Sennheiser HD 600’s
If you truly truly TRULY love your music, you should try these headphones. Listening with headphones gives you a different feeling. The full immersion you get from these in particular will make you hate those p.o.s. enclosed headphones you buy at Radioshack or Sam Goody, or wherever.
Plus, you can get a really long cord, plug into your PC, load the playlist, and walk through your entire apartment without taking them off - all day long!
Anyone else have these? Is there better, without spending thousands?
Congratulations on your new headphones, criminalcatalog. They look very impressive and may you have many years of listening pleasure ahead of you. I much prefer listening to music through headphones. I very rarely listen to music without them. No matter what brand anyone ends up buying, I think a good pair of headphones is something worth investing in.
A little story: My SO got sick of the ordinary headphones at his work so he decided to buy himself a pair of Sennheiser HD pro studio headphones (he’s a film and video director/editor), though I’m not sure which specific model he bought. I recall he payed quite a bit for them and he bought them home for me to listen to. He was disappointed when I told him my Koss Pro/4X plus headphones from the 80s sounded better…and they did. His work ended up buying the Sennheisers and he bought a pair of Koss ESPs instead.
I adore my Sennheiser HD 600’s. I also have a pair of the not-quite-as-good, but still excellent precursor, the HD 580 on my “backup” system in my study ( discontinued, but I think you can still find old unopened stock on the net, dirt cheap ). For me they represent the best combination of quality and comfort you can find for less than an insane price ( though they’re definitely not cheap - I’m defining insane here as multiple thousands of dollars, rather than hundreds ).
However, all things being equal I think Grado’s are better if you listen primarily to rock. The entry-level Grado SR-60’s may well be the most cost-effective audiophile buy you could ever make at $60-odd bucks. Great-sounding phones for the price and the more expensive Grado’s like the RS series give the Sennheiser HD 600’s a real run for their money ( however IMHO the Sennheiser HD 600’s still win when it comes to more acoustic music, like classical or jazz ). But for me not all things are equal - Supra-aural headphones ( ones that sit physically on the ear, as opposed to circumaural phones like the Sennheiser’s that surround the ear ) like the Grado’s just kill my ears - I can’t wear them for more than a half-hour without being in pain.Sennheiser’s in contrast are marvelously comfortable. So for me there is no contest.
I’ve heard some nice things about the AKG K1000 and Beyerdynamics DT880, but I haven’t listened to either.
I’ve never heard a Sony set I’ve liked and the Koss I’ve listened to aren’t fully compeititive with the above, IMO.
right on, **Tamerlane]/b]. I mostly listen to electronic music with my Sennheiser’s, but also lots of rock, jazz, and classical as well. They can sometimes be a bit crispy, but of course you can keep that under control with a decent EQ.