wijnands
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2011
- Posts
- 337
- Likes
- 110
OK, let me share the whole story..
I'm mostly using a Sansa Clip+. I started out with a sennheiser PMX-60 which was good enough for medium bit rate country and 80-90s pop and rock. Affordable and they did their job. When I broke the second pair I spent a little more and got me a PX100-II. Nice sound considering the price, bit heavy in the lows but warm enough. I'm happy with the clip and I really want to avoid adding an amp to it because I've got enough rechargeable things to lug around already.
My tastes in music have also been changing the last two years, I find myself listening more and more to jazz, classical and opera. (I truly despise the deep booming sound that's so popular with a lot of today;s music.)
I also got a new assignment which involved a lot more time in planes and got a desk in a new office location which can be quite lively at times. So I was looking for a way to shut out more outside noise and, if possible, take a step ahead in sound quality.
I took a chance and ordered a Panasonic RP-HC700E. Surprisingly decent sound even though the noise cancelling robbed the lows of detail. Without noise cancelling I was pleased with the sound quality they got me. One of my reference tracks, Diana Krall's live version of "east of the sun, west of the moon" I could clearly hear the whistling from the audience in the second and third round of applause, something that is lost with the PX100.
Main drawback... lousy fit. I've got a big head and could hardly fit the headband. The cups squeezed hard on my ears and my glasses made it even more uncomfortable. So it went back. Still, you could do worse for 109 euros.
Next up I got a great deal on a Sennheiser PXC360. Hmm. bit of a mixed bag. A ridiculous 100 ohm with everything switched off which went all the way to 590 ohm with the electronics on. My Clip+ didn't have the oomph to power it and I was too annoyed with Sennheiser to fork out another 30 euros for a basic amp. Add the fact that the cups were so shallow that my ears were against the grills. So that went back as well. I've now pretty much given up on noise cancelling and am looking for a closed over the ear model (although in theory buds are still an option but you can't try these out before buying and just about all of them seem to be designed with bass in mind)
I started looking elsewhere and found a depressing lack of quality in the stores here. Most carry the base heavy products of the big giants (sony, philips, jvc, dre, skull candy) and consider Sennheiser a bit exotic already. I went to a speciality store and tried some Beyerdynamic DT 660. Impressively neutral, almost stark. Reminded me of an expensive German design kitchen in their sound, no frills at all. I was a bit unsure about the built quality though. Street price is 150 euros and there's an awful lot of fragile looking plastic on them. Their T50p looks better but at 240 euros it's more than I'd like to spend.
So I did a lot of reading here and found:
Sony ZX-700. Seems a lot of headphone for the price. Apparantly quite neutral. Goes for around 90 euros here.
KRK KNS-6400. Looks, on paper, well built and a likely choice as well. A musician's store in the area has them on stock for 99 euros.
AKG K-272 HD: Seems a steal at a 115 euros. Drawback, yet another model that's almost impossible to find in a real store. Any high end AKG is tricky to find.
Fischer FA-003: Read about those, interesting but there's only a few foreign webshops that carry these and I'm sick of the hassle of sending things back and waiting for my refund.
If anyone has any experience with these for my kind of music I'd really appreciate hearing that. If anyone has any other suggestions I'd welcome those.
I'm mostly using a Sansa Clip+. I started out with a sennheiser PMX-60 which was good enough for medium bit rate country and 80-90s pop and rock. Affordable and they did their job. When I broke the second pair I spent a little more and got me a PX100-II. Nice sound considering the price, bit heavy in the lows but warm enough. I'm happy with the clip and I really want to avoid adding an amp to it because I've got enough rechargeable things to lug around already.
My tastes in music have also been changing the last two years, I find myself listening more and more to jazz, classical and opera. (I truly despise the deep booming sound that's so popular with a lot of today;s music.)
I also got a new assignment which involved a lot more time in planes and got a desk in a new office location which can be quite lively at times. So I was looking for a way to shut out more outside noise and, if possible, take a step ahead in sound quality.
I took a chance and ordered a Panasonic RP-HC700E. Surprisingly decent sound even though the noise cancelling robbed the lows of detail. Without noise cancelling I was pleased with the sound quality they got me. One of my reference tracks, Diana Krall's live version of "east of the sun, west of the moon" I could clearly hear the whistling from the audience in the second and third round of applause, something that is lost with the PX100.
Main drawback... lousy fit. I've got a big head and could hardly fit the headband. The cups squeezed hard on my ears and my glasses made it even more uncomfortable. So it went back. Still, you could do worse for 109 euros.
Next up I got a great deal on a Sennheiser PXC360. Hmm. bit of a mixed bag. A ridiculous 100 ohm with everything switched off which went all the way to 590 ohm with the electronics on. My Clip+ didn't have the oomph to power it and I was too annoyed with Sennheiser to fork out another 30 euros for a basic amp. Add the fact that the cups were so shallow that my ears were against the grills. So that went back as well. I've now pretty much given up on noise cancelling and am looking for a closed over the ear model (although in theory buds are still an option but you can't try these out before buying and just about all of them seem to be designed with bass in mind)
I started looking elsewhere and found a depressing lack of quality in the stores here. Most carry the base heavy products of the big giants (sony, philips, jvc, dre, skull candy) and consider Sennheiser a bit exotic already. I went to a speciality store and tried some Beyerdynamic DT 660. Impressively neutral, almost stark. Reminded me of an expensive German design kitchen in their sound, no frills at all. I was a bit unsure about the built quality though. Street price is 150 euros and there's an awful lot of fragile looking plastic on them. Their T50p looks better but at 240 euros it's more than I'd like to spend.
So I did a lot of reading here and found:
Sony ZX-700. Seems a lot of headphone for the price. Apparantly quite neutral. Goes for around 90 euros here.
KRK KNS-6400. Looks, on paper, well built and a likely choice as well. A musician's store in the area has them on stock for 99 euros.
AKG K-272 HD: Seems a steal at a 115 euros. Drawback, yet another model that's almost impossible to find in a real store. Any high end AKG is tricky to find.
Fischer FA-003: Read about those, interesting but there's only a few foreign webshops that carry these and I'm sick of the hassle of sending things back and waiting for my refund.
If anyone has any experience with these for my kind of music I'd really appreciate hearing that. If anyone has any other suggestions I'd welcome those.
