Hi everyone,
Currently I own a pair of Blox M2C earphones and a pair of Sennheiser PX-200 II headphones.
The first one I generally use outside, the latter one generally in-house.
Generally, I do the following things with it (in descending importancy):
- Listening to music from my pc (asus xonar DX soundcard) and cellphone (samsung wave without additionnal amp)
- Watching movies
- Playing games (like bf3)
I primarily listen to instrumental music, especially post-rock, but also other genres: several alternative rock genres, indie, classical, ... Basically a whole lot of genres except R&B, Hip-hop, tibetan throat singing...
Favourite artists are: Godspeed! You Black Emperor, 65dos, Tool, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, Pink Floyd, explosions in the sky, Ludovico Einaudi, ...
The sennheiser is a good headphone, but has a few flaws:
- Too small, it is pretty unconfortable to wear for a longer period of time
- an annoying volume control (it creaks when adjusting and does weard things when set on max volume)
- cable too short
- lack of bass, I am NOT a basshead, more a fan of neutral tones, but it's just lacking on this headphone
So I started looking for a new headphone:
- budget: around 100 euros (125 dollars)
- preferably around the ear
- I don't care for noise cancelling/isolating aspects, except for the fact they shouldn't leak too much (like Grado's)
- more of a neutral, clear headphone, one that's good in all area's but doesn't under-/overdo a certain aspect, I listen more to instrumentals than vocal music.
- comfortable enough to wear for several hours
- good for movies/tvseries (by that I mean to understand what they are saying
)
- a long cable (at least 2 meters), detachable is a plus. I like coiled cables except for the fact they are hard to use behind a pc, so preferably a staright one.
- a decent soundstage (also for gaming)
- Sometimes I wear glasses (when not wearing conctact lenses), so one that can be used with glasses would be nice
I then found the following headphones: (via internet, I don't know any shops in my area that has more then a few decent headphones for testing)
- Grado/Alessandro headphones, they do however seem to be quite unnbalanced and leak a lot of sound.
- Sony mdr V6: seems to be a decent pair of headphones for the price, but the sound also seems to be not as good as the others.
- Shure srh440 (83 euros), I really like the sound of these (friend of mine has these), but the cable and the earpads aren't that comfortable. I could replace them both, but that costs me a few extra 10's.
- Shure srh840, as I have good experiences with the 440 and the 840 is a better sounding headphone with better earpads, they seem good. They are a bit expensive though.
- Audio Technica ATH-M50s: I have read a lot about these around here and they seem to be really good and are currently my first choice. However I have a few problems with them: I can only find them for a reasonable price (120 euros incl shipping) on amazon.com, and I live in Europe. Secondly, I sometimes read they are too much V-schaped or too bassy. Thirdly they seem to benefit from amping them, and I wonder if they will do well with my cellphone. I might be buying a headphone amp in the future, but not an expensive one (max around 50)
I still think I'm going to buy the M50s, but I was wondering if someone knew a better alternative for my music tastes?
Currently I own a pair of Blox M2C earphones and a pair of Sennheiser PX-200 II headphones.
The first one I generally use outside, the latter one generally in-house.
Generally, I do the following things with it (in descending importancy):
- Listening to music from my pc (asus xonar DX soundcard) and cellphone (samsung wave without additionnal amp)
- Watching movies
- Playing games (like bf3)
I primarily listen to instrumental music, especially post-rock, but also other genres: several alternative rock genres, indie, classical, ... Basically a whole lot of genres except R&B, Hip-hop, tibetan throat singing...
Favourite artists are: Godspeed! You Black Emperor, 65dos, Tool, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, Pink Floyd, explosions in the sky, Ludovico Einaudi, ...
The sennheiser is a good headphone, but has a few flaws:
- Too small, it is pretty unconfortable to wear for a longer period of time
- an annoying volume control (it creaks when adjusting and does weard things when set on max volume)
- cable too short
- lack of bass, I am NOT a basshead, more a fan of neutral tones, but it's just lacking on this headphone
So I started looking for a new headphone:
- budget: around 100 euros (125 dollars)
- preferably around the ear
- I don't care for noise cancelling/isolating aspects, except for the fact they shouldn't leak too much (like Grado's)
- more of a neutral, clear headphone, one that's good in all area's but doesn't under-/overdo a certain aspect, I listen more to instrumentals than vocal music.
- comfortable enough to wear for several hours
- good for movies/tvseries (by that I mean to understand what they are saying
)- a long cable (at least 2 meters), detachable is a plus. I like coiled cables except for the fact they are hard to use behind a pc, so preferably a staright one.
- a decent soundstage (also for gaming)
- Sometimes I wear glasses (when not wearing conctact lenses), so one that can be used with glasses would be nice
I then found the following headphones: (via internet, I don't know any shops in my area that has more then a few decent headphones for testing)
- Grado/Alessandro headphones, they do however seem to be quite unnbalanced and leak a lot of sound.
- Sony mdr V6: seems to be a decent pair of headphones for the price, but the sound also seems to be not as good as the others.
- Shure srh440 (83 euros), I really like the sound of these (friend of mine has these), but the cable and the earpads aren't that comfortable. I could replace them both, but that costs me a few extra 10's.
- Shure srh840, as I have good experiences with the 440 and the 840 is a better sounding headphone with better earpads, they seem good. They are a bit expensive though.
- Audio Technica ATH-M50s: I have read a lot about these around here and they seem to be really good and are currently my first choice. However I have a few problems with them: I can only find them for a reasonable price (120 euros incl shipping) on amazon.com, and I live in Europe. Secondly, I sometimes read they are too much V-schaped or too bassy. Thirdly they seem to benefit from amping them, and I wonder if they will do well with my cellphone. I might be buying a headphone amp in the future, but not an expensive one (max around 50)
I still think I'm going to buy the M50s, but I was wondering if someone knew a better alternative for my music tastes?
