What headphones do you use?

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.
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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).

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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 …

Damn you Apple! Now I’m going to need to buy a new set.

I lost my IEMs, UE TripleFi 10’s, when my bag got stolen awhile ago. So I have been using whatever I had around, HiFiman stuff and whatever work samples we had.

But I just got these. as an early Christmas present. Zero Audio ZH-DX200-CT. Better known as the Carbo Tenore’s

And wow :open_mouth: They sound amazing for that $40 bucks they are. I prefer to listen to these at work now as opposed to the Senhiesser HD650’s I had at work before. The verge has a little article on them. Stop what you’re doing and buy these $38 earphones - The Verge

As well as a 400 page thread on HeadFi forums. Not sure how I over looked these for so long. Zero Audio - ZH-DX200 Carbo Tenore | ZH-DX210 Carbo Basso (Carbon & Aluminium IEM) thread | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org

I’ve been using Shure SE425 IEMs for the last year or so. Picked them up to replace my SE115’s that I’ve had since 2010.

They’re super clear & crisp, and very comfortable. Though, kinda wish I had sprung for the SE535’s because I like a little more bass in my listening experience.

I’m using Grado Sr60i. It’s perfect for Metal. In my opinion, It’s one of the best entry headphones

I want to buy me a pair of Sennheiser HE 1;

I’m in love with my Bose Quietcomfort 20i, I bought them when I spent a bit of time flying between the UK and the US in my last job, they also work pretty well when you want to switch off in the corner of a coffee shop!


I also occasionally use the Marshall Major 50 FX, but have always found they hurt my ears if I wear them for a long time, and the sound quality never quite had the base I liked. But they were great to use in the office (on a low volume due to the sound leakage), as it was obvious when you needed the occasional ‘head down, please don’t disturb’ moments as it was obvious you weren’t available!
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I am still rocking the original Parrot Ziks! Would never buy the 2.0 + as Parrot decided to ruin the visuals. My Ziks still have that wow, the same as the day I got them.
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Great price great product. I hope l get many years of use.