[Gizmotoy]

Hello, I'm new here and this is my first post. I've been reading through the forum and was hoping I could solicit your help. There are so many headphones on the market, it's hard to find one that's suitable, and with limited demo options in town, I'm probably stuck doing a blind buy.

I listen to a lot of electronic music (BT, Tiesto, etc), but often listen with the rock genre as well (Foo Fighters, Black Keys, etc).

My problem may be that I have too many wants:
1) I listen almost exclusively on an iPhone, so I'd like iPod controls. At least play/pause, but volume is better.
2) I sometimes take plane trips and also listen in the office, so a good amount of isolation is desired.
3) Portability is somewhat important. Any folding at all into a case or bag of some type would be nice.
4) I enjoy the quantity and impact of the bass in, say, a Monster Beats Studio, but the noise canceling drives my ears crazy. A tighter bass response would be nice as well, but that's probably asking too much.

I mention the Beats because I got an extensive listening session of a friend's set. Actually, looking at the list above, I see it meets almost all of my criteria. But, the noise cancellation really fatigues my ears quickly and I thought the mids were almost completely absent. I guess what I'm looking for is something like "Beats with better audio quality and without noise canceling." Is there such a thing?

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,
 
I listen to BT as well, amongst other electronic musics (Micky Mouse Operation, OceanLab, Ronald Jenkees, Parov Stelar, Bonobo, etc). Good stuff.
 
Based on your notes, you need a closed headphone, with low impedance and normal sensitivity, with swivel cups or foldability with carrying case and you want some bass to be very present (electronica!).
 
This is quite easy to accomplish sir. The only thing holding you back right now is budget. What is your budget? As it is right now, I will tell you straight up to get the Ultrasone Pro 900's. You don't need an amplifier, but I would suggest one such as the FiiO E7 ($80ish) or E11 ($65 usually new) to really get the low end of the Pro 900 to fill out. It works perfectly well without an amp, and bass is tight, but it does get new extension and richer with an amp.
 
Very best,

 

[Gizmotoy]

Hmm, thanks. I'll check those out. While they don't have iPod controls, it does have a removable cord with what appears to be a standard headphone port. With that I could substitute a remote cord from, for example, the Beats Solo.

They are pretty pricey, though. I was hoping to keep it in the $200-$300 range, if possible, especially if I have to source a remote cable from somewhere.

I also can't see myself carrying an amp. This is a guy who went out of his way to combine his phone and media player, carries only a single key, and is considering combining his wallet with his phone case.

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,
 
Ok, in that case, you would do well with the Ultrasone HFI 580.
 
Getting a good headphone with an ipod control is simply not going to happen unless you mod or get some pop culture trash headphones that have it built in because they sacrificed everything and partnered in with Apple hype. That's the one thing you're going to need to compromise. Good headphones don't have/come with ipod anything. Simple as that.
 
Very best,

 

[Gizmotoy]

That's what made the removable cable of the Pro 900s you mentioned attractive. Unfortunately the HFIs appear to lack that.

I see a lot of recommendations for the Pro 550s and DJ1, which look like they meet the requirements. Any experience with those?

 

[GiovanniP]

I know the perfect solution to your problem, just buy any headphones you like, like the one suggested above, and buy this: Belkin Headphone Adapter Remote Shuffle (you will find it with that exact name in amazon) it will give any pair of headphones you buy ipod remote control.

 

[Gizmotoy]

Thanks for the suggestion. I had looked at those previously, but there are a few problems. First are the abysmal reviews, and several mentions of distorted audio after a few uses. The second is that it puts the remote down by the device, where it's least useful.

If the headphones have a removable cable, I can replace it with a good quality cable that won't distort the audio, and have the remote up near the headphones. I know it's probably a trivial or useless feature to a good number of people here, but this is something I use constantly.