grado sr60/sennheiser pmx 100/ koss porta pro/....

[jayeshrc]

so basically i need some decent phones to plug into my guitar processor so i can play between study breaks late into the night/early morning (from 11pm till 3am.. before that i use my amp obviously..) and sometimes to use instead of my iems to listen to music from my ipod... which of the above do you guys recommend or any other? max im willing to spend is about $60 or so... the grado sr60 is a lil more i know, but if they are way better than the rest i might consider them.. i play/listen to metal...

EDIT: forgot to add the igrado to the list....

 

[jayeshrc]

this is a lil urgent so plz gimme your suggestions asap... (ill go mad studyin without playing and my cousin's comin here from the us next week, so...)

 

[sanka]

I have the both the Sennheiser PX 100 (not PMX) and the Grado SR60. The Grados are brighter-sounding than the Sennheisers. I've never tried either of them to listen to my guitar playing (I play acoustic

. Personally I prefer wearing the PX 100 for extended listening sessions. The comfort is about the same as the Grados, but the Grados are kind of fatiguing for long sessions.

 

[fjrabon]

It depends largely on how big of an issue portability, comfort and sound are. I've tried out all three of these and I own the SR60s. I can only say I disagree totally with Sanka. I've listened through my Grados for 6 hours straight and wasn't the slightest bit "fatigued". Once they're burned in (mine are just starting to get fully burned in at about 150 hours of play time) they're more clear than they are bright. I've used them on my rockman portable amp and the sound is much much clearer than what I was used to hearing out of it, and it actually helps, since I notice when my playing is getting sloppy better.

I have only tried portapros and I briefly had the sennheisers, but I returned them when the left driver developed an annoying buzz on the second day. Both sounded good, but weren't nearly in the ballpark with the grados.

However, both were leaps and bounds more portable than the Grados, both leaked out sound less and both let less sound in.

I'd also say that the Grados are the most comfortable out of these, because they don't make tradeoffs for portability. Once the flat pads "break-in" and conform to your ears a little, they really are quite a joy to wear, even for long sessions. The portapros didn't seem bad, per se, but I really couldn't see the metal band being as comfortable as even the vinyl band on the SR60s. Just realized you were talking about the PMX 100, which is a slightly lower version of the PX 100. I didn't have real comfort issues with the PX 100, but I did, at times feel like it was going to fall off my head. The PMX 100, from what I can tell, adds earclips into the equation and subs in a less comfortable headband. I've never tried it, but that thing looks like a nightmare comfortwise. And I would guess, best case scenario, it might sound as good as the PX 100, but looks like a slightly lower quality version.

Hope this helps.

 

[Drag0n]

The PMX100 is NOT a LOWER version of the PX100.
It is the same headphones with a behind the neck sport band,rather than a traditional over the head band.
Its just a choice in wearing style.

SR60 is a better headphone, given your choices. Igrado is nice too for portable use. Sounds somewhere between an SR60 and PX100.

The SR60 would sound nice with acoustic guitar, but may be a little bright to blast electric rock guitar through. Just watch the highs, and maybe set the tone down a bit.

You can try different pads on the SR60s to get different sound out of it though. There are many mods on this forum that you can search. The sock mod will make them more bassy when you need to tone it down a bit. You can do it without wrapping the sock around your stock pads if you dont want to ruin them.
Actually now that i think of it, the 60 comes with flat type pads, not bowls, so youd have to do it without the stock pads anyway.

Just search Grado Mods.

 

[fjrabon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drag0n /img/forum/go_quote.gif The PMX100 is NOT a LOWER version of the PX100. It is the same headphones with a behind the neck sport band,rather than a traditional over the head band. Its just a choice in wearing style. SR60 is a better headphone, given your choices. Igrado is nice too for portable use. Sounds somewhere between an SR60 and PX100. The SR60 would sound nice with acoustic guitar, but may be a little bright to blast electric rock guitar through. Just watch the highs, and maybe set the tone down a bit. You can try different pads on the SR60s to get different sound out of it though. There are many mods on this forum that you can search. The sock mod will make them more bassy when you need to tone it down a bit. You can do it without wrapping the sock around your stock pads if you dont want to ruin them. Actually now that i think of it, the 60 comes with flat type pads, not bowls, so youd have to do it without the stock pads anyway. Just search Grado Mods.

After they're burned in, 60s, especially if you leave the stock flats alone, aren't overly bright at all. And you want the brightness they do have for practicing electric guitar, because you need the brightness to really hear the details of your playing without having to crank the amp. The detail and clarity (I won't really call it brightness, its more upper midrange clarity to me), allow me to actually play them at a much lower volume on my rockman amp. Especially if you are playing with a headphone guitar amp with some distortion, you need a lot of clarity because otherwise the distortion can really cover up a lot of your mistakes.

 

[jayeshrc]

thx for the quick replies.. Yeah i did think the ear clips on the pmx 100 would be a piss off.. So its now between the px100 and the grado sr60..although the grados are a tad over my budget and if they're not too much of an improvement over the others i'd rather not push my budget.. (my actual budget was $50.. $60 was kinda pushin it already..)

oh and how would the sennheiser hd201 figure in here? i know they're completely diff from these (closed back and all...) but ive heard good stuff abt them and remembered seeing fjrabon's airplane rig...

i would need a portable amp to use them with my ipod right?

 

[Drag0n]

No amp needed for those phones, but it helps.

 

[jayeshrc]

so which one would you guys go for? The sennheiser pmx100 or the hd201 (with that fiio e5 maybe..) ? The grado sr60 is not under my budget so leave that out for now..

 

[fjrabon]

I have the Sennheiser hd201 (actually if you're interested in it, I can sell it to you, just PM me). If I had never bought my Grados, I probably would be perfectly fine with it. I really really liked it when I first got it. Then the Grados came in and now, while they don't sound bad at all, everything sounds just a little dead. I ended up buying a pair of Denon AHD1001s because I wanted a closed can that could at least put up somewhat of a fight against my Grados.

I've tried my E5 on the HD201s, and it does help, but I think you'd be better off just saving the 50 bucks that the HD201s and the Fiio would cost you and saving up 15 more bucks and buying the grados.

Some people like the PX100 (I actually don't know anybody that has the PMX100, but its the same exact headphone, just a different form factor), but I didn't. They just sounded weak to me.

I guess if I had to choose between the two, I maybe liked the HD201 better. It was more comfortable and decent at isolating sound. My only real complaint with it is that it just doesn't "sparkle". The bass is okay, it's a very clear headphone and if you listen to it for a while, you get used to the lack of "life".