[Alec E]

I have been driven so far up the wall by my latest earphone purchase that I've decided to give up altogether, at least for a while. I want to try a portable headphone.

I can't find a good general introduction to these in the way that there seem to be so many "shootout" and similar threads about earphones. I wonder if some patient person could list the five or so portable headphones with the best reputation.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that money is no object (though it is). My only criteria are that I don't want to use an amp (I'll mostly be using this with a Macbook Pro and an iPod Classic), and I need isolation. I seem to care about treble and soundstage quite a bit, but don't let that preclude anything.

I realize there are quite a few other threads like this, but uh... I didn't like any of them.

 

[KLS]

If I were to get portable headphones, I would go for one of them: ESW9, ESW10, ES10, HD25. Beyerdynamic T50p is something catching my eyes now too. I think I have listed 4 with good reputation

 

[Alec E]

Thank you for the suggestions.

I'm probably going for the HD25. It's inexpensive and I've seen a lot of positive mentions of it.

 

[ljokerl]

Make sure its the HD25-1 as that is the one most reviews are based on. The HD25SP utilizes different drivers and reportedly sounds noticeably worse.