Pioneer "fanboy" needs help choosing headphones!

[gonis]

As the title suggests I need some help choosing headphones. Recently my beloved Pioneer SE-500D "passed away" so I went through Pioneer UK webpage and two models caught my eye - SE-MJ5 and SE-M390. I could not find any useful information on them (maybe I wasn't looking well enough) so here I am asking for some advice are these models any good? Could I get something better from other brands in this price range <£50?

 

[gonis]

So, no one has any opinions or advices to share?

 

[Phildick]

If you are only looking a Pioneer then I doubt you will get much help. They are not exactly known for their Headphones.

Break the mould and buy some from one of the established brands. I think you'll find them far superior.

You need to think about what type of phones you want: Over ear, or on ear (I am assuming you don't want in ears). Then do you want open or closed back?

The main old school brands are: Sennheiser, BeyerDynamic, Grado, Koss, AKG. Sennheiser have a massive range and are generally very good.

 

[gonis]

I now that pioneer is not known for their headphones. But would there be a reasonable difference? I am not stating - just asking. In the past I had closed back headphones and I have never tried open back ones so I don't really have a preference. Is there an advantage in one of them?

So now I am open for all suggestions.
Oh and I want over an ear (I thought that in-ears are called earphones aren't they?)

Thanks!

 

[Phildick]

Open backed phones are supposed to offer the best ultimate sound quality. However they let a lot of sound out and in as the back of the driver is 'open' to the outside. Closed back are better for sound isolation in both directions.

Also need to think about what you are driving them with. Is it an MP3 player/phone, a Hifi amp/CD player or a dedicated headphone amp? The reason for this is some phones are more efficient than others and some are harder to drive than others. This means that a given model may not go loud enough or may sound poor on an mp3 player.

 

[davejames]

If you dont mind some sound leakage there is a much wider choice of open backed than closed, for a decent closed back headphone you need to spend quite a lot of cash, Denon make some decent ones but they arnt cheap.

Pioneer are probably just doing what most of the cheap headphones do, having them made in China using generic drivers that are most likely used in a wide range of other phones, they arnt known for producing great headphones so I would go with proper makes like Sennheiser, AKG, Beyer, Audio Technica, of course under £50 will hinder performance greatly but you can get a decent enough sounding headphone, read some reviews & see which you like the sound of best.

 

[gonis]

I am going to use them with Pioneer VSX-818 receiver. sound leakage is not a problem so I guess I could go with open back headphones.

Is there an online store where I could see prices, compare and etc? googling gives very random results.

Oh and price point is not strick £50. I could go up to£60 or so.

 

[Phildick]

If you look at the Sennheiser audiophile hd range on Amazon you can get the HD515 for about £56 or the HD555 for about £75. The 555 is easily modded to make it the same as the £120 HD595 . See the link on how to:

Sennheiser HD 555 to HD 595 Mod &ndash; mike beauchamp

 

[gonis]

HD555 look really nice. Thanks. What about other brands?

 

[Phildick]

Not to familiar with other brands in this price bracket. There are lots of sites about like Headphone Reviews that have reviews. Headphone Reviews has a wizard you can use. It's a US site so prices are in dollars

 

[davejames]

Its well worth having a look at others makes, while Sennheiser have a long standing reputation they are quite often beaten by other makes in sound quality & definately in build quality.

 

[Phildick]

What about the Grado SR60i. They go for about £80 and have a good reputation

 

[gonis]

I looked at them couple of hours ago. I will probably sound silly but don't they look a bit "too small" compared to hd555s?

Plus they are a bit too expensive... Don't forget that I started off with £50 budget.