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recommend me good headphones?

zCypher

zCypher

Diamond Member
So I never had some really good head phones. While I'm happy with my 2.1 altec lansing speakers for my computer (way more than enough for my little apartment and sounds decent enough) -- I would like a good pair of headphones for those games and movies that would benefit from a better audio experience without waking everyone up.

that, and i could use them with my laptop and smartphone too 😀

quick search found these:

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX31780
http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B006URGM36/...ASIN=B006URGM36&linkCode=asn&tag=shopbotca-20
http://www.avshop.ca/sound-amp-pa-a...phones/pioneer-hdj-1000-limited-edition-black
http://www.greytech.com/ShopItem.as...roductNo=3152475&Toc=136337:0&PageID=57451688

However I really don't know what's actually good. Any tips?
 
I love my ATH-AD700s. It was my first "real" headphone purchase more than a year ago and I still couldn't be happier with them.

If you want to do some real headphone research head over to www.head-fi.org. Be warned though. You might give yourself an aneurysm with all the information on that forum.
 
Bookmarked and registered at that forum. Man there are so many more headphones than I expected, this is going to take some time!
 
Best to try a few headphones to get an idea of what sound you like, even if you have no intent on buying the headphones you try it's still helpful in finding the sound you like. Find the sound signature you like and go from there.
 
I agree with what's been posted.

For people new to headphones that want something good that they won't have to worry too much about improving, I generally recommend Denon D2000, although they're not as good of value as they were at times (used to be common for sub $200, now seem to be $250-300). They're comfortable, sound good, forgiving of many sources, and have pretty decent bass output. They're less amp dependent (main thing is to check impedance mismatches, which due to their low impedance can be a bit of an issue) than stuff like the Sennheiser HD-650.

There are many other headphones worth considering as well, some actually cheaper than the D2000s even (actually, for value and fairly similar performance, check out the Creative Auravan Live, sometimes they can be found for about $60). If you want more portability for instance, I'd recommend say the Audio-Technica ATH-ESW9 which should be able to be found for less than the D2000s.

Head-Fi is a pretty good resource. I like InnerFidelity quite a bit, Tyll is a nice guy and actually measures the headphones while giving decent, generally not overly flowery feedback about the sound and packaging.
 
(Hearsay) At a lower pricepoint, the Audio-Technica ATH-AD700 already recommended by frowertr is the best you can get for games; good clarity, good sense of sound direction.

At a higher pricepoint, the Beyerdynamic DT880 is even better at those things and very good for games. I own these phones and they are significantly more comfortable than any other headphone I have tried. Very durable also. People use theirs for decades, and just clean and replace parts. Some use Beyerdynamic's ear pads to mod cheaper phones.

Note that those phones are "open": outside sounds are not blocked very effectively, and someone sitting next to you will hear some leaked sound from the phones. When you get to DT880's quality class, many headphones are considered to need a headphone amp (which can get pricy), but the DT880's 32ohm model does not need one, and my 250ohm ("regular") model seemed to work at least decently without an amp as well.

I also own the ATH-M50 mentioned by mshan. It is a closed/isolating phone, in the same price bracket with the AD700, and considered good bang for buck. Sounds great, good bass, solidly built. But they make my ears sweaty and it hurts the crown of my head to wear these phones for a longer duration of time. Not so good at sound directionality.
 
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Darkswordsman17 and Pia gave some great advice.

I'll just add one thing. Your source will be a major contributing factor to how your cans (headphones) sound. If you are using on-board motherboard audio via its headphone jack out then you might not see large gains moving up to audiophile grade cans. In fact it could sound worse than what you have now since more expensive headphones will be much more sensitive to noise in the system.

To take real advantage of higher grade headphones you should also move to a dedicated sound card that has a good DAC. One with a dedicated headphone amp is preferable as well. For example, I use the Asus Xonar Essense STX which are one of the best sound cards you can buy if you are serious to listening to music through headphones: http://www.amazon.com/Asus-Sound-Es...P3WG/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1330349615&sr=8-7

I see you are wanting to mainly use your cans for gaming and movie watching. If that is the case you may not need an expensive sound card like the one I linked above as movies and games can be far more forgiving than music. But I wanted to mention it to give you something else to think about. Just in case down the road you decide to "spread your wings" and give the headphones you decide to settle on a workout other than with games/movies.
 
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