headphones for ipod

[Mouth on Legs]

sorry i know this perhaps should be on a headphone forum but few people look there

looking for quality pair portable headphones for the ipod currently looking at Sennheiser PXC250 NoiseGard

any opinions or suggestions

[shadowritten]

Speaking personally, found the Sennheiser PXC250 NoiseGard VERY disappointing (and stupidly bulky, too!). My current phones of choice are the Sony MDR-J20s - extremely good sound for just £15, and amazingly comfy to wear.

[extremelydodgy]

Depends on your budget. Simply put, the iPod suffers from a 'low impedance bass falloff' which means that plugging in phones with low impedance will cause the bass to be reduced, and in the case of very low impedance phones there will also be an increase in distortion. While this may not be consciously audible to many, it's something that can contribute to some opinions of the iPod's inferior sound quality.


In reality though, the iPod can have very good sound quality... outstripping the Sony, the iRiver, the iAudio, etc. All you have to do is to get a phone with a sufficient impedance for the distortion issues to go away and also for the falloff to be minimised.


The PXC250 is a very good solution for the iPod as far as the above situation's concerned. The iPod has more than enough power to drive it properly (once you remove the European cap) and the 300 ohm impedance completely eliminates the bass falloff. However as a phone as shadowritten points out it is a bit bulky. The headphone part isn't, but the need to carry an additional noise cancellation stick makes it unwieldy. The noise cancellation is very effective against fan-type noises (aircraft engines, air-con, etc) but isn't effective for example when on the tube or against screaming kids in planes. I can't recommend it that much despite the fact that I don't think it sounds bad at all, especially with the cancellation on.

My favourite to use with the iPod in terms of closed headphones is the Sennheiser HD25-1 (~£130). It provides good isolation, good sound, a high degree of portability for a full-sized phone and with a 70 ohm, impedance, a huge reduction in the falloff problem. The in-earphone recommendation would be the Shure E3c (~£70 from US), which is accurate, highly isolating and is very portable. A very popular in-earphone is the Sony MDR-EX71SL, which definitely not the best earphone available for the money but does offer useful isolation from outside noise. The non-isolated clip-on headphone recommendation would be the Koss KSC-75 ($20 in the US).


The other phones I use with the iPod are:
Sennheiser PX200 (~£30) - usefully closed and very handy, not the best sounding but not a bad compromise for the price and function
Sony Qualia 010 (~£2,000) - possibly the most in-yer-face accurate headphones around at this time, lighter than most small portable phones