[Lolita Palmer]

Im really missing listening to music, having a two year old son means my music will either wake him up or mean he wants to "help" me listen on the computer so I cant really use normal speakers any more.

Im by no means an audiophile, I used to play guitar and appriciate music..but I will only be listening to MP3's and theyr not all 320k infact I find myself listening to youtube more oftern than not.

Heres what I want:

Sound deadening/cancellation
NOT in earbuds... I just dont like them.. maybe ive just used the wrong type.
No amplifier for ipod/PC

My taste is "stadium" rock like led zeplin, pearl jam, pink floyd

But budget is pretty much open, if its £30 great if theyr £200 and worth it thats ok as well.

[usaguedriedax]

Sennheiser makes some noise canceling headphones here http://www.sennheiserusa.com/private...el-line_500370

[BoarmomorurrY]

pmx-100

[engideNedmupe]

I'm using Sennheiser HD555s. IMO best bang for buck headphones out there.

[glamourcitys]

I'm using Sennheiser HD555s. IMO best bang for buck headphones out there.

This. [thumbup]

[Kghyutgykim]

The 555's are open back and on top of that they are kind of power hungry, between those 2 things I would say they are not the best for what he wants. The music comes out the back of the headphones and attracts his son it's no different than just having speakers on.

For Noise Iso and low power use ear buds really are your best bet, but they are not for everyone.

You could try something like the Audio-Technica ATH-ESW9A they are fairly small, are sealed so will provide some sound isolation, and they are efficient enough that they should run fine without an amp.

You should check out www.headphone.com It is a good place online to window shop.

For what you want you are interested in a sealed headset with a high sensitivity rating and a low impedance rating. They have a lot of pictures to show you what they look like, I know it wouldn't be practical for you to buy from them but you can do some research and figure out what you want. For the record I am not at all a fan of "noise canceling" headphones and personally I would avoid them.


Oh and one last thing my Bang for the Buck Headphones are AKG K701, I got them for less than the Cost of the HD 595's but most reviewers compare them very favorably to the HD 650's. I have directly compared them with the HD 595's one of my friends own. I would say my AKG's have a more open sound to them, with more detail, than the Sens, I admit that the Sen's had more bass but to my ear the AKG's were flat out better sounding.

[DenisLevvin]

Yea the HD555s are definitely good bang for buck from what I heard. Slightly better then the Razer Carcharias I'm using. I only got the Razor cause of the mic (which works pretty damned good) and it offers great sound quality. However if I didn't require a mic I would of gone HD555s

[Automobill]

This. [thumbup]

Senn HDs are quite an awesome range.. vote for HD-595 here![thumbup]

[xesvideo]

Use what the music producers use...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._ya_oh_product

[blodwarttufla]

Senn HDs are quite an awesome range.. vote for HD-595 here![thumbup]

I second that apart from the part Rastlin mentioned they are open cup.

[Kghyutgykim]

My bad it was the 595's that I compared my AKG's with, I have actually compared them with 555's as well but those belong to a different friend, and mostly I was just showing him how awesome my new headphones were. It was also the 595's that I was thinking of for the price vs price, I spent about $240 on the K701's.

Anyways it is my honest belief that AKG generally offers better value for the money then Sennheiser, they design headphones that were intended to compete with the top of the line Senn's but because they are a less well known brand they end up having to sell at a lower price.

Oh and I totally want to hear the new HD 800's those look like an actual break through in headphone design, but they currently reside way way outside of my budget.

[SinyugiN]

dude, I had the same problem with in ear phones....till i found these:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDREX90LP...510758&sr=1-72

an absolute joy to listen to, I have a very similar range of music taste, Pearl Jam being my favourite band and the quality of these is excellent. I tried themagainst some Seinheisser (spelling) ones that were twice the price and these absolutely dwarfed them for clarity.

[RadcliffXX]

Gadget Show Top 5 headphones...

http://fwd.five.tv/gadget-show/video...p-5-headphones

[Twendypreency]

May not be exactly what you're looking for but these are great value imo and I love them. They don't let out a lot of noise as far as I can tell.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sennheiser-H.../dp/B0007QN18K

[Lolita Palmer]

im even more confused now, I definatly dont want open headphones

I wantede noise cancellation becuase I work in datacenters.

I quite like th e look of the sony MDR7506 but again no noise cancellation.

And they have to be useable on a ipod, im not going to carry an amp about with me.



Why is that every review I see rates every set of headphones as 10/10 5 stars etc, is this just paid for marketing?

[engideNedmupe]

im even more confused now, I definatly dont want open headphones

I wantede noise cancellation becuase I work in datacenters.

I quite like th e look of the sony MDR7506 but again no noise cancellation.

And they have to be useable on a ipod, im not going to carry an amp about with me.



Why is that every review I see rates every set of headphones as 10/10 5 stars etc, is this just paid for marketing?

Actually, I use my HD555s at work, in a quiet office. Even though they are open back you can't really hear them, and no one has ever complained about them. Unless ofcourse you like to have your music REALLY loud.

[glagoliska]

For metal / rock pick up some Grados.

[Adfcvkdg]

I have a pair of these :
Denon AH-D1001S
http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AHD1001S...5573381&sr=1-2

Well I have the AH-D1001K, which are the same thing as the S but the cups are black. Right now the K version is $50 more than the S version.

They sound great for the price. I can't complain, they keep out a fair bit of noise. They aren't noise canceling but that **** is over rated anyway. A closed cup cuts down a lot of noise without having to pay the price for noise canceling cans.

Ryan

[Kghyutgykim]

Gadget Show Top 5 headphones...

http://fwd.five.tv/gadget-show/video...p-5-headphones

Thats nice I was thinking that was a serious review until they started talking about the Bose being one of the top headphones, I have heard those before on a demo stand, I would rate them 7 for comfort (they are not bad but the ear pads feel really strange they have a cloth thing that pushes against your ears) a 6 for noise isolation, they isolate some noise though the model they tested is not a noise canceling set, and will not isolate as much sound as over the ear closed back models. and a 12 for sound quality I have seen them on display at stores like Target, Best Buy and Fry's in the past, one of the stores I think it was a target had the demo set up so you could bring your own music on a portable player, they had several other sets out where you could do the same, the nearly $200 Bose set lost to a $49 pair of Skullcandy headphones in A/B testing. They also feel pretty cheaply built, having accidentally broken more than a few pairs of headphones in the past I usually feel I have a good grasp on when something is about to break.

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

that is a review of the Bose Acoustimass system, but it also has some information about how all of this Bose "noise canceling" stuff found it's way into headphones.

There are 2 different things here that you should be thinking about.

Noise Isolation, this is simply how much of the ambient sound the headphone or in ear headphone blocks out by being between your ear canal and the source of the sound. Some in ear headphones claim to isolate as much as a 26+ db reduction of ambient sound, this is roughly the same as putting in a good pair of ear plugs. I have seen over the ear closed claim something like 10~15 db of noise Isolation.

Then you have noise cancellation, which is IMHO a crock of ****, the theory is that the headphones have an external mic that picks up ambient sounds, then they have a basic dsp that analyzes the sound, then they play back an "antisound" which is in theory just the original sound played back at a counter phase so that it causes destructive interference and "Cancels" the original sound. Even if that portion works well which I have serious doubts about, in a noisy environment you would be loading up your drivers creating "anti sound" which would cause reduced performance listening to the actual music you want to hear.

If you can stomach them and they are not my favorite, a good pair of in ear headphones from a company like Shure or Etymotic would be your best bet, they are typically highly efficient and will drive fine without an amp. Your next best bet would be a pair of full sized circumaural headphones with a fairly low impedance and a high sensitivity.Shure SRH440 with a 44 ohm impedance and 105 dB/mW sensitivity should drive reasonably well without an amp. The Sony MDR-XB 700's claim 24 ohm, 106 dB/mW, and 10 db of noise isolation, they sound like exactly like what you want. 10 DB represents a relative doubling of the perceived sound level, so you could expect them to roughly cut in half the perceived loudness of any external sounds.