alecb
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2017
- Posts
- 15
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I'm wanting to find headphones to use at work:
- Need to not leak sound to prevent bothering my coworkers (sit fairly close to others, < 5 feet in either direction).
- Comfortable! I feel like I get uncomfortable very easily.
- Too much clamp bothers me a lot, after an hour or two I'll start to get a headache. I feel like this is a particularly hard requirement to reconcile with sound leakage requirements, since I imagine most closed backs need enough clamp to form a seal and not let the sound out. But I'm not giving up!
- I think I might have a slightly larger than average head? Or it might be that I'm just particularlly sensitive to clamping force. But, e.g., I tried Sennheiser's Game One for a bit (for gaming, not office use), and I immediately noticed the clamp and how uncomfortable it was. I had to dig through piles of positive reviews until I found one person also complaing about clamping force. Right now I'm trying HM5s (will probably be returning soon) after hearing from several sources how comfortable they were, and again, put them on and was immediately off-put by the clamp. I'm a little more used to them now, but they still start to get uncomfortable/give headaches after an hour or two.
- My ears are on the larger side, so larger earcups would be nice (I think I've also heard that this can help with the clamp, by distributing the force over a larger area). I had Bose QC35s for a while, and the cups felt like they were just barely over-ear for me; the cups always kind of 'clipped' the bottom and top of my ear lobes, and I could only really get them totally in by kind of tucking them in. The contact itself s a little annoying, but I think it also contributed to my ears heating up faster.
- Following from the above, my ears get hot very quickly, so something that lets them breathe would be nice. Again, I think this is another thing that's hard to reconcile with sound leakage. :/ This is probably less of a concern for at-work headphones though, because I'm not moving around or anything with them on (would care a lot more if I were commuting with these).
- Definitely want something over-ear; on-ears bother my ear lobes.
- Too much clamp bothers me a lot, after an hour or two I'll start to get a headache. I feel like this is a particularly hard requirement to reconcile with sound leakage requirements, since I imagine most closed backs need enough clamp to form a seal and not let the sound out. But I'm not giving up!
- These will probably be used exclusively at work, driven by a desktop workstation. I'd prefer something I can drive without an amp, but I'll definitely consider cans with higher impedance if they get me the other things I want.
- I really don't care too much about sound signature. I think most headphones I've used have been on the more neutral side (1More Triple Drivers, HM5s, Game Zero), but I'd be willing to try something U-shaped (might even prefer that) or really anything else if it has the other things I want.
- I listen to a lot of pop, 80s/90s rock, some rap. Sometimes classical/instrumental stuff. I'll also be listening to things other than music often (podcasts, videos, generic background noise kind of stuff).
- Budget is <$200, but I'm willing to be flexible if it gets me other things I want. I'm just not looking to go much over that for things like sound quality.