What headphones do you use?

:exclamation: Oh, that’s a good point. The TMA-1’s architecture would suggest a similar internal volume reduction…

Mechanically those Sennheiser Momentums are intriguing.

Yo - any Definitive discount deals for five-star Core77 Forum members? :smiley:

yes and yes, I’ll PM you.

Personally also in the Audio Technica ATH M50X camp. I really like them. The sound is mostly neutral. Not unlike my reference monitors. They have slightly hyped bass which I find quite enjoyable and keeps me from cranking up the volume all the time. Also, the slight bass hype is not at the expense of deep sub which can happen in other cans.

Stylistically, I quite like the clean design. Nothing is sticking out and there’s no crazy bling to them :laughing: I’d really like a black on black model though. They may seem a bit boring and start to be dated but they may just be due to their popularity.

For functionality, I didn’t think the collapsible design would be all that useful. Seeing my AKGs had lasted years of being thrown in my bag. But it turned out to be super useful as they take up a lot less space that way. They are quite comfy. They do get hot and start pushing on the top of my ears after a while though. But I’ll wear them 4-5hrs a day at times without major discomfort. The removable cables and bundled 3 pack is really neat to. I keep the super long one plugged into my work desktop, the slinky one on my desk at home and the short cable stays in my bag for on the go listening.

I’d recommend these to just about anyone. The price might be a bit higher than their value due to their popularity. But that popularity comes from a solid product that won enthusiasts over mostly through word of mouth.

Several posters have brought up the Audio-Technica ATH-M50 but no pics, so here they are;

I may have to add them to my list of considerations.

When work always use headphones for the inspiration, mine is Sony.

I use Sennheiser HD 219

I love my 7506’s, but as I mentioned I had a hankering for a different set. I was fortunate enough to be gifted a sample pair of Audio Technica ath-msr7 headphones. I was given the brown ones, not black. But hey, they were free, and the brown is growing on me! :smiley:

They do sound fantastic, and are very comfortable. I don’t know that they are radically better than my 7506’s (for the price difference), but for now they are the shiny new car in the garage.

Just copped a pair of Bose Soundlink on ear wireless headphones. I considered the noise cancelling over the ear model but the noise cancelling feature creates a pressure on my ears I dont care for personally. Plus I like to wear light headphones at the gym. So far pretty impressed with the sound, case, quality, weight, comfort and battery life. I have been listening to music all day at work and the battery is still at 100%. One phone call came in while using the headphones, it announced an incoming call plus the caller. Clarity was impressive even stepping outside the office 50 yds away. Two thumbs from me.

http://headphones.specout.com/compare/1121-5570/Audio-Technica-ATH-M50S-vs-Bose-Soundlink-On-ear

These look great! Any recommendations in the $150 range?



$20 mono price headphones. These things have a bit of a following due to their crazy sound to price ratio. They lean towards being a little base heavy without sounding muffled like beats sometimes do. The detachable cable + ability to fold on 3 axis has saved them from countless accidents.
41HLwjRxwYL.jpg

It kills me when I see designers buy open tool products. Wag of the finger dude.

For a better price option, I use our BOOM Rogues. One of the nice things here is they ship with an optional coiled DJ style cable so you don’t yank your laptop off your desk:

http://www.polkaudio.com/rogue/d/1240


A little bit better sound, $150, but on ears: http://www.polkaudio.com/hinge/d/1044

+1

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Keno,

Open tooling is an existing product mold that can be utilized by any person/company that wants to simply slap there logo or license name on it. It is not actually designed really except for slight modifications that might be done to alter the tool/product from another being sold. For example: if you wanted to sell sunglasses but don’t have the time to design them, you can find a manufacturer who probably has several generic tooling styles available for very low price. Thus eliminating the cost involved in creating “new” tooling as well as the need for design (your job).

[ Deleted ]

Keno,

Its okay to have your own opinion. I myself believe that supporting properly designed products adds value and respect to my profession. This type of business model can actually be applied across the board with all consumer goods/services. In the food industry, small farms and gmo free products made an impact because consumer demanded healthy quality over poor quantity and are now respected by big business.

Here is a quote from an article you might find interesting. “Creative professionals in general are some of the most ripped-off service providers in the world, in large part because of the misinformed mentality that our clients have about what our work is worth. I firmly believe that all designers should charge exactly what they’re worth and nothing less, not to cheat the client, but to legitimize the industry.” Don't Be Forever Branded as a Cheap, Low-End Designer

Happens in the carbon fiber bike industry quite a bit as well. I’m not talking about knock-offs (which are also rampant and can be very dangerous), but “open-mold” bike frames which are designed and engineered by the factory staff, and sold to brands needing to get to market quickly. The quality of some of the produced frames can be very high, and are even favored by big US brands needing to fill a category. The Ibis Hakkalugi and Silk Road frames for example were open-mold products, built to Ibis’ engineering spec.

There are all kinds of levels of this, but the Mono stuff is straight off the shelf. Keno, let me try to make an analogy to the world you are in more frequently. Someone wants to launch a new site, instead of designing it and coding it, or even buying a nice template (Slippyfish’s example) they just crack open their competitor’s site, take the code, swap the logos and hit publish… this probably happens. In the case of open tool hardware often the R&D costs have been paid, the product might be for sale under a different brand name in a different region even.

Are the Mono products good? They sound better the $20, but they don’t sound better than $50. They have created a business model that eliminates the need to pay for hardware design, tooling, retailers, or distributers. They have literally the intrinsic value of the product plus a little profit… a cost+ model.

There are other reasons to go open tool as well, as Slippyfish mentioned. It might be speed to market, or filling a hole in the product portfolio. NPD resources might be tight. So why do I wag the finger at designers who buy product like this? I’ll go to another analogy. For me it is a bit like you get all of these great chefs together in a city, lets say Paris. And they each get to go to whatever restaurant they want… and one chef goes to McDonalds and gets a BigMac because he got the most beef per Euro.

OK, this got way OT, I’m sorry to the poster who made the comment about the Mono, this isn’t about audio, it is about supporting good design with every dollar I spend. Do I have some Ikea stuff? Sure. I’m not made of money, but when I do buy something inexpensive I want to make sure the company supports design.

After having killed off my old headphones, I almost constantly use my Bowers&Wilkins C5s. Great replacement for the iPhone “plugs”, the only thing I don’t like about them is they are fairly discreet: in my experience, colorful headphones are great for having people realising why you might not hear them when walking around town …