Advice on headphones

[steve998]

I ahave a cyrus cd7q and C7 integrated amp.

I have £250 to spend on headphones.

I plan to use either

1 - Integrated amps output and £250 (grado headphones)
2 - Headphone amp - £150 and £100 headphones

I think the first option would be best, but i would appreciate someone elses opinion.

I have newver used my Cyrus amp with headphones and dont know how good the output is.

Help me please as i want to make the most of my equipment at night!

[steve998]

Or to put in another way.....

Will their be a difference in sound quality using SR125 OR SR225 Grado headphones using my Cyrus headphone socket? Will I get any benefit?

I have seen SR 125 headphones for about £130 and SR225 headphones for about £180, is this a good deal?

Hope someone can help.

[StevieDvd]

What sort of music do you tend to listen to? Grados tend to be the rock/modern music choice - not said to be the best choice if you only listen to classic.

Grados are a lot less hassle to drive through standard headphone sockets - though they do improve a bit if driven via a good headphone amp.

Are you aware of the Grado comfort issues?

UK Grado prices are high, though you can get the Alessandro equivalents sent from the states which works out cheaper even if you get hit by customs duty etc.

Personally I'd not go for the compromise route of amp/cans for £250 but get the better headphones and if needed get a headphone amp later. I did that before and ended up upgrading and spending more

Though you will get advice here (we try) there's a far larger supply of advice (and opinions) over at head-fi. Although the largest base of users is US there are a few Europeans and Brits there and the for sale forum is more specific to headphones/amps than the for sale forums here.

Where are you located btw - may be able to suggest where you could try some headphones out such as Charing Cross Rd London.

Steve

[steve998]

cheers for the reply,

I am based in Bedford. My local sevenoaks do not do demo's for Health and Safety reasons (Hygiene)

I listen to rock 90% and classical / movie soundtracks 10%

I have heard that Grado's are a bit more uncomfy, but i will only be spending about one albums worth of time listening in the evening 40 - 75 mins approx. I would hope i could take the pain that long

I am quite interested in finding out how good headphones can be. I have read that good quality headphones can reproduce sounds that £X000 speakers are unable to reproduce. There is a time and a place for standmounts and a kicking sub (and its NOT at 23:30 when you live in a semi!)

For the amount of time that I will use them, maybe the SR125 or SR225 would be suitable? How different are they in performance?

I dont really want to buy an amp yet, perhaps as you suggested to buy the phones first and work out if I enjoy using cans?

[StevieDvd]

I'll send you a PM with some more info.


Steve

I would probably get the SR-80's, and maybe a Cmoy amp. That shouldn't come to more than about £140.

I have used SR-225's on my Cyrus integrated. The SQ was quite good but when used with a dedicated headphone amp IMO it was alot better all round. Swapping the 225's to a headphone amp really brought out the mid range and just brought the performance to life, alot more detail too.

For me, investment in good headphone amplification has benefited all my headphones.

You could try the cyrus headphone out, if you begin to use your headphones more you could upgrade at a later date to a dedicated amp. I love listening under headphones, I would say my best headphone rig bests my speaker setup by quite alot.

The 225's are a great headphone, good punchy bass. They are quite bright and I find them a bit fatiguing on long listening sessions.

If rock is your favoured genre on short sessions then you could do a lot worse.

Got mine for a good price @ headphoneworld.com.

[pbirkett]

Grados are SERIOUSLY overpriced at UK prices. £180 SR225 are only really the equivalent to £100 or so headphones in america.

I'd look to some American classifieds, £250 should buy you the RS1.

[NicolasB]

The Sennheiser HD650 is your friend. Can be got for about £180 on eBay. Then start saving up for a Graham Slee Projects "Solo" headphone amp.

Actually you might want to check out the Beyerdynamic DT-880 'phones as an alternative too.