Non-audiophile reactions to high-end headphones Part II

[kuhchuk]

Showed the HE-400's to another co-worker on memorial day.  We were coming back from Put in Bay, a local tourist/party island in Lake Erie, and I whipped out my totally portable O2/HE-400 rig to listen to some tunes, in the back of a 35-year old Chevy P-30 that the company I work for has converted into a part time party bus.  Noisy as hell, but even with the noise, he said that he liked them a lot more than his Bose headphones that he also spent ~$300 on.  Might have a new convert on the way

 

[SlimShadyMJ]

   
 
For a good reason. Watch it 4.44 onwards.

Pardon me for sounding rather superficial, but my god are those things are ugly. As great as they may be -and going by what jude said, they are- I would never show those to anyone if I owned them.I know, function is more important than form (unless it's Apple, or say, a smartphone or ultrabook; but that's a whole other can of worms so to speak) but there's a limit. Those look like they were thrown together by an over imaginative, hyper 7 year old version of myself. Using them as portables, even if somehow possible, should never happen.

 

[SlimShadyMJ]

I'm curious, do those of you who use open or semi-open headphones turn the volume up to very loud levels or do you just stop listening all together when it becomes too loud? I mean, it must hurt you're ears and obviously isn't a very good thing to do considering the long term damage that can (read: will) occur. Sound quality will certainly take a huge dive so I question if it's really worth it.
For reference sake, I use my UE 6000 on transit (bus and train) 5 days a week for about 2.5 hours everyday with noise cancelling off and no batteries in them. The passive noise cancelling is pretty good but even then, at modest (a little less then 1/4 or 25% of the max iPod nano 6th gen volume) I can hear things around me. Not just the rumble of the engine or anything, even people talking next to me. You guys must be turning those things up to insane levels to hear anything.
Also, I can't imagine open + noisy environments to be an ideal mix for auditioning and trying out headphones (from my own experience anyways)

 

[genclaymore]

Nope, I only turn up to the point  that it needs to be, not super duper loud as I not trying to use them as desk speakers which would be bad.

 

[Fuzziekiwi]

  I'm curious, do those of you who use open or semi-open headphones turn the volume up to very loud levels or do you just stop listening all together when it becomes too loud? I mean, it must hurt you're ears and obviously isn't a very good thing to do considering the long term damage that can (read: will) occur. Sound quality will certainly take a huge dive so I question if it's really worth it.
For reference sake, I use my UE 6000 on transit (bus and train) 5 days a week for about 2.5 hours everyday with noise cancelling off and no batteries in them. The passive noise cancelling is pretty good but even then, at modest (a little less then 1/4 or 25% of the max iPod nano 6th gen volume) I can hear things around me. Not just the rumble of the engine or anything, even people talking next to me. You guys must be turning those things up to insane levels to hear anything.
Also, I can't imagine open + noisy environments to be an ideal mix for auditioning and trying out headphones (from my own experience anyways)

Are you talking about portable use? If so, bassy open headphones work perfectly fine in public. It's really not as bad as you think. 

 

[MachBot]

  I'm curious, do those of you who use open or semi-open headphones turn the volume up to very loud levels or do you just stop listening all together when it becomes too loud? I mean, it must hurt you're ears and obviously isn't a very good thing to do considering the long term damage that can (read: will) occur. Sound quality will certainly take a huge dive so I question if it's really worth it.
For reference sake, I use my UE 6000 on transit (bus and train) 5 days a week for about 2.5 hours everyday with noise cancelling off and no batteries in them. The passive noise cancelling is pretty good but even then, at modest (a little less then 1/4 or 25% of the max iPod nano 6th gen volume) I can hear things around me. Not just the rumble of the engine or anything, even people talking next to me. You guys must be turning those things up to insane levels to hear anything.
Also, I can't imagine open + noisy environments to be an ideal mix for auditioning and trying out headphones (from my own experience anyways)

My dt990 is always on my desk and ambient noise is something I can control(close the door to my room).
 
If there's nothing I can do, i'll turn up the volume a little to try and compete with the background noise. I won't turn it too high up though.

 

[SlimShadyMJ]

  My dt990 is always on my desk and ambient noise is something I can control(close the door to my room).
 
If there's nothing I can do, i'll turn up the volume a little to try and compete with the background noise. I won't turn it too high up though.

Can you still hear the details properly like that? 

 

[SlimShadyMJ]

  Are you talking about portable use? If so, bassy open headphones work perfectly fine in public. It's really not as bad as you think. 

Yep, portable use like on transit or walking down a street. I might have to give bassy open headpones a try, though bassy and open don't usually go together in my experience lol.
Edited to say that I have no real experience (nothing mmore than maybe 5 minutes) with any Beyerdynamics.

 

[Fuzziekiwi]

 

  Are you talking about portable use? If so, bassy open headphones work perfectly fine in public. It's really not as bad as you think. 

Yep, portable use like on transit or walking down a street. I might have to give bassy open headpones a try, though bassy and open don't usually go together in my experience lol.
Edited to say that I have no real experience (nothing mmore than maybe 5 minutes) with any Beyerdynamics.

Koss PortaPros are fine. HD558 is OK. 

 

[MachBot]

Can you still hear the details properly like that? 

It'll be fine for casual listening, but not for critical listening.

Also, it's easy to have channel imbalance if one side is noisier than the other.

 

[vandal-ch]

Hell yeah!
 
I started off with several crappy Creative Labs headphones, now my AKG 550 sounds like heaven!
 
My first car was a Toyota Starlet, driving my (oldish) A6 V6 feels great and I know it!

 

[vandal-ch]

I just had a horrible idea... what if beats owners are right? Now hear me out here. We all know expectation and autosuggestion can make a huge difference in perceived sound quality. Is it possible that beats (and other non-fi) owners really do hear their chosen flavor as sounding better?

scary thought... I am afraid it works this way indeed. I guess it is like with cigarettes and processed food, you just make yourself believe it is good for you.

 

[kuhchuk]

  I'm curious, do those of you who use open or semi-open headphones turn the volume up to very loud levels or do you just stop listening all together when it becomes too loud? I mean, it must hurt you're ears and obviously isn't a very good thing to do considering the long term damage that can (read: will) occur. Sound quality will certainly take a huge dive so I question if it's really worth it.
For reference sake, I use my UE 6000 on transit (bus and train) 5 days a week for about 2.5 hours everyday with noise cancelling off and no batteries in them. The passive noise cancelling is pretty good but even then, at modest (a little less then 1/4 or 25% of the max iPod nano 6th gen volume) I can hear things around me. Not just the rumble of the engine or anything, even people talking next to me. You guys must be turning those things up to insane levels to hear anything.
Also, I can't imagine open + noisy environments to be an ideal mix for auditioning and trying out headphones (from my own experience anyways)

I generally don't use my HE-400's in public / on the go, but on the occasions I have, I've made sure that I don't go too crazy on the volume trying to drown out background noise.  On the other hand, I have a window AC unit in my room that is quite loud, and I can definitely hear it when I have my HE-400's on.  However, I keep the volume approximately where it would be if the AC unit was off, and just deal with the extra noise.  Not too much different than using speakers in the same situation.
 
On a related note, I went in for a physical about a week ago, and decided to see if they could perform an hearing test while I was there to satiate my own curiosity as to whether I listen to music too loudly.  Unsurprisingly, my hearing was just fine.  Good volume control isn't too hard, and it will definitely save your hearing from permanent damage.

 

[kilspeed111]

scary thought... I am afraid it works this way indeed. I guess it is like with cigarettes and processed food, you just make yourself believe it is good for you.

When I used to be a beats fanboy, i did prefer the sound of the beats pro's over the HD598 of a friend of mine, but the problem is, the sound grew old on me. The muddy bass everywhere got boring after a while, and that's when I started to like other headphones better (like the hd598, hifiman he-300, mad dog, akg k240, etc)

 

[kothganesh]

  scary thought... I am afraid it works this way indeed. I guess it is like with cigarettes and processed food, you just make yourself believe it is good for you.

Well, scary depends on which side of the fence one is. I have a bunch of acquaintances at the gym that make a virtue of their Beats (and Bose)HPs with matching color shoes 

. They noticed my V-Moda XS and gave it a try. After one minute (or less) they ripped it off their heads declaring "what a boring sound'... I just had to grin and bear it...