[Brent Hutto]

I have an iPod Mini. I bought it for three uses: 1) to avoid needing a CD player my car and it works great through the cassette adapter, 2) to listen at work by myself in a cubicle that's fairly quiet but not totally private and 3) to listen on airplanes when I travel three or four times a year. The second and third uses require headphones and the only pair I own are some $10 Sonys that came with something or another I bought years ago. I think the two requirements are different enough that separate headphones are needed. Total budget of $200-$300 for both is the limit although less would certainly be better.

Office first. I think an open-backed headphone would work well since I need to hear the phone if it rings and I doubt the people in adjacent cubicles will hear any sound that escapes, especially since I don't listen at particularly loud levels. For instance, I can play music through the computer speakers although I have to keep it a little too low to hear much detail.

Some options I've come up with by Internet browsing...

Grado SR60: Ought to sound great, reasonable price, idiosyncratic "sound" that I may or may not like.

Sennheiser PX100: I can buy these locally at CC, comfortable, easy to carry between home and work, good but not great sound, perhaps overemphazied bass.

Beyerdynamic DT231: A little more closed than the SR60 or PX100, nice neutral sound quality, a bit bulky, possibly "recessed midrange".

Airplanes next. My first thought is an in-ear monitor since I typically put foam earplugs in my ears any time I fly. However, my left ear canal is a long and winding road. Even a simple foam plug take repeated insertions to get any significant isolation and once they're all the way in it's kind of scary trying to get them out sometimes. Also, the thought of reusing something that's been down where the sticky stuff lives is pretty gross. So maybe a good-sealing set of cans make more sense even though they'd take up a lot of space in my carryon.

Ideas so far...

Sennheiser HD280: From all descriptions I've seen these should have the kind of sound I like, they seal pretty well, but I don't have any idea that a plain unamped iPod Mini can drive them well enough for good sound.

Beyerdynamic DT231: Not really sealed but might get the job done, as mentioned above they should sound pretty good, should work very well off the iPod.

Sennheiser HD201: Probably the obvious choice if no other really attractive options work out, decent sound, dirt cheap, somewhat sealed.

Beyerdynamic DT440: Work well with portables, sealed, good sound, too expensive.

Shure E2C, E3C, E4C: Only the E2C is my price range although the E3C might be a possible stretch (as would an ER-6i), I have the above-mentioned doubts about canalphones, not sure any of these sound a lot better than a similar priced full-sized headphone, I can get the Shures locally but haven't seen the Etymotics.

Finally, here's my sound preferences. Decades ago when I was buying home stereo gear, the setups I liked could be deemed "Open, neutral, detailed and extended on the high end" to be positive or "Bright, thin, too controlled on the bottom end" by people who don't like the sound. For me the word "bright" isn't necessarily a criticism, much worse errors are "muddy" or "rough" and the two worst words of all in my book are "boomy" and "harsh".

Top-of-the-head test tracks:

Iris Dement "Our Town"
Niamh Parsons "Rigs of Rye"
Tim O'Brien "Lay Down Your Weary Tune"

Ricky Skaggs "Walls of Time"
Nashville Bluegrass Band "Up Above my Head"
Alison Krauss and Union Station "Heartstrings"
Johnson Mountain Boys "Unwanted Love"

Dire Straits "Telegraph Road"
REM "Losing my Religion"
Talking Head "Psycho Killer"

Rudolph Serkin "Moonlight Sonata, Adagio sostenuto"
Hilary Hahn "Partita #2 in D-Minor, Sarabande"

So in other words, female vocals, acoustic instruments, tight harmonies and a little studio-style pop music from 20 years ago. The bass doesn't need to thump, I don't generally subject the equipment or my ears to a huge wall of screaming guitar power chords at high volume and subtlety is more appreciated than sheer power. If I can hear the Johnson Mountain Boys moving in, out and around that single microphone on a live recording then I suspect everything else falls into place if you know what I mean. Failing that, as long as Iris Dement and Niamh Parsons get me teary-eyed every time that's good enough.

 

[NightWoundsTime]

I'd definitely recommend an IEM if not for your problems with your left ear. The Shure foamies however are a bit thicker than your standard earplug and not very deep at all. I can get a decent seal with them even in my outer ear, I usually go just inside the canal with them to get more bass. I haven't heard the E2's but my E4's are very much like the sound you describe, certainly controlled and polite on the bass, well extended and a bit bright. Also you might check out the Etymotic ER-6i, as they're even more like what you describe.

For office cans you can rule out the Grados, they tend to be all about the bass thump, and the lower you go on the line the less detail is added to that thump. Also they're not very comfortable for all-day usage. I haven't used any of the other cans you're looking at in that range, but I will recommend that you add Senn HD-555 to your list. It has a bit of grain in the midrange but it's very neutral overall. Of course everyone here will tell you that an amp will improve any headphone you get. I've got an SR-71 for my Ipod Mini and the difference with my Shure E4's is pretty major. Perhaps get just the IEM's, and a Mint amp or something similar.

 

[mrarroyo]

Try the Ety ER6i, there are three options for tips. One should fit you. At home the Grado line is hard to beat. Good luck.

 

[rsaavedra]

I wouldn't recommend the Shure or any similarly low impedance IEM's with the Ipod Mini unless using the lineout dock + an amp. Ipods have a bass roll off when using the headphone out and low impedance headphones. My Shure E3c's leave a lot to be desired when plugged into the Ipod Mini headphone out directly, which is why I use the KSC-35's. I'm getting the lineout dock for the mini anyway though.

Hey Welcome to Headfi and sorry for your wallet!

 

[ken36]

Shure or Etymotic. Using Shure tri-flange tips which are, in my HO the best for either brand.

 

[Brent Hutto]

Thanks guys, for the feedback. Sounds like canalphones are the early favorites. Maybe a good plan would be to get some headphones to use at work right away and then the next time I have an airplane trip coming up, pick up an IEM of one type or another. For my style of listening, it sounds like the ER-6i might be a good first try and I don't believe they're too expensive. Heck, when I'm on an airplane I've got something stuck down in my ears anyway so it might as well pipe in some good music.

I went around to ever place I could think of locally today to see what was available. The stereo/home theater shops don't stock headphone although one of them suggested I let them order a pair a SR-60's which they thought would be perfect. The Tweeter store has E3C, E4C and and Sony V600 (which I really wouldn't even consider at $100+tax).

So it was down to either Sennheiser portables or sub-$20 cheapie or Sony whatevers of various forms. Good news is that Circuit City let me plug my iPod Mini into a pair of PX100s and try them out and Best Buy let me listen to their PX200s for as long as I liked. I have comments to make on both pairs, which were white and really neato with the folding and carrying case and the comfort and all that.

PX100

They sounded really good. On a capella female vocals I had absolutely no complaints, just a fine sound. Adding some accompaniment, things got a little iffy. There's a certain register where the lower and middle strings on an acoustic guitar sound really strong and boxy. The upper acoustic bass lines are in the same range. The PX100 really emphasizes that sound. Really, really emphasizes. On live recordings, the guitar is just enough in the background for it not to be a problem. However, Alison Krauss (one of the coolest people on the planet and an amazing musician) in recent years has a tendency to overproduce her studio recordings, adding drums and really cranking up the lower registers to sound warm and full. I don't care as much for that sound on any equipment but it became unlistenable with the PX100. It was there to a lesser extent with guitar parts on Niamh Parson's "Heart's Desire" album and was really in the background on my Ricky Skaggs and Johnson Mountain Boys live albums.

Then I switched to some non-acoustic music and these headphones really stepped it up a notch. For example, Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing", Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" and "Shock the Monkey" and REM's "Losing my Religion" were as good as I've ever heard them. The more electric and processed the sound, the better the PX100 sounds. For some reason, ancient scratchy Simon and Garfunkel tracks like "The Boxer" and "The Only Living Boy in New York" also sounded great. Probably because they are a little thin sounding to start with.

If I had to, I could use the PX100's as everyday headphone. Some of the recordings I don't particularly like become out of the question and some that I do like sound a bit boomy. But they have a very smooth midrange and neither harshness nor apparent rolloff at the upper end. If I listened to anything played on the radio today I suspect they'd be great on "classic rock", they...well, they rock.

PX200

When I tried these at Best Buy I expected basically the same problem as the PX100 with a less-open sound and less comfort. The stuff I'd read here and at headphone.com indicated that they are just too small and poorly sealed to be effective closed cans. Wrong on both counts. I listened for 20 minutes and brought 'em home. If they don't pan out with careful listening this weekend I'll return them and buy something mail order. But I think they'll do just fine.

First off, the exaggerated acoustic guitars in the lower-mid/upper-bass register. If I press the headphones onto my ears to form a tight seal, they sound a little like the PX100. Otherwise, I have to fidget around to get any bass at all but once I find the sweet spot they are neutral to just the teeniest, tiniest bit emphasized there. Hard to tell if it's the mix or the equipment but it's not objectionable in the least (heck, I love well played acoustic guitar anyway).

Otherwise, they are just a tiny bit less forgiving of sibilence in the source material than the PX100 but OTOH the high-end and vocal midrange are much more balanced. There's no sense of a female vocalist stepping forward and out of the mix which tends to happen with the PX100 as well as with cheapo headphones and the Apple earbuds. On the "Live at the Charleston Music Hall" album, Ricky Skaggs' vocals are right out in front just as they are in the original mix with the harmony parts moving in and out as choreographed and the timbres of the various voices all distinctive. Awfully nice sounding Bluegrass music on a $70 earphone and lossy-compressed digital music. Stuff like the Peter Gabriel and REM tracks are not as open and exciting as the PX100's but crank up the volume an extra couple db and it's good enough.

I'll go out on a limb and bet that it would take a $100-and-up set of cans and/or a preamp on the iPod to get noticably better sound on my kind of music than the PX200's. The only downside is the need to have them "just so" on my head in order to sound their best. No way it would work walking down the street but I don't listen to music when I'm moving anyway. The cool carrying case and folding mechanism gets brownie points, too. Some time this weekend I'll plug them into my old Adcom CD player and see how they compare to the Adcom power amp (no preamp) and enormous A-D-S "bookshelf" speakers in our music room.

 

[Brent Hutto]

For the final part of my setup, it comes down to whether I want to get a pair of canalphones for my next airplane trip or get an isolating pair of closed, circumnaural headphones instead. The closed headphones sound much more attractive in terms of convenience and flexibility for other non-airplane usage.

If I had to do it right now (and I don't) I'd probably try a pair of Sennheiser HD280s and see how that works directly driven from the iPod Mini. Those should block out most of the engine noise and I think their neutral sound quality would be good for my kinds of music. It looks like they fold up into a ball plenty small enough to fit into my carryon bag (unlike something along the lines of an Audio-Technica A900). If the iPod can't get it done driving them then a cheap battery-power headphone amp should help out and still keep the total cost comparable to an E4C IEM.

 

[warpdriver]

I bought my ER6i for the express purpose of air travel. The isolation is unparallelled by closed headphones, and they are compact (very important to travel light).

 

[chrisfromalbany]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto For the final part of my setup, it comes down to whether I want to get a pair of canalphones for my next airplane trip or get an isolating pair of closed, circumnaural headphones instead. The closed headphones sound much more attractive in terms of convenience and flexibility for other non-airplane usage. If I had to do it right now (and I don't) I'd probably try a pair of Sennheiser HD280s and see how that works directly driven from the iPod Mini. Those should block out most of the engine noise and I think their neutral sound quality would be good for my kinds of music. It looks like they fold up into a ball plenty small enough to fit into my carryon bag (unlike something along the lines of an Audio-Technica A900). If the iPod can't get it done driving them then a cheap battery-power headphone amp should help out and still keep the total cost comparable to an E4C IEM.

Personally, I go with er6i first and then go from there. I think that is the easiest way to go. HD280 will sound different and have better bass response but may need an amp to get the performance out of them. Canal headphones are so easy to use, fit in tight places, and can use then on the go. I dont like people to see me with headphones on. If I did then maybe HD25-1s. But that is it.

 

[evanfulop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto If I had to do it right now (and I don't) I'd probably try a pair of Sennheiser HD280s and see how that works directly driven from the iPod Mini. Those should block out most of the engine noise and I think their neutral sound quality would be good for my kinds of music. It looks like they fold up into a ball plenty small enough to fit into my carryon bag.

Those would be a pretty good choice and I don't think they would need an amp, although canalphones would be more convenient since they are so much smaller and, though I havn't tried them, I think the er6i's would isolate a bit better.