gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
OK, this music is designed to flatter audio equipment, but wow !
Even through BlueTooth ...
Even through BlueTooth ...
Best Headphones for £100-200
- Thread starter FaradayCaged
- Start date
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
Holy crap !
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
"8D" my arse. Someone needs to step away from the pan controls.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
If you search on YouTube there's so much of it, it's difficult to tell where the piss-taking starts ...
I was moderately obsessed with Hafler speakers in my youth - largely based on extracting ambience from "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac
I did eventually end up making a simulator - and then my Creative soundcard gave me rear speakers ..... but by then I got my Quad ESLs which do amazing shit by themselves so long as you sit in the sweet spot ...
After years of starving myself of quality audio, these cans may motivate me to finish fixing my Leak valve amp (I bought the parts years ago) and fire up the Quads again ... I also need to FLAC my entire CD collection...
If I do that, I suppose I might bring forward buying a decent DAC - certainly if there's one with a good headphone amp built-in ...
But these "budget" cans plugged into a £25 Chinese BT adaptor / amp is starting to remind me what it was like those other times - first (original 14 bit Philips) CD player in 1987 (I never could make vinyl work for me) - cost me £100 - £300 in today's money - and I played Paul Simon's "Graceland" to death until I got some more CDs ... and then my first Quads a few years later- which I brought home and plugged into my only functioning (transistor) amp at the time - only for it to turn into a multivibrator ...
For some reason I knew to grab a couple of low value resistors and put them cross the terminals ... it made me get my finger out and rebuild the valve amp ...
And I swear the entry level NAIM CD player I bought in 1997 to go with my new stacked Quad arrangement did sound a lot better than the Philips ...
Anyway let me state I AM NOT AN AUDIOPHILE !!! these relatively cheap phones have been barely off my head since I bought them .. doubtless once settled in my French garden in place of this one, I may feel like upgrading to a portable DAC and planars ... perhaps I will get complacent again ...
Should I buy a cheap Schiit DAC ? or something else ?
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Those early CD players were utter rubbish and sounded like shit 
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
Weird though. It took me 10 years to notice it sounded a bit like sandpaper....Those early CD players were utter rubbish and sounded like shit
It probably took the belt to start slipping and me starting to borrow and listen to other players ..
My wealthier mate bought the Marantz top-loader version almost as soon as it came out - £300-odd - so about £1k in today's money ... it was years before I could afford one ... it always sounded amazing to me at the time ...
My Naim has a Philips transport and chipset I believe ...
The Quads though - totally jaw-dropping and I even love the (limited) way stacked Quads do bass in a small room - doubtless if I get my dream barn I would need to augment them ...
I never want to be without them ... when I get settled they'll have to all come apart and get seriously revamped - though perhaps not too much ... would I swap them for ready-made full-size modern panels ? (not curved ones attempting to broaden the sweet spot - or later Quads doing weird shit with delay lines and integrated sub-woofers ...)
At the end of the day it's always a compromise and you fill in the gaps if you're lucky and get back to the music (after years of raves I feel headphone bass in my legs) - and I am poorly "educated" - never owned good vinyl - failed as any kind of musician (clarinet) - I can probably sing in tune though (albeit with an inconvenient vocal range) and am casually attempting to learn songs by Brassens and Trenet ...
But most of the music I listen to was never played in a room by troubled musicians with spit dribbling out of their instruments - and I haven't experienced live music for decades..
.. and my brain and ears (albeit I always stayed at the back and wore earplugs) are 62 years old ..
The headphones are still sounding lovely though
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gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
This is amazing headphone music :-
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Are these sensible for using on trains etc - or is there some benefit in getting headphones that are actively noise cancelling?
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
The rainy conditions have been forcing me to fall back on the Koss KSC75s I recently bought and they are very good for certain kinds of music driven from a portable amp - albeit clamped to my ears with a tube hat - maybe the ear clips suit some ears better...
Annoying that they are now twice what I have paid for them in the past.
DARN - they've gone down in price again
£17.99
The Philips are still significantly better though - albeit not five times as good ...
I still think the Koss Portapros were shit.
The KSC75s were customer returns - it goes to show we're all different in our acceptance of the various inevitable compromises ...
Annoying that they are now twice what I have paid for them in the past.
DARN - they've gone down in price again
£17.99
The Philips are still significantly better though - albeit not five times as good ...
I still think the Koss Portapros were shit.
The KSC75s were customer returns - it goes to show we're all different in our acceptance of the various inevitable compromises ...
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
One joy that age does bring is your inability to differentiate between hugely expensive headphones and cheaper headphones. I have a pair of wired Sennheiser HD20rs, and a pair of Bluetooth ones that don't have a manufacturers name https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09TVHSVMR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1. Both are perfectly fine. Maybe to young ears, not so much.
farmerbarleymow
I'm Petee's spirit animal
Same here, my hearing isn't what it was when I was younger so average headphones are fine.One joy that age does bring is your inability to differentiate between hugely expensive headphones and cheaper headphones. I have a pair of wired Sennheiser HD20rs, and a pair of Bluetooth ones that don't have a manufacturers name https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09TVHSVMR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1. Both are perfectly fine. Maybe to young ears, not so much.
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teuchter
je suis teuchter
I used to have some headphones on me - in-ear ones - pretty much all the time. That was when I commuted in and out of work each day and I'd listen to stuff while walking or on the tube.
Then I became self employed and WFH and fell out of the habit. The headphones became abandoned in the bottom of a bag.
But - recently, for various reasons I've been doing a lot of long train journeys, after period (partly thanks to Covid) of very few. And also possibly partly thanks to Covid - half the population seems to have lost any awareness that playing stuff on mobile phone speakers might be annoying for other people, and certain public transport journeys are now a cacophony of film soundtracks, youtube clips and speakerphone conversations.
So, I tried using some in-ear headphones a little while ago and was reminded how nice it is to listen to stuff on the move, and this prompted some exploration of headphone options.
Problem for me with in-ear ones is that they often don't really stay in properly, especially if I'm moving. So I thought I'd try some on/over ear headphones.
I got some of the HD25s that everyone was going on about above. Secondhand for £30. Well, they are OK. They sound perfectly good if not exceptional. But they don't really cut out much external noise. They cut out a lot less external noise than my fairly bog standard in-ear phones. And they sit on your ear, not around it, so I start to get sore ears after an hour or two, which is sooner than the in-ear ones start to get uncomfortable. No good for an 8 hour train journey. And of course they are bulky so you can't just go in your pocket.
I started to look at over-ear headphones. But they are even more bulky, not really great for travelling, and the good ones are expensive.
So, thought I'd see if I could do better in the in-ear world, compared to the pretty standard ones I've always used so far. Managed to not completely fall down a rabbit hole on this site - https://crinacle.com/rankings/iems/
Tried these three. All available for around £50 second hand
They sounded pretty good. But just weren't ever going to stay in my ears.
www.bose.co.uk
They also sounded fairly good - despite me having some prejudice against Bose. And the little hooks mean that they weren't going to fall out. They are a little bit bulky so you feel the weight on your ears. They don't have any noise cancelling capability.
www.samsung.com
These somehow do fit my ears, and don't seem to fall out (even though you might expect them to, looking at the shape). And they sound as good as any of the others. And they have some noise cancelling, something that I've always been a bit sceptical about, but trying them on trains & buses it does make a difference. So, these are what I am going with for now. I've not yet seen how long I can tolerate them for, on a long journey.
All of those are "true wireless" ie, connect via bluetooth and aren't even attached in pairs. I was a bit dubious about this to start with. Another thing with batteries to worry about keeping charged. Easier to lose. Will the bluetooth keep losing connection? But after using them for a bit I reckon all this is outweighed by not having stupid cables. Cables that tangle themselves up every time you put them away. Cables that get caught on things when you are trying to do anything. Cables that transmit a whole load of mechanically generated noise to the earphones whenever you move. The future is wireless and I'm now on board.
Then I became self employed and WFH and fell out of the habit. The headphones became abandoned in the bottom of a bag.
But - recently, for various reasons I've been doing a lot of long train journeys, after period (partly thanks to Covid) of very few. And also possibly partly thanks to Covid - half the population seems to have lost any awareness that playing stuff on mobile phone speakers might be annoying for other people, and certain public transport journeys are now a cacophony of film soundtracks, youtube clips and speakerphone conversations.
So, I tried using some in-ear headphones a little while ago and was reminded how nice it is to listen to stuff on the move, and this prompted some exploration of headphone options.
Problem for me with in-ear ones is that they often don't really stay in properly, especially if I'm moving. So I thought I'd try some on/over ear headphones.
I got some of the HD25s that everyone was going on about above. Secondhand for £30. Well, they are OK. They sound perfectly good if not exceptional. But they don't really cut out much external noise. They cut out a lot less external noise than my fairly bog standard in-ear phones. And they sit on your ear, not around it, so I start to get sore ears after an hour or two, which is sooner than the in-ear ones start to get uncomfortable. No good for an 8 hour train journey. And of course they are bulky so you can't just go in your pocket.
I started to look at over-ear headphones. But they are even more bulky, not really great for travelling, and the good ones are expensive.
So, thought I'd see if I could do better in the in-ear world, compared to the pretty standard ones I've always used so far. Managed to not completely fall down a rabbit hole on this site - https://crinacle.com/rankings/iems/
Tried these three. All available for around £50 second hand
They sounded pretty good. But just weren't ever going to stay in my ears.
SoundSport Free wireless headphones — Bose Product Support
Go completely wireless with the comfortable Bose SoundSport Free wireless headphones. These truly wireless earbuds will stay secure through even the toughest workouts.
They also sounded fairly good - despite me having some prejudice against Bose. And the little hooks mean that they weren't going to fall out. They are a little bit bulky so you feel the weight on your ears. They don't have any noise cancelling capability.
Buy Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Earbuds | Galaxy AI | Samsung UK
Galaxy Buds2 with Bluetooth Connectivity, Noise Free Calling & 18Hr Play Time With Case & new AI features. Finance Options Available & Free Delivery at Samsung UK
www.samsung.com
These somehow do fit my ears, and don't seem to fall out (even though you might expect them to, looking at the shape). And they sound as good as any of the others. And they have some noise cancelling, something that I've always been a bit sceptical about, but trying them on trains & buses it does make a difference. So, these are what I am going with for now. I've not yet seen how long I can tolerate them for, on a long journey.
All of those are "true wireless" ie, connect via bluetooth and aren't even attached in pairs. I was a bit dubious about this to start with. Another thing with batteries to worry about keeping charged. Easier to lose. Will the bluetooth keep losing connection? But after using them for a bit I reckon all this is outweighed by not having stupid cables. Cables that tangle themselves up every time you put them away. Cables that get caught on things when you are trying to do anything. Cables that transmit a whole load of mechanically generated noise to the earphones whenever you move. The future is wireless and I'm now on board.
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