Headphones?

Fusion251

Hey, lookin to get some good headphones for my Mp3 player, anyone have any suggestions? Sick of the usual bad quality ones you get with it. Any Ideas?

Cheers
Fusion

voxpop

prob better in the entertainment or gadgets forum - there are already a few threads there - but shure ec2s are good, have them myself..in ear, good quality,100 quid or so - check the budget forum, you can get them cheap until the 29th i think

Karl Hungus

Get Sennheiser, they're the absolute best when it comes to headphones, and you can get them off play.com which is handy.

voxpop

Karl Hungus wrote:

Get Sennheiser, they're the absolute best when it comes to headphones, and you can get them off play.com which is handy.

they are not the best portable solution plus i doubt an mp3 player without an amp could power any decent Sennheiser. Maybe if you want headphones - try the grado sr60, but the in canal shure and Etymotic are just as good if not better than the full headpones

John

No offense but getting really good headphones for mp3s is like getting fine oil paints and canvas for junior infants.

feylya

Moved from Instruments.

voxpop

John2 wrote:

No offense but getting really good headphones for mp3s is like getting fine oil paints and canvas for junior infants.

320kps is just as good as cd quality - but without an amp there is no reason to get any quality headphones. The in canal versions are designed to provide good quality for portable audio. It will never be the same as listening to a €5000 system but try getting a €5000 system into your pocket

OfflerCrocGod

e2c's for Mp3 player and Sennheiser HD 515 (or better if you can afford them!) for computer. That's what I have and I'm very happy with both.

voxpop

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

e2c's for Mp3 player and Sennheiser HD 515 (or better if you can afford them!) for computer. That's what I have and I'm very happy with both.

I would be dubious about the ability of a computer soundcard driving a good set of headpones unless the card was something special. For a computer or mp3 dont spend more than €150 - remember garbage in garbage out.

John

Angry_Penguin wrote:

320kps is just as good as cd quality

But how many people encode to 320kps? Most websites offer downloads of 192kps max and most people want to fit as many mp3's on their device as possible so will use a lower bitrate.

voxpop

not many will go for 320kps, Im a 192 vbr man myself but if someone wanted high spec headphones and could notice the difference then buying highend equipment and encoding at 320kps is perfectly sensible. There is also lossless for the real audiophiles.
Anyway my point is that its incorrect to say that mp3s are crap quality so dont get good equipment to listen to them.

Eoin Madsen

Angry_Penguin wrote:

320kps is just as good as cd quality - but without an amp there is no reason to get any quality headphones.

Even at 320kbps, 80% of the data goes walking. Do you honestly think it's possible for it to sound as good with that much loss? Putting numbers aside, I can sure as hell hear the difference. I'm inclined to agree with the non-quality headphone philosophy. The more sensitive the high frequencies are the more obvious the MP3 compression will be. There's no point in forking over for great headphones when all they're going to allow you to do is hear the lack of fidelity (and ultimately turn you into an audio-neurotic purist like me ). In MP3s there's nothing left to hear up there in the extended range - it all landed on the floor of the encoding room. I got some nice over-ear Phillips headphones in HMV a year or two ago for about €30. I'd recommend something like them.

The quality of the headphone amplification is also an issue obviously, but I don't think it should have any impact on headphone choice within your likely budget.

voxpop

Even at 320kbps, 80% of the data goes walking. Do you honestly think it's possible for it to sound as good with that much loss?

Can you back that up with reference or are you just working out some maths. As you've no doubt heard before, the human ear cannot hear alot of feqs that exist in recordings plus the encoding algorithms use alot of tricks to allow virtually no audiable difference between a highly encode mp3 and a cd.
If you want to be really picky you could say that the cd version is lacking because its a digital representation of an analog signal an so can never be an exact representation. The point is not whether 320kps has exactly the same data as lossless (which can be used on most mp3 players anyway) or "cd" quality but whether a listener can distingush the difference.
I would suggest that unless you have "golden ears" and know "how to listen", you will not know the difference between mp3 and cd but you will enjoy your music better with a resonable set of phones (eg shure e2c/e3c/etc)

Lump

I'm not even getting involved in this argument.... Since I'm actually trained in it.

John

voxpop

trained in choosing headphones - wow didnt even know that job existed

Lump

AHAHAHA!

John

PiE

Grado SR60's for un-amped ear-shattering joy.

Eoin Madsen wrote:

Putting numbers aside, I can sure as hell hear the difference.

You can in your bleedin' arse.

Lump

LOL!

John

Ciaran500

I can just tell your itching to jump in here.

jesus_thats_gre

Get down

Moriarty

I got a pair of sennheiser HD280 pros a couple of weeks back and they're superb. MP3 player (and pc) has no problems at all putting out more than enough sound to still hurt your ears, if you're that way inclined. Cost me €80 including shipping off ebay (first hand, bought off one of the shops there). Perfect sound quality and very comfy.

Only thing is they're a bit big to go walking down the street with them, so it depends where you're going to be using them. Sitting somewhere passing time, they're perfect. The more you want to do stuff with them on, the less suitable they become.

Eoin Madsen

Angry_Penguin wrote:

As you've no doubt heard before, the human ear cannot hear alot of feqs that exist in recordings plus the encoding algorithms use alot of tricks to allow virtually no audiable difference between a highly encode mp3 and a cd.

That is simply untrue. There are virtually no frequencies in a CD quality recording that you cannot hear. 44.1kHz was chosen because it represents the minimum number of sample points possible to represent the maximum range of human hearing - ie you need at least 2 sample points to represent a waveform for it to exist, thus 44.1kHz -> 0Hz-22.05kHz.

You are correct, a 44.1 kHz 16-bit recording is not as accurate as an analog recording. Arguably, you cannot hear that all the harmonics above 11kHz are more or less square waves (rounded off by your DACs or speakers) since perception of that should require ultraharmonic hearing. But, since your ear does not work by sampling, I think its a little more complicated than that. My ears agree, though admittedly my occupation has probably forced me to improve my sensitivity slightly beyond the norm.

My semi-random 80% figure came from: a 40MB wav (for example) compressed into 8MB mp3 (for example). The ratio varies from wav to wav. But, lossless compression, which works more or less the same as ZIP or DriveSpace, doesn't come close to this kind of ratio. What exactly do you think all that extra data was for? There are no imaginary extra frequencies that you can just remove, and any adjustment or optimisation of dynamic range is going to have some side-effects. CD quality was a compromise to begin with.

Considering the amount of data compression I have to admit MP3s are incredibly good. But it's still just a balance of data size against quality. If you can't hear the difference, then good for you. But there's no really point living in an ignorant little fantasy world and refusing to accept that there is a difference.

voxpop

Eoin Madsen wrote:

If you can't hear the difference, then good for you. But there's no really point living in an ignorant little fantasy world and refusing to accept that there is a difference.

Wooooo getting a little personal there arent we.

Anyway my point is not that "there is no difference between mp3 and cd" , its that the normal bloke on the street can buy a reasonably good set of headphones and listen to an mp3 without being able to distinguish it from the cd recording. If you wanna argue against that then fire away

Eoin Madsen

Angry_Penguin wrote:

Wooooo getting a little personal there arent we.

Good argument.

Angry_Penguin wrote:

Anyway my point is not that "there is no difference between mp3 and cd" , its that the normal bloke on the street can buy a reasonably good set of headphones and listen to an mp3 without being able to distinguish it from the cd recording. If you wanna argue against that then fire away

I can concede that some people will not, but I don't see the point in making that assumption for all people.

voxpop

Eoin Madsen wrote:

Good argument.

I can concede that some people will not, but I don't see the point in making that assumption for all people.

I didnt say all people.

Stompbox

I saw a pair of bluetake wireless ones on eBay and they look savage. Thinking of getting them but I'm going to Hong Kong so might wait til then