Headphone Update
I certainly think Grado Labs is the cat's pajamas. I've got a pair of their SR 60 headphones, the gateway drug to hi-fi sound. Sure, they're a little ugly, but in sort of a retro, nerd-chic shortwave radio kind of way.
But holy shit... what were they thinking? This shit's ugly as sin. I'm sure they sound great, though. Considering they use the same parts as the SR 60s, they probably even sound better than my previous low-budget favorites, the Sennheiser PX100, a kickass, and quite portable set... though, at $10 more, they should be better. But wow. Fugly.
In other headphone news, the Senns have been supplanted as my work headphone in favor of the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro. I had, way back in the beginning of my iPod days, a pair of sony's MDR EX71LP in-ear headphones, my first experiment with the ear-canal style (think earplugs with built-in headphones. They eventually fell out of favor with me (the sound wasn't really that great for the price), and I decided I wasn't really a fan of the ear-canal style. The cord ends up being microphonic (think stethoscpe), you can hear your pulse, your footsteps, and you can't hear what's going on around you.
But sometimes, blocking out the outside world is desirable. People who feel the need to talk loudly in a non-English language into their cell phones (on speaker phone, no less) on the bus, or just talking loudly in general, or blown speakers playing "soft rock" (when did this euphemism for easy-listening top 40 crap become acceptable?) are all candidates. As are freezer alarms from neighboring labs going off, and other incidental background sounds.
Plus, since I last shopped for them, the rift between the $50 Sonys and the $300 Etymotic has been filled nicely by lower-end models from Shure, Etymotic, Futuresonics, and Ultimate Ears. After doing some reading, I decided Ultimate Ears was the best in the $100 range, and ordered a pair of their Super.fi 3 Studio headphones, thankfully from Headroom who have a decent return policy.
And well, they were great... mostly. Sound quality was quite good overall, with clarity and resolution rivaling my stereo. And it was really nice being able to block out the outside world... on the bus, at work, etc. But the bass was very shelved down. And if I'm going to spend $100 on headphones, I might as well spend another $100 to get ones that I'll be happy with.
Hence, the Super.fi 5, which are a beautiful headphones in every way. Clear, resolving, easy to drive, and just a tad bit punchy. Of course, at $200, I'm getting close to the high end. But damn, these are fine. The last time I tried to go back to the Sennheisers, it was a bit painful. The bass sounded bloated and everything was a bit blurrier, by direct comparison. They're a quite good set of 'phones, but can't compete with something that's 4x the price. I thought maybe I'd still use them, but they're beginning to seem quite superfluous.
But holy shit... what were they thinking? This shit's ugly as sin. I'm sure they sound great, though. Considering they use the same parts as the SR 60s, they probably even sound better than my previous low-budget favorites, the Sennheiser PX100, a kickass, and quite portable set... though, at $10 more, they should be better. But wow. Fugly.
In other headphone news, the Senns have been supplanted as my work headphone in favor of the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro. I had, way back in the beginning of my iPod days, a pair of sony's MDR EX71LP in-ear headphones, my first experiment with the ear-canal style (think earplugs with built-in headphones. They eventually fell out of favor with me (the sound wasn't really that great for the price), and I decided I wasn't really a fan of the ear-canal style. The cord ends up being microphonic (think stethoscpe), you can hear your pulse, your footsteps, and you can't hear what's going on around you.
But sometimes, blocking out the outside world is desirable. People who feel the need to talk loudly in a non-English language into their cell phones (on speaker phone, no less) on the bus, or just talking loudly in general, or blown speakers playing "soft rock" (when did this euphemism for easy-listening top 40 crap become acceptable?) are all candidates. As are freezer alarms from neighboring labs going off, and other incidental background sounds.
Plus, since I last shopped for them, the rift between the $50 Sonys and the $300 Etymotic has been filled nicely by lower-end models from Shure, Etymotic, Futuresonics, and Ultimate Ears. After doing some reading, I decided Ultimate Ears was the best in the $100 range, and ordered a pair of their Super.fi 3 Studio headphones, thankfully from Headroom who have a decent return policy.
And well, they were great... mostly. Sound quality was quite good overall, with clarity and resolution rivaling my stereo. And it was really nice being able to block out the outside world... on the bus, at work, etc. But the bass was very shelved down. And if I'm going to spend $100 on headphones, I might as well spend another $100 to get ones that I'll be happy with.
Hence, the Super.fi 5, which are a beautiful headphones in every way. Clear, resolving, easy to drive, and just a tad bit punchy. Of course, at $200, I'm getting close to the high end. But damn, these are fine. The last time I tried to go back to the Sennheisers, it was a bit painful. The bass sounded bloated and everything was a bit blurrier, by direct comparison. They're a quite good set of 'phones, but can't compete with something that's 4x the price. I thought maybe I'd still use them, but they're beginning to seem quite superfluous.
posted by L. Maxwell Ward at 1:07 PM
