Help choose new headphones!

[wesf23]

Well its birthday time and need some new headphones. Switching from horrible street style sonys which have ripped, and i've had to play my creative zen microphoto at 16-18 volume to hear effectively during study halls at school. At first I was thinking bose because thats all any noob knows about, and after reading im turned off (i've heard qc2 and triport before)
Seems like Grado is the king of heaphones, but i think im interested in getting new phones for sound isolation. (sorry for the lengthy post in advance

My options from research (under $100)- listen to mostly metal, i like bass too

Creative Aurvana (good for sound isolation & seems like it has ok bass)

Ultimate Ears Super.fi 3 (rated best on cnet- but doesn't seem best for metal)

Bose In Ears (was considering trying them, but no isolation)

*Never liked iems but i need something portable, even talked to my ear doctor uncle and cleared up my concerns of hearing loss- doesn't matter type of headphone "must keep it at 1/2 volume or below"

Grado sr60- seem to be ranked #1 on this site (outside noise will leak, portability a question)

Grado igrado- seem decent, just look bad and i don't know about sound isolation

Jabra C820- bose qc2 rip offs i read were pretty good (prolly hard to carry every day to school)

AKG K81 DJ- read great reviews (it isolates sound well, looks comfortable, questioning portability)

Can anyone help me?

 

[sgrossklass]

K81DJ wouldn't be bad, though IEMs tend to give better isolation. I'll throw in HD25-SPs as an additional option, those seem to be quite rugged. IEM wise, a similar query of mine yielded suggestions of the super.fi 3 Studio and the Westone UM1. iGrados won't isolate much at all (a bit more than SR-60s perhaps), they are open phones.

BTW, that "half volume or below" rule is BS - first of all the volume control is very likely to be logarithmic, and half the displayed value vs. full output will be quite a bit more than 10 dB (perceived double volume), and then the output volume needed will strongly depend on the sensitivity of the earphones/headphones used - super sensitive IEMs like the SF3s (134 dB / 1Vrms, that's pretty crazy) will require a much lower setting than some antique 600 ohm cans with 94 dB/mW (or 96 dB / 1Vrms) to achieve the same sound pressure. And of course, only that (and the spectral balance) is what matters when hearing damage is concerned. Phones that isolate better will require less volume under the same circumstances, to the point that you tend to pick up even faint background hiss with very sensitive IEMs.

 

[wesf23]

thanks man, anyone know a retail store to find the akgs, only found them on ebay so far. I'll check them out, but im still interested in the iems for the sound isolation.

 

[3X0]

No prospective IEM list under $110 is complete without the Altec Lansing iM716.