up until now, i have owned a pair of skullcandy ink'd earbuds, which i have enjoyed immensely. however, i have desired proper headphones so that i could get the full effect around my ear, rather than the earbuds, which irritate after a while. Obviously, my first target was the Skullcandy brand, or specifically the G.I. headphones. after reading many conflicting reviews, i went directly to bestbuy to get em. I picked up both the skullcandy GI and a sony MDR-XD100 to compare vastly different styles. The skullcandy delivered the impressive bass and depth i am used to, while the sony lacked bass but made up with superior clarity at higher levels. While the skullcandy crushed my skull, Sony had the grip of an infant. Both lacked what i considered the most important aspect, noise reduction. Even at regular listening volumes, the noise is very noticable to people several feet away with both sets. I plan to return both, but want to know if anyone here has suggestions for a sub-80$ pair that will provide crystal clear sound, gut-wrenching bass, complete noise isolation, comfort, and will still look totally bad-ass?
you want to go to www.head-fi.org its a forum specifically for heapdhone discussion....you will find more than you need there...it sounds like you are looking for a pretty nice pair of phones....which will be difficult to find for under 80 bucks (headphones are not cheap at all) but i could be wrong....i paid 110 for a pair of audio technica ath-es7 and they have pretty much everything you are looking for but the noise reduction could be better, and the bass is not ridiculous as you seek...but they sound extremely crisp, and i listen to a lot of electroinc/ambient/breaks/idm type stuff (kilowatts, spoonbill, tipper, skeetaz, bluetech, etc) and i really am liking the way they sound although the bass could be a little better (but from what i understand, it takes them a while to "break in" the sound, so my sound review may not be as accurate as after i use them for a few months...) but from what i understand, you should try to go for the denon 1001 (i think)....its around 100 (maybe a little cheaper) and is supposed to be one of the more solid choices as far as i know... but like i said, go to that website (head-fi.org) and register, just like these forums and you will get plenty of help.... enjoi your new phones EDIT: oops, when you said "sound reduction" i thought you meant outside sound interfering with the music...not other people around you being able to hear what you are listening to....my bad. the ath-es7 do a great job of that, nobody will notice what you are blasting...but it is not noise cancelling, so you can hear cars and such driving by....but it does a surprising good job of cancelling voices and such from around a room....(the ath-es7 doesnt have massive cans that completely encase the ear like studio headphones...they are perfectly sized, the looks are the most impressive feature of the ath-es7....i personally wanted a pair of phones that werent too big....because i didnt want to look goofy walking around in them lol)
idk about brands and stuff, but any brand that makes tvs seem to work well. like sony and philipps headphones. and yeah, the earbuds suck for sound. only the big headphones suck for transportation because i like carrying small bags and the headphones dont fit. lol
skullcandy skullcrushers they have a battery run subwoofer attached. this means that at any point during the song at the flick of a switch, you can turn on some of the most awesome bass, headshakingly good. id really reccomend it, especially if youre into drum and bass or heavy rock/ metal. you'll never want to listen to it any other way lol. only problem- they dont cancel out external noise, but that never really bothered me, cos i only wear them indoors- i wear rubbish ones outside in case i get mugged.
