I just buy the little dinky inner ear headphones from walgreens and Im fine xD I'm not a musician or anything. But I know a friend who has a lot of really expensive headphones and recording gear who is a musician. I should ask him what he uses.  

I am willing to bet that it's a pair of Audez'e LCD-2 or some model of the Sennheiser HD line. Let me know!  

budget: 50-500
music preference: I actually want the headphones for computer games
form factor: over ear (like computer ones)
source: computer
Great sound quality needed  

I bought a pair of Skull Candy for £10. They broke with in a week. I reccomend JVC in ears, they've lasted almost a year, pretty good sound quality.  

Posted by Maxy

budget: 50-500
music preference: I actually want the headphones for computer games
form factor: over ear (like computer ones)
source: computer
Great sound quality needed

For $275~, you can get yourself an AKG K701 - read up on it in my previous post I wrote for Pazx. In short, it has legendary soundstage (can pinpoin where ANY sound comes from), and has the most realistic midrange sound, perfect for movies and music alike. The problem is, you'll need an amp as well. I'd recommend the AudioQuest Dragonfly at $250 - it could perfectly drive the K701 and it's the size of a thumb drive! It's crazy good for the price too.

Regards.

Posted by V.

I bought a pair of Skull Candy for £10. They broke with in a week. I reccomend JVC in ears, they've lasted almost a year, pretty good sound quality.

Yeah, Skullcandy has the WORST build quality out of any recognized headphone brand I've ever seen. JVC actually has some really nice in-ears that are less than $20. I think you have the JVC Marshmallows (very popular and found @ Best Buy/Target/Wal-mart), which I have as well, and I would go as far as to say that they could compete with my $90 Audio Technica ATH-CKM500.

They say audiophilia is all about chasing the last 20% of the full 100% possible price-quality ratio. Say if a $25 product is 70% of the possible 100%, a $75 product would probably be a 75% of the 100%. It gets worse as you go higher up the scale; at one point, you're probably paying $50 per extra 2% on the theoretical scale. My $300 Beyerdynamic T50P isn't all that much better than my $150 Audio Technica ATH-M50. It's better, but not by a whole lot.  

I'm a music producer so I generally don't use headphones... But at night I'm not trying to disturb the peace. I'm looking for something ideally with subwoofers, good treble and mid range and a little bit of EQ leveled down on the high frequency so the mids come in clearer. I was going to bother looking but I've been too busy. Preferably over-ear. Closed backed preferred slightly over open. We're talking $200 to $400 dollars.  

Posted by Healy

I'm a music producer so I generally don't use headphones... But at night I'm not trying to disturb the peace. I'm looking for something ideally with subwoofers, good treble and mid range and a little bit of EQ leveled down on the high frequency so the mids come in clearer. I was going to bother looking but I've been too busy. Preferably over-ear. Closed backed preferred slightly over open. We're talking $200 to $400 dollars.

All right. Punchy subwoofer-status bass, good mids and a toned down treble basically screams Sennheiser. Around this price point, I'll have to recommend you the Sennheiser HD598. It's a beautiful looking set of headphones that represent Sennheiser's famous house sound, or 'veil', quite well. I'm not a fan of the sound myself, being a treblehead, but Sennheiser's headphone typically sport a thick, aggressive sound with powerful bass, forward mids and laid-back and darker treble. The HD598 is no exception, being one of Sennheiser's flagship headphones in their audiophile line. Although it's an open-backed headphone, I think it suits your sonic preferences perfectly. It's also on the lower end of your price range, so you should be able to use the remaining funds for some sexy sneakers or an amp for your headphones.

Note: if you don't like the beige look of the 598, the HD595 is a very similar sounding headphone (also designed similarly), but in a more modest gray.

Regards.  

Would you happen to know as much about microphones as you do headphones, Talon?  

As a matter of fact, I do. What do you need?  

Posted by Talon

All right. Punchy subwoofer-status bass, good mids and a toned down treble basically screams Sennheiser. Around this price point, I'll have to recommend you the Sennheiser HD598. It's a beautiful looking set of headphones that represent Sennheiser's famous house sound, or 'veil', quite well. I'm not a fan of the sound myself, being a treblehead, but Sennheiser's headphone typically sport a thick, aggressive sound with powerful bass, forward mids and laid-back and darker treble. The HD598 is no exception, being one of Sennheiser's flagship headphones in their audiophile line. Although it's an open-backed headphone, I think it suits your sonic preferences perfectly. It's also on the lower end of your price range, so you should be able to use the remaining funds for some sexy sneakers or an amp for your headphones.

Note: if you don't like the beige look of the 598, the HD595 is a very similar sounding headphone (also designed similarly), but in a more modest gray.

Regards.

Thanks... If you ever need sneaker help... Hmu.  

Haha, will do. Actually, out of curiosity, what goes into determining the quality of a sneaker? When I first went into the world of audio, I was baffled by all of the components a good headphone should have - bass, midrange, highs, soundstage, impedance, proper acoustic environments, balanced frequency response, and so on. So what components should a quality sneaker have?  

I play acoustic guitar and I sing, I'd prefer to record without using a pickup as that creates a much cleaner tone in my opinion (and I like the scratching of the strings sometimes), but I need a good microphone for that. I'd like to use the one mic for both vocals and guitar unless you can find me a good, cheap combo that would sound better (both layering tracks and playing and singing at once) and I guess we'll say about $200 for the price range. Also, may be working with cajons soon enough, so they'd have to sound nice enough through the mic.  

Posted by Pazx

I play acoustic guitar and I sing, I'd prefer to record without using a pickup as that creates a much cleaner tone in my opinion (and I like the scratching of the strings sometimes), but I need a good microphone for that. I'd like to use the one mic for both vocals and guitar unless you can find me a good, cheap combo that would sound better (both layering tracks and playing and singing at once) and I guess we'll say about $200 for the price range. Also, may be working with cajons soon enough, so they'd have to sound nice enough through the mic.

I wouldn't personally recommend using a single microphone for multiple sound layers, as it is hard to find balanced and uncolored response mics for two completely different sound signatures. Instead of finding a $200 mic for both vocals and guitar, I would suggest to buy two separate microphones to get the job done. For vocal recording, I would have to suggest the Shure
SM-58. It's one of the best sub-$100 microphones in terms of vocal recording; its response has a typical bump in the upper midrange and also has a slightly boosted bass response which I think sounds great on vocals that accompany acoustic music (though, it all depends on your voice).

Now, for your acoustic guitar, I would recommend AKG's Perception 120. Condenser microphones are great for reproducing the sound of an acoustic guitar in general, and the 120 does just that. As you said, you like the scratching of the guitar strings which made me immediately think of this mic. The 120 is a very nice microphone for picking up overtones and the small things like string scratching and the like. The frequency response stays rather neutral throughout the whole spectrum and provides a very clean, clear tonality for reproduction. I can't see you being disappointed.

If you do prefer to instead use a single microphone for both, I'm not too sure on recommending one for that, as I don't have much experience with a solo microphone for multiple sound layers. Your best bet would probably be heading over to a microphone forum and doing a couple searches until you find your answer.

Regards.  

Cheers Talon, I'll check those two (which I've previously come across and seem pretty well renowned) out when I get the chance.  

I just use my apple headphones that came with my iPod <3 That's the way to go. I don't need no fancy headphones Fab guide though, I'll certainly do some googles.