Headphone trouble

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Recently I have been researching headphone brands so I can find me a good underrated brand to buy, but I keep on think about my budget I wanted to keep it at a cheap price like 50 dollars or 60, but I can't decide because I am thinking about the cons of the brand I am buying. I am getting kinda frustrated that I almost cried. Also I am looking for headphone brands that are durable and not delicate. I also don't want any headphone brands that are overrated like skullcandy or beats because the last headphone brand that I had was beats solo that my mom got me for Christmas. Can you guys help me 'cause I'm kinda frustrated right now.

I've long been partial to sennheiser.

Sennheiser headsets are very nice, but they can be very pricy. If you'd be willing to increase your budget a little bit, they're nice to have.

A cheaper and lesser quality alternative would be anything by iFrogz (you can find them at Wal-Mart). The current set I have right now is their black Orion model, which has done alright so far. Usually, the higher the volume, the better the sound quality for these.

Sennheiser link: (clicky)
iFrogz Orion link: (clicky)

Hope this helped you out somewhat. Good luck finding a good set!

to protect the hearing, the OP may wish to consider headphones which sound good at moderate volumes.

^^^ This. Thanks.

Seriously, if you're willing to fork over a lot of cash, just get Sennheisers. I promise you it's worth it.

the best music listening cans I've heard are a pair of ancient sennheiser hd565 ovations, they make all music sound good and have sufficient clarity to sound good at moderate volume levels. I don't know what the modern version of them are, I am sure there are several of them now. circumaural open-back designs have the most open sound.

Right now I'm using a crappy pair of Skullcandy over-ear headphones I found in the basement of my old house. Well, they're only relatively crappy; I'm a cheapass and I've used ones that were much, much worse. They're acceptable quality, though I've heard much better headphones before.

I can't remember what the last pair of "good" headphones I owned was, though I remember a local discount store chain carrying a brand of in-ear earbuds that delivered surprisingly good sound quality at a low price, in exchange for terrible durability/build quality. I also like the cheap in-ear earbuds Philips makes, though I seem to keep losing mine.

The thing is, unlike most people I don't really care so much about volume as frequency range and clarity. The volume that many people listen to their headphones at is absolutely abhorrent to me, and I prefer listening to my music at a low, comfortable volume, preferably in an environment that's already somewhat quiet as it is.

I need clarity above all, in my audio restoration work, so I can get as clear an aural picture of my job as possible. to accomplish this, I have found no cans more neutral yet revealing as sennheiser hd580 precisions.

I just looked this model up. I haven't found much about the precision variant, but the HD580 series in general sounds promising. One thing I wonder, do they offer anything in the way of passive sound cancellation? Like say I'm in a noisy environment, and I just want to block things out, will these do the job?

unfortunately, no. they are a circumaural open back design which means you can hear pretty much everything happening around you while wearing them, and also they are bulky [but well padded and comfortable for long wear]. their sole purpose is in critical audio monitoring situations in a controlled environment studio with no ambient extraneous noises. NOT for noisy environment. sennheiser makes closed-back circumaural designs which are better suited for what you are after, namely the HD280/380 models. but those models are not as neutral or transparent as the 580.

But surely they'd be better than offerings from "mainstream" brands like Skullcandy or Beats, right?

Last edited by mr_bigmouth_502 on 10 Mar 2014, 4:50 am, edited 2 times in total.

that I am not qualified to say, other than to say probably, in that sennheiser, although it may have bassed-up the sound of its lower-level headphones to be competitive with those other brands, the higher level senns still at least have pretentions to neutrality.

I just found this model, the HD380 Pro. The reviews sound pretty nice, so I'm wondering if it would be worth snagging a pair of these. I don't mind a bit of extra bass, as long as it doesn't dominate the entire sound image.