schoappied wrote: First off: What is a "good" headphone is a matter of highly personal preference. You will get maybe 20 different opinions, and in the end not even one of them will seem "good" to you. If you can, it is highly recommended to test the phones yourself and see how you like them. Second from top: good headphones are full size. If it doesn't cover your ears entirely, it's probably not good. Exceptions are few (high quality ear canal devices such as Ultimate Ears and stuff like that). There are two types of full size headphones: open-air and sealed. 1. Open air are as good as the technology permits, because they have fewer design constraints. This is the category containing the phones usually deemed "best" overall, such as Grado GS 1000, Sennheiser HD 650, AKG K701, Beyerdynamic DT 880. But all those models are expensive, way beyond the price range you mentioned, I put them here just as a reference, to see what can be achieved if money is no problem. I've a pair of Sennheiser HD 600 (previous generation, got replaced by the 650 not long ago) and they are extremely clean. I learned to trust them almost completely: if the HD 600 doesn't reveal it, it either doesn't exist or it doesn't matter. Also, they don't "color" the sound; what you hear is what is actually on the disk. Something like an HD 580 (previous generation from the 600) might collect dust in a corner and might be had for like $100 - $200 if you're lucky, and should provide very good quality at an excellent price. That's probably as cheap as it gets for a good open-air phone, it's what I would try to get if I had 50 euros in my pocket (and some bargaining skills). Maybe an AKG K 240 S will be pretty close in terms of price and quality, but it's a bit brighter than the Sennheiser. Or try one of the low-end Grado - I have the SR 125, they should be in the same price range and are pretty good, but _very_ bright - some people hate them for that, and 25% of me is one of them :-). But they are _extremely_ revealing; it's like looking at the sound with a microscope. Of course, if you just want to enjoy the overall picture, then you should rather use a wide-screen TV (Senn HD 650) instead of a microscope (Grado SR 125). The problem with open-air is that they do not isolate you from ambient noise. So if you're in a noisy environment, that's a problem. You need silence to use an open-air phone to its full potential. 2. Sealed phones solve that problem, at the cost of a slight performance drop. They don't sound as good as open-air, but will attenuate the ambient noise. Probably the most recommended one in this class is Sennheiser HD 280 Pro. I own that model and, for $100, they are very good. They are pretty standard in recording studios, they give them to vocalists to monitor the tracks because, being sealed, the tracks don't leak into the microphone. I use them at work, in the office: at -15dB isolation, they cut a lot of the yapping from adjacent cubicles and hallway. But the focus of the HD 280 is quality, not isolation. You may even try an ear canal phone (not cheap earbuds, but real ear canal devices). They can be very good, although for 50 euros I'm not sure if you can get to the really good ones. And of course it's not indicated to buy these second-hand. Just keep shopping around, there's probably a lot of good phones out there. See what the studios use and try and get one of those if it's in your price range. See this site: http://headphone.com/ It's a commercial site, they make money out of selling headphones, but I've found their reviews very accurate. Whenever I tried a phone, my opinion and their review matched pretty closely. So I kind of trust them. Of course, take _anyone's_ advice with a grain of salt and do your own tests if you can. Good luck. -- Florin Andrei http://florin.myip.org/

By the way, don't buy based on the brand name. Just because the company ABC makes the "God phone" XYZ doesn't mean everything they make is good. I got the wireless Sennheiser RS 130 a few years back, because the adults in this household tend to watch movies at the hours when the kids are asleep, so headphones are pretty much mandatory. But sometimes it feels like I've seen roadkill with better bass response than the RS 130. Maybe I'm too picky, maybe I got spoiled by the better phones I use. But back then the 130 were among the best wireless available. Perhaps I should just get a 3.5mm cable extender (about 5 meters should do), hook it up to regular phones and call it a day, although that kind of thing has a low wife-approval factor, quite justified in fact. One exception to this rule is Grado. They seem to consistently deliver good phones. Call them too bright if you wish, but their cheaper phones are like their more expensive models, only less, if that makes sense. Definitely better than the usual junk at the audio store, although the "Grado sound" may not be to everyone's liking. Heck, for regular everyday listening I can't stand them either. :shrug: :rolleyes: :scowl: -- Florin Andrei http://florin.myip.org/