Hey all, I had a pair of 1st-gen Beats headphones that lasted me for 5-7 years. I never cared about the Beats brand, I tried them in a store, they felt great, not as good noise-cancelling as the Bose they also had in the store to try but a nice bass sound, so I grabbed them despite their extravagant cost.
I've done repairs on them throughout the years, replacing screws that fell out, replacing the headband and ear cups as they decayed and fell off. But recently the internal wiring went bad. Might be able to open it up, pull out my soldering iron and fix it, but iirc the headband part I replaced 'sticks' to the plastic above, and if I take it off I'll need a new headband, plus one of the ear cups I replaced fell off again already…
So I'm starting to think it's time for a new pair of headphones.
In which case, I'm thinking it might be best to grab a pair of studio headphones that would work well for music composition (as well as normal listening/daily use).
I'm willing to waste a fair amount of money for a good pair of over-ear headphones, what can you all recommend? (The newer Beats are shit as far as I can tell, but I could be wrong)
Sennheisers hd 280 pro, although look elsewhere if you're looking for
Blake Stewart
Sony MDR-V6 are bretty gud as closed headphones for neutral sound (been used in TV/Movies/Games/etc. for decades) aside from the terrible way the wire is routed over the wire over the bendy headband. Headband is always being bent when taking the headphones on & off your head causing the wires in it to fray & short out over time.
I use Superlux HD661 as a cheaper replacement for the MDR-V6. It uses the same earpad replacements & doesn't have that bad wire-over-headband issue since those wires are routed through something much more stiff + it has a detachable cable.
Downside is that the HD661 don't appear to have any readily accessible screws for disassembling them if they fuck up. The MDR-V6 are easy to get apart, I've repaired mine repeatedly. I eventually got fed up with that headband wire shorting out & just routed it on the outside.
For open headphones I use Superlux HD668B. With velour earpads they're the most comfortable headphones ever, but the factory earpads they're shipped with are hard as granite.
Landon Rogers
Thanks for the link friend, this oughtta help me make a choice
I'm not sure if I can live without good over-ear earpads after wearing the 1st-gen Beats for so long…
Leo Ramirez
Beyerdynamics DT 770 for closed back, 990 for open.
Beats are for niggers, you have to go back to africa.
Jonathan Roberts
you can live with actual audio
William Bennett
This was the response I was expecting when I posted this thread lul Again, I don't care about the brand, I just tried a couple of headphones on at a store and the Beats felt the best.
Actually looking at the HD 280 Pro they look super-comfy, are they not all that comfy in practice? en-us.sennheiser.com/hd-280-pro
Jacob Allen
**aside from the terrible way the wire is routed over the bendy headband
Also, the Superlux I mentioned are both under $50. I don't think anyone should spend over $100 on headphones unless they have a really good audio setup. The MDR-V6 were once around $50-$70 but their price fluctuates a lot so I often see them around $80-$100 for no good goddamn reason.
Jason Wilson
You'll be happy to hear that the beyerdynamics are over ear, velour pad and quite light weight. Nigger. #blaxit
Jaxon Collins
I use JVC RX-700s. They cost me like $35. Sounds good to my ear, comfy, and they've lasted like 5 years with no breakage or malfunction.
Juan Fisher
Why would anyone buy a Beats headphone for any reason whatsoever?
Caleb Turner
See, this is how you need to do the headband. Put the L/R connecting wire through something stiff & that shit will last years.
I don't get why so many cheaper designs understand this while the pricier stuff is still fucking it up with shit that seems deliberately designed to bend that wire as much as possible, repeatedly, until it doesn't work.
Matthew Mitchell
I'm not even mad, I'm just wondering how you could not notice how bad the audio quality is. I listened to a pair of beats once and shit had almost no bass, the treble was tinny as fuck, and the audio was constantly crackling, plus they felt like they were made of the cheapest plastic on the planet. I gotta admit, the pads are really comfy though
Adam Murphy
No idea. Which is why I saged this thread.
This reeks of halfchan, and is barely even video games.
Thomas Martin
Don't hit me I like them
Tyler Clark
I'll gladly admit to being ignorant at the time I purchased them.
Do circular-earpad headphones like fit well for people with kinda-large ears? I get the feeling I should go for a more vertically-lengthy pair to be safe…
Eli Watson
what a cute girl
Thomas Lopez
I'm not saging because preventing any crossover between Holla Forums & Holla Forums is why many Holla Forumsirgins will remain tech-illiterate buying beats headphones & boasting about fucking console specs.
I see it as preventative measures. I mean, just look at this shit:
Parker Fisher
I'm a snob, so I really don't care for OP. Spoonfeeding teaches nothing more than the shape of a spoon.
Aiden Johnson
Sony MDR-V6 user here, I sold my Beats Studio for these, best decision ever. They're great quality and durable. I've been using them for probably 4 years now.
Matthew Turner
I want to cum down hifumi's throat
Wyatt Hill
IMO here's a more accurate interpretation of that position:
"Educate yourself." is the signaling cry of a group who recently lost executive power due to rampant elitism & having no argument, only name-calling. Oddly, that experience was not educational.
Jack Hill
RX-700s are fucking huge. They'll fit any ear size just fine.
Evan Torres
I had that pair of Sennheiser 280's and the sound was great for the work I was doing at the time (audio editing for some shitty indie films), but they were so fucking uncomfortable I didn't give Senn another look for more than ten years. Which is unfortunate, because now I have the 558's and they're comfy as fuck and sound great. I still lean AKGfag overall, but I'm probably going to get into more Sennheiser headsets soon.
Connor Collins
Are there any headphones that use metal parts or is that infeasible for some engineering reason?
Nathaniel Richardson
Lots, hell, in the walkman days metal headbands were pretty much standard. The real question is what the fuck are you doing to your headphones?
Hunter Martin
don't worry user, he's just the audio guy for a video game. I'm sure it's fine.
Jaxon Jackson
It's the little shit that adds up, I think. Grabbing them by one side when I pick them up, stepping on the cord and dropping them 2 feet off my desk onto carpet, fitting them onto my big head, stuff like that. Eventually some piece of plastic snaps and the thing is completely unusable. Some you can sort of nigger rig to usability with super glue and a plastic splint, like the Sony MDR series, but others are wired in goofy ways where you can't. I spent like $30 buying a whole ATH M50 frame from eBay and had to solder it together because of how it's wired. (And it still didn't fucking work.)
Adam Flores
I taught myself 3D programming (C/C++ and OpenGL, will learn Vulkan), modeling/rigging/animation/etc, Japanese (passed JLPT N1 years ago), etc if it makes you all feel any better…Just don't know a dang thing about headphone brands since Beats were the first time I spent actual money on headphones and they lasted for so long. (At the time I bought Beats, my Japanese was shit, didn't know 3D programming or modeling, just more basic C++ programming, and my programming style was shit too. Things change a lot in half a decade or so.)
Looking to learn, appreciate the info.
that comfyness sounds tempting, even though they're not studio headphones…
Do Sony MDR-V6's over the ear pretty well? Looks like a pretty good pick, except the inability to replace the 3.5mm cord when it gets frayed seems fatal (I went through a number of those cords with my Beats)
Not just the audio guy for a video game, the do-it-all guy for a game. Jack-of-all-traders have trouble being experts in everything. Audio isn't my forte, although I've played the piano since I was five so I have enough music competency to compose without issue.
I guess technically any pair could pass as studio headphones if the frequency response was pretty even across the spectrum. But they don't provide frequency response datasheets as far as I can tell…
Henry Robinson
Quick google search found me frequency response data for the HD 558. Couldn't find it for the 280 pro tho.
Josiah Flores
Yeah. They're a lot better with third-party earpads though.
You should be able to pop them open and replace the cord with a socket.
Matthew Bell
mdr-v6 playa
Jackson Williams
The word studio being in the name or not doesn't mean anything with regard to the product. It's marketing. In general, open back headphones will almost universally give you a more detailed sound, a more open soundstage, and less coloration than closed backs. The downside is is that they don't do much at all to prevent sound from passing in or out. Closed backs offer better isolation, and more, but muddier, bass. You should worry less about the exact frequency response than what you intend to use them for. Want to record along with a track, or monitor a mic in an environment that is not quiet? You need a closed back, period. But if you want accurate, detailed sound reproduction in a quiet environment, open backs will generally be superior. Supposedly AKG has made some strides in bridging the gap with the K550 line but I haven't tried them myself.
Austin Myers
Fucking tell me about it. My poor left ear.
Cameron Myers
Well done, you should go mock the faggots in the Nipponese learning threads if you don't do so already
Nolan Ross
If you're still around any opinions on the HD-662 Evo?
Aaron Nguyen
It's like wearing a sign that outs you as a vapid consumerist whore without even having to hear you speak.
Juan Watson
AUDIOTECHNICA M20X Cheap, sound almost as good as m50x, durable, just werks.
Luke Reed
No. But the build quality is solid or rather, there's barely anything that could break there to begin with, and they're absurdly easy to fix and mod. (cable is the worst but you can and should replace the whole thing) There is plenty of space in the "cans", so you can probably mod it to have a removeable cable.
Henry Hernandez
That's what I did with my MDR-V6. I mounted a 3.5mm jack where the cable comes out. Now I can plug any aux cable into it provided the end isn't too thick.
Still waiting to get my refund for the fake MDR-7506's I ordered off Amazon before ordering a genuine pair from an authorized retailer. If the user who tipped me off in the last thread is still here, thanks again and hopefully I can use the genuine pair for /agdg/ stuff like OP.
I use these for Mixing and occasionally mastering (Though I have dedicated studio speakers for mastering, mainly due to the subtle changes in the mix, and the inability to hear the low-end "AS IS" in even the 200+ dollar Studio/Monitor headphones, it's just the nature of bass, the sound itself needs to travel a decent distance to hear what it really sounds like)
I do a lot of my compositions at work with my dedicated production lappy and mastering on my studio setup, and it hasn't failed me yet. Working on a game soundtrack right now as a matter of fact, and these things have been a workhorse.
Joshua Barnes
What are some of the big drawbacks of using earphones?
They work quite well and are pretty cheap to boot.
Get into the gas chamber you filthy knife-eared fuck.
Elijah Green
Q701 or what ever is the equivalent now are generally the best bang for the buck
I use HD600s myself since they were a gift
I suggest just keeping an eye on massdrop, a lot of good headphones at good prices pass through there
Michael Howard
I have a pair of Beyerdynamics. They're pretty good. How much are you willing to spend tho?
Jordan Russell
kys
Kayden Torres
Had pets in the past who have decided to pull the cords, cord falling off the desk and getting caught in my seat wheels, losing sound in one ear of the headphone because of a Ubisoft game or just the plastic being too shit for my strength and movements.
The best brand anyway I've had the best experiences with is Audio Technica.
Wyatt Gomez
I got a seinheiser over-ear from Holla Forums recommendation. Works like a dream, comfy, but you need to use an adapter jack (that it comes with) for normal audio ports, which adds a 3 inch solid bar of plastic jutting out. Might be a pain depending on what you use it on (handheld, the audio jack for your TV doesn't have much space between the wall, or somehow the same situation with a PC.)
Nicholas Johnson
I've heard good things about pic related, and they're pretty affordable as these things go
Logan White
OP here. At the very least I think I'm definitely going for an open-ear headset now, since those seem more appropriate for music composition work. (I understand the downside of leaky sound, and I'm fine with that.)
I'm eying the Beyerdynamic 990 as someone earlier in this thread suggested it.
