp-800-fiio-e12-reviewed
http://www.head-fi.org/t/593050/the-nameless-guide-to-pc-gaming-audio-with-binaural-headphone-surround-sound
 
Those two threads should help you find a good amp dac or sound card that meets your gaming needs xD 

 

[Ketonic]

Quote:

Wow, yea man good use of terms there! For pc gaming I don't know what's "better" than the astro mix amp, as honestly it's pretty good, unlike the headphone. but check this thread out for advice on cards and what not! 
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/534479/mad-lust-envys-headphone-gaming-guide-updated-8-17-2013-cal-nuforce-hp-800-fiio-e12-reviewed
http://www.head-fi.org/t/593050/the-nameless-guide-to-pc-gaming-audio-with-binaural-headphone-surround-sound
 
Those two threads should help you find a good amp dac or sound card that meets your gaming needs xD 

 
Will do. Thanks for your help. I think I'll be keeping the Beyers to use with music and probably gaming. One last question. How much of a step up will the AD-700s be for gaming? I've spent a lot of time at the first thread already and it sounds like they lack bass. I like to have some bass for immersion but I'd like to have a good balance with positioning as well. It sounds like the AD-700s are more geared for positioning, while my Beyers are a happy medium. Sound about right? Thanks again for all your help! And nice avatar!

 

[Makiah S]

Quote:

 
Will do. Thanks for your help. I think I'll be keeping the Beyers to use with music and probably gaming. One last question. How much of a step up will the AD-700s be for gaming? I've spent a lot of time at the first thread already and it sounds like they lack bass. I like to have some bass for immersion but I'd like to have a good balance with positioning as well. It sounds like the AD-700s are more geared for positioning, while my Beyers are a happy medium. Sound about right? Thanks again for all your help! And nice avatar!

honestly you want the best of both worlds, grab a Beyer Dt 990 pro 250! 
Honestly it's really one of the most versitle cans like ever made, it does music well, it does game posiotiong well, it does movies well, it's nice got Tv to. Serioisly that can is a great starter for any one.
 
Thanks for the avatar comment to, it's almost time for a new one, sadly this one is rather popular through the net and i PREFER orignal screen shots, I REALLY did screen shot this [and by accident] but alas so has like have the interwebs 

 

[Ketonic]

Quote:

honestly you want the best of both worlds, grab a Beyer Dt 990 pro 250! 
Honestly it's really one of the most versitle cans like ever made, it does music well, it does game posiotiong well, it does movies well, it's nice got Tv to. Serioisly that can is a great starter for any one.
 
Thanks for the avatar comment to, it's almost time for a new one, sadly this one is rather popular through the net and i PREFER orignal screen shots, I REALLY did screen shot this [and by accident] but alas so has like have the interwebs 

Thanks for the recommendation, but I'm going to stick to closed headphones. I may look at some open ones for gaming eventually, but I want something I can use at work that won't disturb others. Thanks again!

 

[Makiah S]

Quote:

Thanks for the recommendation, but I'm going to stick to closed headphones. I may look at some open ones for gaming eventually, but I want something I can use at work that won't disturb others. Thanks again!

Honestly, open cans do not leak as much sound as people let on
 
OK nvm, yes they SURE do,
 
ironically my seme open dt 880s leak about 80% less sound than the fully open back dt 990... go figure xD 
 
although they are so V shaped, that I don't use them as portables because they have to much bass for me to enjoy them as everything cans, Hence the Dt 880 is my everything can 

 

[cel4145]

Thanks for the recommendation, but I'm going to stick to closed headphones. I may look at some open ones for gaming eventually, but I want something I can use at work that won't disturb others. Thanks again!

If it would OK to use desktop multimedia speakers at work at a very low volume, closed headphones would not be too loud.