Office recommendations
Sep 10, 2012 at 2:09 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 1

Haegin

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Hey,
 
I've been browsing various threads on here for the past few weeks trying to decide on some headphones for work and don't really feel any closer to a decision. I'm looking to spend about £60 at the most (I'm not really an audiophile, just want good value for money) and my priorities are comfort (I used to own a pair of sennheiser HD205s which were stupidly painful to wear for longer than about 10 mins even after stretching them around a tin of chocolates for weeks), followed by isolation (I'm in an office, I don't want to be able to hear any conversations nearby unless they're particularly loud and I doubt my officemates want to hear my music), followed by good sound. I mostly listen to a mix of classic rock, indie rock, metal and instrumental and I'll be using these headphones with a desktop PC (no decent sound card atm, just an onboard), my iPod classic and an iMac at work.
 
Because of the comfort and isolation requirements I'm thinking a closed back circumaural is the best way to go (I don't get on that well with IEMs it seems though the only half decent ones I've tried are sennheiser cx300 IIs).
 
The headphones I'm looking at are:
  1. Philips Citiscape Uptown - £60 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-SHL5905BK-10-CitiScape-Headphone/dp/B0077860BG) from the new Head-Fi summer 2012 buying guide (is the guide any good or is it a sponsorship thing?)
  2. Numark PHX Pro - £40 (but ebay...) (http://compare.ebay.co.uk/like/380449873025?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&adtype=pla) from the portable headphone shootout on here.
  3. Sennheiser HD280 Pro - £60 (http://www.accessoryjack.com/sennheiser-hd280pro-dynamic-stereo-headphones-black.html) mentioned on another office thread on here
  4. Koss Pro DJ100 - £55 (http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/20465840/Koss-PRO-DJ100-Stereo-Headphones/Product.html?_%24ja=tsid:11518%7Ccat:20465840%7Cprd:20465840) from the headphone shootout again
  5. Philips O'Neils SHO9560 The Stretch - £40 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-SHO9560-10-Headband-Headphones/dp/B003YFIU64/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347299986&sr=8-1) from the headphone shootout
  6. Creative Aurvana Live - £53 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-51EF0060AA001-Aurvana-Live-Headphones/dp/B000W6Y0JY) mentioned in quite a few places, though the headphone shootout indicated it wasn't very isolating - if this is just me hearing officemates and not them hearing me that's probably fine, possibly a good thing in some ways)
 
Are there any clear winners or really great deals here? I'm really not sure if any of them are particularly good or bad for what I'll be using them for. I'm aware of some issues like the citiscape having a pretty poor connection at the jack end and was hoping I could secure that with a bit of sugru (great stuff for strengthening cable connections). Additionally are any of them complete overkill for my set up? Is it worth paying the extra for the more expensive headphones or are they overkill? (I'm happy to pay it for comfort - I'll be wearing them pretty much all day with occasional breaks and don't want to get a headache like I did with the sennheiser hd205s.
 
I hope I've included enough information here, if not please do ask and if there are any great headphones I should look at please let me know. Additionally if there are several that will be fine for what I want let me know, it just means I can buy the cheapest/best looking etc :)
 
Thanks.
 

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