Hello everyone on Hi-Fi. I recently began reading a lot of the great posts on here in order to make my next headphone purchase, and while all your comments are great, I think I need buying help that is specific to my situation. I'm about to be a freshman at college this coming fall. Unfortunately, this past January, my family and I suffered a house fire which destroyed my stereo, my Grado headphones (sr125), and my CD collection which I had been building since I was 8. Obviously, while we were lucky to be insured for possessions, we weren't insured enough to replace ALL possessions and my CD collection (which was getting close to over 400 in number) didn't make the budget cut especially with the added expense of me going to college. To help cure my music depression, my parents were nice enough to get me a Zune 120 GB and sign me up for the Zune Pass which has helped me get 85% of my music collection back plus a lot of other great available songs.
This is where you come in Hifi readers. As a graduation present, my parents have agreed to buy me a nice pair of headphones so I can throw out these terrible earbuds (please no recommendations for earbuds or earcanals, I can't stand them). I really don't want to get another pair of Grado's because while they sounded good, they felt like sandpaper against my ear and I couldn't wear them for long periods. I can't say exactly what my budget is but let's go with $300 because while I was browsing Best Buy with my parents, we saw the Dr. Dre Beats and they seemed amenable to getting me those. However, they are victims of this house fire too and I don't want to blow that budget if I don't have to.
In terms of the open vs. closed debate, I am amenable to either. I primarily listen to music in my room and I'll be living at home during the year as my college is in the town I live in. However, I guess if I'm going to take my Zune on the campus shuttle, want to listen to music in the cafeteria, or live in the dorms later and have a roommate, maybe I should get a closed set.
As far as my listening preferences go, I am very sensitive to treble (it can very easily give me a headache) and would not want a headphone that would be categorized as "bright." I also am a fan of a variety of music (favorite artists include Fleetwood Mac, Madonna, Eric Hutchinson, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco) so neutral headphones would be cool. On that note, however, I don't have a natural ear for bass so a headphone that emphasized that could be a better fit for me, but of course I don't want it to sound boomy or unnatural.
I live in a small town so chances to audition good headphones are limited. However, I have auditioned three high-end sets and I'll give you my impressions. At Guitar Center, they let me try out the Sennheiser HD280's and the AKG K240 Studio headphones. Unfortunately, this was an impromptu visit and I tested them on CD's I had in my car (Eric Hutchinson and All-American Rejects) on their DJ booth setup, and not on my Zune so I may have gotten skewed results since the source material was better than what I'll normally be using.
To me, the Sennheisers sounded a little dull and kinda bright (an oxymoron I realize), but they did keep all external noise out and might be okay after burn-in.
On the other hand, the AKG's were amazing. "Dirty Little Secret" was very powerful, and I felt like I was in the room with Eric Hutchinson while he was recording the song. I detected a hair of brightness but nothing I couldn't live with and that might go away with burn-in. Bass seemed okay on the AKG's.
The other unit I tried out was the Dr. Dre's at Best Buy on their listening station. While they've been blasted on this forum, they sounded great to me (the station was set a little loud though). Bass seemed really good to me but keep in mind I'm not an audiophile yet. My primary concern with them is the price and the fact they take batteries. I love music and can listen for hours, and I don't want to constantly be replacing batteries.
My hope is to actually start out using my new headphones unamped and then maybe get an amp next year. I do know people love amps on here, but I'll admit though that I am totally ignorant on amps other than they make stuff sound better. The extensive knobs kinda scare me because I don't know what they do, ha ha. I guess I am open to a headphone/amp combo but you will need to recommend a specific make and model of an amp because I'm clueless here (maybe give me your email so I can ask question how to work it, lol). Also, make sure the amp and headphones come in under budget together.
The last thing to consider is the source material. I realize it's not ideal. I would love to listen to stuff uncompressed on CD's but that's just not feasible. The Zune Pass downloads are encoded at 192 Kbps WMA files. Considering this is making up 95% of my current library, I wish they gave a higher encoding option for downloading but such is life. I know some headphones might make these files sound bad because they bring out so much detail so please keep that in mind. This is kinda my worry with the AKG's since I didn't test them on the Zune.
Comfort is a big concern, but fashionability is not. I'm a proud nerd, and hopefully am on my way to becoming an educated audiophile nerd
I think I have written the longest post on HiFi that I've seen thus far so I apologize. While I enjoyed the AKG's, I'm not married to them and would appreciate further suggestions. Thank you for reading and thank you in advance for your help.
