[SolidSquirrel]

Hey, I'll be picking up a new iPod soon and I'd like to get some new headphones.

Since I won't be listening to it much on-the-go, I decided I'd like a nicer, bigger, over-the-head pair and I've decided I'd like to pick up a pair of Grado SR60s.

I don't have a stereo or vinyls or anything, just an iTunes library with some 128 kbps AACs and some 200+ kbps VBR MP3s.

Should I bother with a $70 pair of headphones for lossy MP3s? Will I notice a big difference over my old $20 Sony MDR-V150s? Will a nicer pair of headphones make my 128 kbps AACs sound like absolute crap?

 

[GreatDane]

The iPod does very well with Grados (unamped).

Go for it!

 

[SolidSquirrel]

Thanks for the quick response, but it didn't completely answer my questions. I'm not really an audiophile or anything but I appreciate good sounding music. As a newbie to the headphone market in general, I'm wondering if $70 is overkill for lossy MP3 files.

 

[feh1325]

sr60 probably aren't overkill

a couple of my tracks are 128 and they don't sound unacceptable through my sr60 and bithead

 

[BrookR1]

The SR-60s will sound great with your current setup. And when you upgrade from 128 AAC to 256+, they'll sound even better. It's a case where your headphones will scale nicely if/when you decide to upgrade your source.

 

[GreatDane]

I have more than 100 songs on my 5.5 G iPod that are encoded as .mp3 @ 128 kbps and I'm not offended by the sound quality listening with my Grado 325i or Sennheiser HD 650 for instance.

Most of my CD's are encoded at an average of 250 kbps vbr (LAME) and I can hear the difference from 128 kbps...even still, this does not make the lower quality files suck

Of course if you take a crappy sounding recording on CD and compress it things will only get worse...