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Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

Those are low-budget audiophile products, ie they are still marketed mainly to boost the ego of purchasers.

There are three brands of headphones that pros use: Beyerdynamic (typically DT-100 or DT-770), Sennheiser (typically HD-5/650) and Sony (typically MDR-7506/9). Beyerdynamics have somewhat better isolation so they're more popular in music studios, Sonys are more comfortable when you have to wear them all day so they're more popular on film sets; I favor the 7506 and am on my 4th or 5th pair. Some people love Sennheisers but I personally don't care for the ergonomics.

They're not beautiful, lightweight, or fashionable, but they're a lot nicer to listen to - which is why one or other of them was almost certainly used at the recording stage. If it was good enough for the people who made the recording, it's good enough for you. Also, you'll save money compared to the 'quality' consumer brands.

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There are a few more brands and models that pros use. The AKG K240 has been in use for decades, and I think they're quite charming. Audio Technica has made a lot of in-roads into mid-level pro studios in particular (i.e. not million dollar rooms, but still quite good studios that make good records regularly). I've also seen Shure SRH series headphones in professional contexts.

But, your statements about "pro" headphones are accurate. They aren't the nicest looking, but they are really good, and I always recommend a good pro set of headphones over the marketed crap from Beats, Bose, Monster, etc. $250 will buy a lot of headphone quality from one of the pro audio manufacturers.

I have to try the Beyer some time. Agreed on the Sennheiser ergonmics - and the price.

I can't stand the Sonys. They're specifically designed for tracking & editing - all that screech points up Bad Things Happening. But they fatigue my ears.

Laugh now, but I landed on the Koss KTXPRO1 ( which are $20 to $40 ) and have basically stopped looking :) Most comfortable thing I've ever used and they're actually pretty flat, except for a little bass bump and a smidgen of upper mid. I think I'm on my tenth pair. They're a bit too light weight - if you catch the cable on something they'll fly off your head.

And yeah - I bet the $500 vs $20 figures into my perception of things.

I can mix on 'em, at least to the rough stage.

That's nothing laugh-worthy. Audio equipment faces massive diminishing returns. If you're looking for midrange sound you might as well pay attention to the people recommending sub-$50 headphones as to the ones talking of $150. For instance, the $30 Panasonic HTF600s is better-sounding than the $160 ATH-M50x frequently recommended as an entry-level audiophile headset. As for studio-quality headphones, chinese Superlux/Takstar models are as good as the $200-300 range.

As a die hard fan of the M50x (and no qualifications whatsoever for judging headphones) I'll have to explore those Panasonics you mention. I haven't considered that company as a quality maker of audio gear since the portable CD player era. Did you do the test yourself, or are you going off of a review site? I typically rely on head-fi, but I'm always looking for a recommendation in this field.

From all the reviews I've seen, Bose noise-cancelling headphones are pretty much the best you can buy. Especially if you want earbuds (the QC20s). They're extremely expensive though. Do you (or anyone) have suggestions for alternatives?

I believe they're good as far as they go because Bose has the strongest patent portfolio in this area, but wearing any kind of noise canceling headphones immediately gives me the unpleasant sensation of having my eardrums sucked outwards. I'm not sure why; I think it's a side effect of the tiny latency inherent in the design. It's so unpleasant to me that I stopped paying attention to new products in that category so I'm a bad person to ask.

For the price of Bose noise-cancelling headphones you can get headphones from the three brands the parent mentioned (throw in AKG for good measure) that sound better in 'lab conditions'. But if your discerning feature is 'noise-cancelling', i.e. headphones that sound excellent in noisy environments like trains, coffeeshops or open work environments I believe Bose is the king and will be as long as their patents are enforced.

I had an in-ear Noise Cancelling Philips, that's around $20

And for heavy noise cancelling goals it was very good (like, being able to work with someone with a lawnmower or a drill next to you)

Granted, half of the noise isolation is passive, half active, still, very good

I use Klipsch x7i and they allow you to listen to audiobooks on a low volume setting in an underground train. Which, in Moscow, seems like a perfection.

The sound is very clear, but not balanced. Neither an expert nor a musician though.

tomc1985: hope you see this - your account has been hellbanned for over two years (about 850 days, with one comment visible 270 days ago - not sure how that happened).

Your comments over those years don't seem bad at all - sometimes perhaps a little confrontational but not aggressively so. Perhaps HN could allow users above a certain karma threshold vote on [dead] posts, with those scores going towards a "repeal fund" - make decent comments over a certain period and get temporarily un-banned.

Bose QC15s and QC20s are the best active noise-cancelling headphones out there... but the problem is, hey still have very mediocre sound, but they do the noise-cancelling part well. They are also massively overpriced.

Sennheiser HD280 Pros have extremely good passive isolation, and will beat QC15s at a fraction of the price, in both isolation and audio quality.

So yes, Bose still loses when you look at the big picture. Bose is very good at marketing, they are not very good at making quality audio.

There's a fair amount of pros that utilize Audeze and HiFiMan gear as well. Planar magnetics are popular.

Erik Larson is pretty vocal about his use of LCD-2s for mastering. Which... Honestly, I'm not generally a fan of his work, so it's not necessarily a ringing endorsement.

Also kind of surprised at your lack of mention of AKGs - they're another very popular brand for studio work.

Honestly I forgot about AKG. They're pretty good, although I don't see them a lot in commercial environments (~15 year window).

Almost every studio used to have nothing but AKG K240 phones for monitors in the room. I haven't worked professionally directly in the field for years (I work in live sound occasionally now, and do interact with recording engineers occasionally), but I still see them discussed regularly enough online to assume they are still common. I love the look of them, and always have. To me, they are the definition of "studio headphone". (They aren't what I use in my home studio, as there are better phones, if you're willing to spend more money, but they are a good headphone for a good price.)

These Yamaha headphones are excellent, http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/yamaha-rh3c-profess.... Durable, they collapse and sound great. I have another set of open phones with foam surrounds, the foam is not stable and collects gunk if used in a backpack. The Yamaha phones very respectable replacements for the MDR unit and stay clean while taking up little space.

What's different between the $80 7506 and $200 7509?

Slightly larger driver, slightly heavier, supposedly has a greatly-extended frequency range of 5Hz - 80 KHz vs 10hz - 20Khz in the 7506. Of course your typical D/A converter won't even render such low frequencies due to DC coupling, and if they were there you'd want to EQ them away pronto as they would eat all your headroom. While I continue to enjoy excellent high-frequency hearing even in my mid 40s (to my surprise), neither I nor anyone else needs a tweeter that goes to 80 KHz.

The MDR-7509 and its successors the 7910 and 7920 have a lower impedance than the 7506 (24 vs 63 ohms) so if you plug them into the same sound source the higher-numbered models will be a bit louder - and as we all know, 'louder = better' for most people. This plus the larger driver is somewhat helpful for DJs, who work in very loud environments, but that's a fast track to hearing damage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_MDR-V6

Why I like the 7506 so much: on film sets I give them to eople to listen in and they say 'is it on? I don't hear anything.' Then I turn the volume down or make a small noise next to the boom microphone and jaws drop. Plugged into a quality microphone like a Schoeps, which has a very flat frequency response, it's like there's nothing there. I always have two pairs now because if one gets damaged I can't deal with other brands at all.

thanks for the info; I'm considering upgrading my office headphones (I've got some random $20 over-the-ear pair right now). $80 is certainly reasonable, and I prefer transparent speakers in general.

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