Re: [LAU] headphones

schoappied wrote: I would not attempt that as long as I intend to live a long and happy life. :-) Look at the attenuation factor. A sealed phone should be between -10 and -20 dB, is my guess. But anyway, the difference is the back of the acoustic membrane. Sealed phones - the back moves in a closed box. Open-air - the back is in an open cavity. There might actually be holes on the outside of the phone, through which you may actually see the membrane (not always). Music is music, and an accurate phone is an accurate phone. What works best for one kind of music should work for any other kind. I think the so-called "phones for classic music", or whatever, are a commercial gimmick. The phone should not do anything. Quite the opposite, the phone must get out of the way and just be a pure conduit for the sound, it must introduce as few changes as possible. The only exception might be when you're doing special work. E.g., you're mixing the tracks and you need a _very_ revealing phone to spot any defect. Something like a Grado might help. I don't know what happens when playing the bass guitar. Do you want the bass emphasized? I'm not a bass player so I can't answer that. Otherwise, just get the flattest and most accurate ones you can afford, and learn to trust them. Like Mark said, it often helps to get two or three phones over a period of time, if you can afford them, and use each one of them as needed. The black ones are the 280 Pro. I have one of those. It's a very good sealed phone. It's flat and laid-back; people used to cheap bright phones are usually not impressed. It's like eating super-hot food for many years, tons of black pepper and what not, and then you go back to a subtle, refined, normal diet - your taste buds are shot and you may not feel any taste for a while, which is a paradox because actually only now you have any chance to feel the real taste of the food, instead of the fire from the black pepper. I hope that makes sense. It's something that happens to a lot of people when they listen for the first time through flat accurate phones. -- Florin Andrei http://florin.myip.org/