Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners What Headphones

http://headwize.powerpill.org/projects/showproj.php?file=grado_prj.htm

check out how much you can modify your Grado's.

I hear they are the Honda Civic of headphones!

Hi jkohn,

Well, there you go! Frankly, it's why I've never considered using cordless phones. All of them are hopelessly compromised and your comments underscore mine.

Regards,

I've had a pair of Alessandro MS-1's (basically a Grado SR80) for a couple of years and they're great. Some people find the Grado sound a bit too aggressive and prefer the laid-back presentation of the Sennheiser HD600 or HD580 (which is *too* polite, for my tastes). For a sealed headphone, give the Sony V6 a whirl... These are all big and chunky 'phones so if portability is a great concern, I'd go with the Koss or the Sony E888 earbuds...

Thanks for all the info. I'm leaning toward the Sennheiser 580's. Is $199 a good price for these?

WB, the lowest price I see on the 580 is $158.95 at etronics.com. The 580 is an excellent phone, but don't underestimate the inconvenience in long listening sessions which the dual cord connection to each ear can cause. The quite similar sounding AKG K501 has a single connection which in my experience makes for less cumbersome listening sessions.

Sorry to revive this old thread, but the kid in my soul wanted to blurb a bit about my own headphones, the Sony MDR-F1…

The MDR-F1 is an interesting design which they call Full Open Air -- they do not “cup” your ears. Rather, the drivers are suspended in the middle of the air, directed perpendicular to your ear canals. The design helps to produce highly neutral and accurate sound since it does not alter the acoustic property of your auricles; basically, they are extreme-near-field loudspeakers so to speak. Maybe I am just ignorant, but I am unaware of similar designs from any other manufactures. They are solidly constructed in alloy yet extremely light weight (7 oz or so), and by far the most comfortable headphones I have ever tried; I can listen to music for hours and hours without any fatigue or auricular pain. In fact, I often forget that I am wearing them and start to walk away, only to be reminded by the pulled wire! I am not a big fan of Sony products in general, but this one is a gem; I can highly recommend them if any of you happen to be in the market of hi-fi headphones, assuming that you do not need isolation from ambient noise (these provide zero isolation).

By the way, I personally find that good headphones are quite useful tool to check how a given recording is “meant” to sound with respect to tonal balance. Obviously, headphones cannot provide the same soundstage reproduction as that from in-room loudspeakers. But I understand that carefully designed headphones are, as long as they are correctly worn, very flat in the frequency response (except that there are a small number of brands that seem to intentionally “color” the reproduced sound in order to differentiate themselves from others). Similarly, I think a good pair of headphones is useful as a reference for what you may consider as the “neutral” sound rendition.

Cheers!

Yes, sushi, that's an interesting variation on the conventional headphone design. The AKG K1000(briefly discussed at the headroom.headphone.com site) appears to be based on somewhat similar principles. Occasionally I listen to a little middle-of-the-night Rachmaninoff on my AKG 501s, but I've never had a chance to listen to one of the "ear-speakers". There's also some comments on the MDR-F1 on the headwize.com discussion board and you might be interested in the goodcans review.

You are all over the place, John!

Hmm... middle-of-the-night Rachmaninoff... Variations on Paganini??? I guess you are still healthier than me, listening to middle-of-the-night Mahler. LOL

The Sony F1's are also extremely comfortable to wear in the bed. The only problem is: my wife, who was sleeping besides, once complained to me "Would you please use headphones?" LOL

I picked up the Sony F1's a few years ago at one of the larger stores in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district. One entire wall of the floor was dedicated for quality headphones, all simultaneously connected to the same sources via an array of amps, level-calibrated, and continuously playing. There were no less than 30-40 models displayed for ad-lib auditioning that way, including all usual suspects like Senn's, Grado's and Ah-Kah-Gheh's, as well as less known Japanese brands such as Audio-Technica. It was Paradise; basically, I spent one whole Saturday there. LOL Actually, the AKG 501's were one of the very finalists in my choice, although I took the unique "loudspeakerness" of the F1's in the end. It was a heck of fun shopping!

Oh... btw, another wall of the store was entirely occupied by the Kimber and other classy cables!

Cheers!