Headphone options

[nathanzachary]

Hello all,

I just ordered my Big Ego, and I'm looking to replace my terrible, old Bose headphones.  I have quite a few options, and am looking for feedback as to which ones might be solid choices.  I listen to a wide array of music including metal, electronic (emphasis on drum & bass), acoustic, fingerstyle guitar, choirs, et cetera.  Here's a list that I've compiled so far:

Sennheiser HD 598 (open) --> ~$150
Sennheiser HD 569 (closed) --> ~$180
Audio-Technica ATH-M50x (closed) --> ~$150
Audio-Technica ATH-MSR7BK (closed) --> ~$239
Beyerdynamic DT-770 PRO 80 (closed) -> ~$180
V-MODA Crossfade M-100 (closed) --> ~$225
AKG Pro Audio K702 (open) --> ~$225
Focal Listen (closed) --> ~$250
Grado Prestige SR325e (open) --> ~$300

Completely open to other suggestions as well.

Thanks!

Cheers,
Nathan Zachary

[hemster]

I've auditioned and owned a fair number of headphones. Given your musical taste, I would strongly recommend the V-MODA Crossfade M-100s. These have an excellent sonic signature and do not overemphasize the bass (like most others tend to). Also the build quality is superb as they are built to MIL-SPEC standards. I own the Crossfade LP²s and I love them. 

[nathanzachary]

Thanks a lot for your recommendation, hemster! When you say they don't overemphasise the bass, do you think that they will still provide enough bottom for metal? That's part of the reason I love my main system in my house (the RythmikAudio F15HP subs are monstrous, but yet still elegantly clean).

Thanks again!

[jdc]

X2 on the V-Moda M-100's

[hemster]

Oh there's plenty of low-end for metal (I like that genre myself) but not they're not overly boomy. The Parrots I tried were particularly bad, along with Beats. I look for accuracy rather than a bias towards the bottom-end which I suppose is popular with certain genres like rap.

V-Moda have a great warranty and you won't be sorry. I should mention that one of my requirements was decent ambient noise suppression without (almost) totally blocking it out. I travel a lot and wanted isolation from aircraft noise but still wanted to hear the flight attendant and announcements. V-Modas fit the bill perfectly. Check out the reviews. Over 100k satisfied customers.

[vneal]

Sennheiser HD 598 (open) --> ~$150
Sennheiser HD 569 (closed) --> ~$180
Audio-Technica ATH-M50x (closed) --> ~$150
Audio-Technica ATH-MSR7BK (closed) --> ~$239
Beyerdynamic DT-770 PRO 80 (closed) -> ~$180
V-MODA Crossfade M-100 (closed) --> ~$225
AKG Pro Audio K702 (open) --> ~$225
Focal Listen (closed) --> ~$250
Grado Prestige SR325e (open) --> ~$300

I have a pair of Grado SE325x I would sell you for $200' Personally my next headphone would be Audeze 
Never heard of Vmoda

[brutiarti]

Sennheiser has a sound signature that goes well with metal and electronic, the beyer headphones can be a little hot for that type of music.

[DYohn]

V-Moda is a great mid-priced choice.

[drtrey3]

Audio-Technica ATH-M50x (closed) --> ~$150

I got these for my nephew for Christmas. Just a tad extra in the bass, just a tad extra in the top end, and really cool for the price.

I liked them so much, I bought myself a pair for my birthday!

Trey

[esquire]

Jan 10, 2017 18:09:59 GMT -5 hemster said:

I've auditioned and owned a fair number of headphones. Given your musical taste, I would strongly recommend the V-MODA Crossfade M-100s. These have an excellent sonic signature and do not overemphasize the bass (like most others tend to). Also the build quality is superb as they are built to MIL-SPEC standards. I own the Crossfade LP²s and I love them. 

I enjoyed the M-100's so much I purchased the v-moda iem's which are the best I've heard.

[garbulky]

If you are talking about those old Bose noise cancelling headphones, you may not experience a large increase in quality. The Bose I tried were pretty decent. I felt my sennheisser HD600's were a bit better (not compared at the time through an amplifier) but not by a huge amount.

The V-Moda, I got the crossfade wireless and I loved the features and the very solid looking build quality. I was less in love with the sound quality for the price I paid for it. It had a lot of power but the bass was tipped up too much (my opinion. Others may differ from it). For its purpose though it did well - it was for my dad. It worked, was simple to use and had adequate sound quality. Just not enough for me.

I'm not sure what to recommend in your price range that would make you feel like - oh yeah I got an upgrade.

[vcautokid]

Nathan of the ones on your list you have shown. So far which if any have you listened too? Just trying to get an idea of the direction you maybe going. Especially as you are contemplating both open and closed designs. So far, what inclinations if any do you have for any of them. Also any must haves in the headphone sensibilities.

[bootman]

What you use to drive headphones really do affect their sound quality.

(Is there a review on the Big ego that tested the headphone out? Looking at the specs I don't see at what impedance the specs are quoted.)

Amazon has a great return policy so maybe use them to try some out and find the one that YOU like.

All of the cans you listed sound a little different from one brand to another so see if you can find that "house" sound that pleases you.

I'm a Grado fan and the PS500/DC-1 combo has been a keeper for me for quite some time now.
But I have tried a ton of other combos that were just "as good" but did sound very different.
(example: try a Senn 600 with a good OTL amp like the crack bottlehead and you will know what I mean by very good but different)
So try a few buy borrowing etc until you find the sound you like and then you can upgrade up within that brand if you like.

That is the fun part of the hobby.

[nathanzachary]

Thanks for all the opinions here! I haven't tried any of them, and am just looking for a nice sonic experience whilst working in my home office. My main system (listed in my signature) blows me away every time that I listen to it. Obviously, I'm not expecting that type of greatness from the Big Ego and some mid-range headphones, but I would like something pleasing. The Bose headphones that I have are the AE2s from late 2010, and I think that they're essentially worthless. They sound very tinny (no bass or low-end at all), and they're falling apart.

I'm leaning toward customising a pair of the V-Moda M-100s per the recommendations here and other reviews that I've read. The impedance on them is 32Ω, which Keith at Emotiva said would be good. He recommended staying in a "normal" impedance range (20Ω - 150Ω, e.g.), so I would imagine that they will be driven quite well with the Big Ego.

Thanks again for all the feedback!

[bootman]

Jan 11, 2017 11:37:36 GMT -5 nathanzachary said:

Thanks for all the opinions here! I haven't tried any of them, and am just looking for a nice sonic experience whilst working in my home office. My main system (listed in my signature) blows me away every time that I listen to it. Obviously, I'm not expecting that type of greatness from the Big Ego and some mid-range headphones, but I would like something pleasing. The Bose headphones that I have are the AE2s from late 2010, and I think that they're essentially worthless. They sound very tinny (no bass or low-end at all), and they're falling apart.

I'm leaning toward customising a pair of the V-Moda M-100s per the recommendations here and other reviews that I've read. The impedance on them is 32Ω, which Keith at Emotiva said would be good. He recommended staying in a "normal" impedance range (20Ω - 150Ω, e.g.), so I would imagine that they will be driven quite well with the Big Ego.

Thanks again for all the feedback!

Good to know the "normal" range values.
Example: Senn 600 mentioned here are 300Ω cans.
It isn't a coincidence that they match very well with tube amplification in the 300-600Ω range vs say an amp designed from 20-150Ω.

This is not to say they will "suck" but they may not be at their "best".

[nathanzachary]

So I have the V-Moda M-100s and my Big Ego DAC, and the combination is really something! The only thing that I've noticed is that, on the V-Modas, the isolation of the L and R channels is pretty extreme. I know that it is probably "ideal" to have that much separation, but it sounds very strange on a lot of my music. I'm not sure if it is something that I can get used to or not. On certain tracks and styles, it sounds really neat to have the channels so distinct, but on other types, the lack of blending is distracting and, in my opinion, sounds quite bad. I plugged in my old Bose AE2s to the Big Ego just to compare, and it almost sounds like they are mono instead of stereo.

Any suggestions?

Thanks again, everyone!

Cheers,
Nathan Zachary

[KeithL]

The headphone output on the Ego DACs has a headphone blend mode.

After you pick your filter, go back and select "Filter #4: HP" and it will activate a DSP-based high-frequency blend mode that reduces the apparent separation.

Jan 16, 2017 13:38:25 GMT -5 nathanzachary said:

So I have the V-Moda M-100s and my Big Ego DAC, and the combination is really something! The only thing that I've noticed is that, on the V-Modas, the isolation of the L and R channels is pretty extreme. I know that it is probably "ideal" to have that much separation, but it sounds very strange on a lot of my music. I'm not sure if it is something that I can get used to or not. On certain tracks and styles, it sounds really neat to have the channels so distinct, but on other types, the lack of blending is distracting and, in my opinion, sounds quite bad. I plugged in my old Bose AE2s to the Big Ego just to compare, and it almost sounds like they are mono instead of stereo.

Any suggestions?

Thanks again, everyone!

Cheers,
Nathan Zachary

[hemster]

Jan 16, 2017 13:38:25 GMT -5 nathanzachary said:

So I have the V-Moda M-100s and my Big Ego DAC, and the combination is really something! The only thing that I've noticed is that, on the V-Modas, the isolation of the L and R channels is pretty extreme. I know that it is probably "ideal" to have that much separation, but it sounds very strange on a lot of my music. I'm not sure if it is something that I can get used to or not. On certain tracks and styles, it sounds really neat to have the channels so distinct, but on other types, the lack of blending is distracting and, in my opinion, sounds quite bad. I plugged in my old Bose AE2s to the Big Ego just to compare, and it almost sounds like they are mono instead of stereo.

Any suggestions?

Thanks again, everyone!

Cheers,
Nathan Zachary

Hmm, that's odd. I don't have the same experience with extreme channel separation. I know that when I listen to music off my laptop, I can adjust separation in Windows. Not sure if there's any setting like that for the Big Ego as I don't have one. Maybe someone who owns one can chime in. Below are a couple of checkpoints:

Did you install Emotiva's UAC2 driver? This is required to play files up to 32/384k. Otherwise it'll do 24/96k using the UAC1 driverless mode.

Are you using any filters on the Big Ego? This can have a subtle effect on the result. 

Big Ego features list includes:

• Headphone blend mode – The Big Ego’s sophisticated headphone blend mode helps make your headphones sound less like headphones – and more like regular speakers.

I'm not sure if this blend mode needs to be selected or is on by default but it's worth checking into. The manual will likely have more details. 

Edit: Keith already detailed above my post how to activate blend mode. Try it and let us know how you fare. 

[nathanzachary]

Thanks Keith and hemster! I have actually tried with the filters on the Big Ego, and the HP blend filter didn't do much for me either. I'm playing around with some other ideas, but boy, I can't get past how bad certain tracks and styles sound with this level of separation. I can't believe that on these tracks that I actually prefer my AE2s. For a lot of my music, though, the M-100s are far better. The range on them is great, and make the AE2s sound flat, but I don't think that I will keep the M-100s if I can't find a way around this separative sound.

On a separate note, I'm working on a write-up about getting the Big Ego working as best as it can under Linux. Lots of troubleshooting information and such that I hope certain people will find useful. I'll post a link once it is available.

[KeithL]

Cool,

I'm sure a lot of folks will be interested in the Linux note (I can vouch for the fact that the Egos work well with Volumio on a Raspberry Pi).

The blend filter actually reduces the high frequency separation on the Egos significantly - so I suspect there's something else going on there.
All headphones really have perfect separation (there is no crossfeed between the channels in the headphone itself).
However, because of how they handle various phase and frequency relationships, headphones deliver very different sound stages..... from "all in your head" to "way outside your head".
From your description it sounds like the V-Modas are doing something very strange that tends to enhance this illusion - of an exaggerated wide sound stage.
(According to the product description they have some sort of unusual construction; maybe it produces some odd phase shifts.)
It sounds to me like one of those "love it or hate it" things that is just part of how those headphones sound.)

Jan 16, 2017 17:16:30 GMT -5 nathanzachary said:

Thanks Keith and hemster! I have actually tried with the filters on the Big Ego, and the HP blend filter didn't do much for me either. I'm playing around with some other ideas, but boy, I can't get past how bad certain tracks and styles sound with this level of separation. I can't believe that on these tracks that I actually prefer my AE2s. For a lot of my music, though, the M-100s are far better. The range on them is great, and make the AE2s sound flat, but I don't think that I will keep the M-100s if I can't find a way around this separative sound.

On a separate note, I'm working on a write-up about getting the Big Ego working as best as it can under Linux. Lots of troubleshooting information and such that I hope certain people will find useful. I'll post a link once it is available.