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help choosing headphones

Discussion in 'Audio' started by robbo94, Jul 20, 2009.

  1. robbo94

    robbo94 Guest

    I need some headphones that look stlyish and are the ones that go round your head not in ear ones. I like the headcandy ones but i have heard they are not built too well. I am willing to spend up to £35 so not that much.
    Thanks in advance, chris.
     
  2. djscoop

    djscoop Active member

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    you can't go wrong with Sony. across the board from the cheap bottom of the line models to the high end professional models, Sony consistently have very good quality headphones.

    also, when it comes to audio products, you should choose a product based on audio quality, not for styling looks. if you had the choice of an ugly headphone that sounded great, or a "stylish" one that sounded like crap, wouldn't you want the one that sounds better???
     
  3. robbo94

    robbo94 Guest

    I would obviously go for the better sounding ones but thought i could have the best of both worlds, good sound and good looks. thanks for your reply helped greatly.
     
  4. djscoop

    djscoop Active member

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    in my opinion, there's nothing more stylish than having that "SONY" logo on a great pair of headphones...LOL glad to help buddy
     
  5. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    Yes, but djscoop you are an old fart! I do not think Sony logo makes it any more. Neither of us should be making suggestins about style.

    You might look at the Sennheiser line. They may be stylish.

    Again, I go for audio quality so I am stuck with in the ear buds. They blow away everything for base response except to extreme sub woofers. I couldn't find any sub woofers that did better than 6 Hz on the internet. The most expensive one was 4,000 USD each. That only did 10 Hz. I have a pair of speakers that are 4 Hz base but they have already have been refurbished once and will need new paper again. I am not ging to pay 4K for a substandard sub-woofer.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2009
  6. djscoop

    djscoop Active member

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    I didn't think 27 would make me an old fart, but i suppose to many of the members here, perhaps I am...lol. Sennheisser definately makes good products, i use their microphones in the studio all the time.

    some subs are crazy expensive. i think the best ones out there are the Bob Carver Sunfire subs. they are amazingly small...10 or 12" woofer yet put out thousands of watts...but not worth it for 4 or 5 grand.
     
  7. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    Well I AM an old fart and trust me, you sound wise/old for your years. In the real old days you might research 2-5 yrs before buying a stereo. The research was the enjoyable part. Now a days, I do not think stats mean much. That is why you see so much expensive garbage. The best equipment was made in the 70s. If you want extreme equipment you refurbish from that era or buy custom. I was speaking to a speaker man yesterday. He just built a nice custom unit that averaged 10K per piece. One of my speakers is sounding fuzzy. That hopefully means the glue is starting to separate. A re-glue is only $300 per unit. You want to fix it before the paper tears. That is better than 10K.
     
  8. garmoon

    garmoon Regular member

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    @Mez

    You are correct. I still have my Sansui 6500 Quad tuner amp that was true four channel. None of the decoding to get there. 4 separate amps built together.It still works fine and purchased in 1972 and 4 matching Pioneer speakers with 15 woofers. You can only turn the amp up 1/3 volume or the windows will crack. I finally trashed the reel to reel recorders because the equipment out lived the media. Recording tape doesn't last much more than 20 years.LOL
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2009
  9. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    garmoon, yes another old dinosaur. What I find so impressive is how much metal are in the old systems. I vividly remember someone helping me move my sterio out side. The book shelfs were too heavy for him to lift so he went for the power amp. He thought it was attached to the ground.

    Cranked up, the system could be heard a mile away. I did not know this but after dark we had hundreds of party crashers that heard the music.
     
  10. djscoop

    djscoop Active member

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    i love old reel to reel tape recorders garmoon. i love them for the sound quality and the cosmetic looks. there is a lot of warmth and depth that digital still can capture compared to old analog technology. And i just love the looks of big open reels rotating. similar to why i still enjoy records so much. the audio quality is great, but you actually have something to watch along with the music. thats one thing that digital will never be able to match.
     
  11. garmoon

    garmoon Regular member

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    Yeah guys, that amp weighs a lot.I even have the matching Sansui RA-500 reverberation unit. Each speaker weighs 70lbs. I've always measured quality with weight. The nice thing about the reel to reels is about 70% of my LPs were played probably less then 5 times because the tapes were always played. My LPs are pristine. I've moved some of them to cds. But left all the ambient pops and cracks. Digital did nothing good for music, it may be flawless- but that in itself is flawed.
     
  12. djscoop

    djscoop Active member

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    that is a great way to put it...that is what i try to teach my students. they are all into their ipods and downloading mp3s, but they need to appreciate the analog side of things as well. do you still have any reel to reel tape decks left? I'm always interesting in buying old stuff.

    i have about 300 LPs, mostly classical and classic rock. my most prized LP is an original, UNOPENED LP of Floyd's dark side of the moon. I of course have another copy as well, which is scratched up and i listen to, but i admire my unopened copy. its like history written in a long groove of audio waves...cool stuff.

    my new hobby is tube amps. i am still learning, but i've been building a few push-pull amps from scratch, as well as buying old beat up ones from ebay and rebuilding them. compared to digital electronics its like night and day. completely different technology. this is stuff i didn't learn getting my electrical engineering degree. i've had to learn most of this old technology from google...lol

    mez, thanks for the nice remarks. i try to be helpful yet humble. as i have stated before; the time that you think you know everything and talk over other people is when you prevent yourself from learning new things. mez you always talk about your passion for 70s audio technology...what type of audio gear do you have???
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2009
  13. garmoon

    garmoon Regular member

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    @djscoop

    I knew when I threw them away, somebody would have wanted them. Never thought about eBay back then. I guess I have over 200 Lps myself. I had over 150 7" reel to reel tapes full of albums on both sides of tape. One of the decks was an akai quad deck with 4 track capability.
     
  14. djscoop

    djscoop Active member

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    throwing out the tape reels i can understand, but trashing the actual akai tape deck? wow...a great piece of technology and history sitting in a landfill. at least you still have your LPs though :)
     
  15. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    Spoken like a true dinosaur. We know what we are talking about.
    Seeing is believing. A 44 magnum is far more deadly than a 22. It all has to do with weight. That said, I am amazed with the mp3 players and the in the ear buds. They defy the weight is quality rule.

    A pair of AR3as, a 'cheap' knockoff kit of a Linier 500. The power amp has no writting, one switch and a pair of in and out plugs in the back. The switch is the only moving part.

    I had a fine matching preamp but after a few years replaced it with a Haffler that wasn't nearly as good but plenty good enough for me. The original took the out put of the power amp and allowed you to switch speakers etc. The Haffler had none of that. It did not matter I only had 2 speakers. The AR3as were a 'big' 4 ohm they were all the power amp could handle. I bought the Haffler prebuilt. I had trouble building the preamp. I could not get some of the solder joints hot enough for a proper solder. I am sure the preamp problems of later years stemmed from my soldering. After the main power connections were re-soldered by a pro it worked fine and the test voltages were perfect. However, I learned my lesson, I do not have the skill to solder HiFi electronics. Much of the high amp connectors in the preamp were silver to handle the loads and be small. Silver was cheap then. I had to take the preamp to a TV repair shop to get it soldered. The power amp had been easy to apply enough heat because there was plenty of room and the full power connections were raised from the board so I could use solder pliers. Everything abot the PA was big and clunky. The pliers delivered an insane amount of heat. The transformer for the pliers was at least a pound. Yes, quality is often best measured by the pound.

    Sometimes the old stuff is just too expensive to refurbish. I have moved 95% of what I have to digital. I personally can't hear a positive difference and sometimes I can hear a negitive difference.

    My turn table died before I completed my LP conversions. I was going to have to pay a few hundred to get it fixed. At that time I discovered torrents. I am down to about 5 LPs I need to convert. My turntable a Dual 100 (I think) will probably end up on the trash heap next to the tape deck.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2009
  16. garmoon

    garmoon Regular member

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    Yeah I'm an idiot for ditching the decks. I was out of indoor storage and couldn't see them outside in garage. I put them at the curb and I think they were gone in under 2 hours if i remember correctly. I have so much crap that I have saved over the millenia, that my daughter or wife will hate me for having to get rid of it when I die.

    My Dual 1219 turntable still plays fine and I actually have a back up Dual one step down in quality. Kind of nostalgic talking about all this old equipment. I have an older Pioneer SX-770 in my pc room and my first two speakers I bought(circa 1970) KLH 10" woofers, low efficiency speakers that sound great todaythat the little 770 has no problem powering. Back then RMS really meant something.
     

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