Headphone suggestions?

[Pccooler7506]

Hey all, I know you may get this a lot here, but I was wondering if anyone has a suggestion for a nice pair of premium, high end headphones. I’ve been poking around and reading some posts on this forum, but I thought I mignt as well get some direct opinions.

 I’m looking for something without an inbuilt mic, closed back and wired, with an over ear cup design. As for budget, I’m happy to pay more or less anything under $1000 AUD ~ $659 USD. All suggestions welcome, I appreciate the help.

 

in addition, what do you all think about wired VS wireless in terms of sounds quality and latency? I know that wired models can use XLR connectors that allow balanced connections, but does that really make a huge difference? 

 

[Tigerleon]

7 hours ago, Pccooler7506 said:

Hey all, I know you may get this a lot here, but I was wondering if anyone has a suggestion for a nice pair of premium, high end headphones. I’ve been poking around and reading some posts on this forum, but I thought I mignt as well get some direct opinions.

 I’m looking for something without an inbuilt mic, closed back and wired, with an over ear cup design. As for budget, I’m happy to pay more or less anything under $1000 AUD ~ $659 USD. All suggestions welcome, I appreciate the help.

 

in addition, what do you all think about wired VS wireless in terms of sounds quality and latency? I know that wired models can use XLR connectors that allow balanced connections, but does that really make a huge difference? 

 

Audeze Maxwell

[Cocococo]

Considering location an Audeze Maxwell is gonna be your best option, but i have sometimes seen people selling Aurorus Australis for around 600usd before. Really rare but frankly closed back headphones don't get better than the Australis, i have tried the Fostex TH610 and they sound alright, more in line with what you're looking for. but tbh Maxwell sounds better, solid imaging on the Fostex though if you don't want the mic's and battery of Maxwell. Shure SRH1540 is also an option if you don't want batteries and mics but again, Maxwell is just plain better (Also the Shure's have this nasty mid-upper bass bump that really messes up deeper male vocals) 

[Pccooler7506]

8 hours ago, Cocococo said:

Considering location an Audeze Maxwell is gonna be your best option, but i have sometimes seen people selling Aurorus Australis for around 600usd before. Really rare but frankly closed back headphones don't get better than the Australis, i have tried the Fostex TH610 and they sound alright, more in line with what you're looking for. but tbh Maxwell sounds better, solid imaging on the Fostex though if you don't want the mic's and battery of Maxwell. Shure SRH1540 is also an option if you don't want batteries and mics but again, Maxwell is just plain better (Also the Shure's have this nasty mid-upper bass bump that really messes up deeper male vocals) 

I was considering a DT 700 PRO X, how do they fair?

[Psittac]

22 minutes ago, Pccooler7506 said:

I was considering a DT 700 PRO X, how do they fair?

Do you have an amp and dac? If not is that included in the total budget?

 

XLR might be better than single ended but it's not something to go after because the budget is better spent somewhere else.  If you're getting to a point that you're looking at products that have balanced then by all means go for it.

 

Is this something where you would like to set yourself up for other headphones and make it kind of a hobby or you want your endgame solution?

 

I would recommend the DT1770pro over the 700 just because I have experience with the 1990pro and absolutely love them, also the dt700 is a lower ohm pair and I'm all about difficult to drive headphones, they typically have a little more heft and weight to the sound, a touch more like being at a concert than wearing headphones.

 

My take on the wired vs wireless topic leads me to say that wireless is potentially better for a one and done solution because it's dac amp and headphones in one package, on the same note if something breaks then you're out everything without the ability to replace a single component and no ability to upgrade anything.  The way I went about it was pure wired and I made a hobby out of it, buying several cheaper headphones and several dacs and amp's, also wired allows you to listen to tubes which while some people don't enjoy tubes I absolutely adore them.  To this day nothing beats a pair of sennheiser 650/600/6xx on a good tube, but that's only for music listening, I wouldn't daily tubes.  Also not all headphones enjoy pure tubes, some prefer hybrid solutions.  My point being that you can tailor the sound with equipment.

 

Since you're in Australia I'm going to have to recommend the Rode NTH-100, it's far below your budget but if you want to get two headphones then you'll be able to see the difference and potential improvement.  I absolutely LOVE the Rode headphones and the company has excellent customer support.  They have a rich sound signature and don't require nor necessarily need a dac or amp, they sound almost as good with onboard audio as they do on an expensive dac and amp.  When I started with all of this I wanted to know what people meant by different terms so I got headphones that exemplified each different quality.  If I had to narrow it down to 3 headphones it would be Sennheiser 6xx; Rode nth-100 and Beyerdynamic 1990pro (or) Focal Elex (1990 and elex are very similar)

[Pccooler7506]

23 minutes ago, Psittac said:

Do you have an amp and dac? If not is that included in the total budget?

 

XLR might be better than single ended but it's not something to go after because the budget is better spent somewhere else.  If you're getting to a point that you're looking at products that have balanced then by all means go for it.

 

Is this something where you would like to set yourself up for other headphones and make it kind of a hobby or you want your endgame solution?

 

I would recommend the DT1770pro over the 700 just because I have experience with the 1990pro and absolutely love them, also the dt700 is a lower ohm pair and I'm all about difficult to drive headphones, they typically have a little more heft and weight to the sound, a touch more like being at a concert than wearing headphones.

 

My take on the wired vs wireless topic leads me to say that wireless is potentially better for a one and done solution because it's dac amp and headphones in one package, on the same note if something breaks then you're out everything without the ability to replace a single component and no ability to upgrade anything.  The way I went about it was pure wired and I made a hobby out of it, buying several cheaper headphones and several dacs and amp's, also wired allows you to listen to tubes which while some people don't enjoy tubes I absolutely adore them.  To this day nothing beats a pair of sennheiser 650/600/6xx on a good tube, but that's only for music listening, I wouldn't daily tubes.  Also not all headphones enjoy pure tubes, some prefer hybrid solutions.  My point being that you can tailor the sound with equipment.

 

Since you're in Australia I'm going to have to recommend the Rode NTH-100, it's far below your budget but if you want to get two headphones then you'll be able to see the difference and potential improvement.  I absolutely LOVE the Rode headphones and the company has excellent customer support.  They have a rich sound signature and don't require nor necessarily need a dac or amp, they sound almost as good with onboard audio as they do on an expensive dac and amp.  When I started with all of this I wanted to know what people meant by different terms so I got headphones that exemplified each different quality.  If I had to narrow it down to 3 headphones it would be Sennheiser 6xx; Rode nth-100 and Beyerdynamic 1990pro (or) Focal Elex (1990 and elex are very similar)

Hmm alr, those seem like some great options. What’s your opinion on the aurorus Australis headphones? As for amp and DAC, I don’t have either, but they’re not included in this price, but I’m not opposed to having left over budget for those. 

[Cocococo]

25 minutes ago, Pccooler7506 said:

I was considering a DT 700 PRO X, how do they fair?

Honestly i prefer K371 and 840A to 700 PRO for all purposes, but i also heavily dislike Beyerdynamic headphones so take my judgement with a bit of salt. Audeze Maxwell is without doubt the best closed headphone to buy but if you really need wires and can't find an Aurorus Australis (they're easily the best closed headphones out there) then i'd just save a pretty penny and get the K371, 840A, NTH-100 and maybe 440A (840 and 440 are tuned very differently, K361 and K371 are tuned almost the same and tbh 371 are just a bit more comfortable) see what you like the most and return what you don't like. 

 

As for your other questions regarding wired, wireless, balanced and XLR of the four XLR and balanced makes the least difference, at best balanced audio just increases volume, however a common practice for balanced amps is to make the unbalanced signal lower quality than the balanced output to really "sell" the idea that balanced is better (think of it like that "taste the difference" food samples in supermarkets where the cheaper brand tastes noticeably worse despite the difference in price between the nasty stuff and the nice stuff being pretty small) if the headphone sounds better on balanced then it was only built for balanced output, same applies reversed. XLR is just a connector and unless you're using some insane electrostatic headphones XLR is only good if you use a speaker amp for your headphones and it doesn't have a 3.5mm or 4.4mm jack.

 

Wired vs Wireless is pretty interesting in the closed headphone space because of the Audeze Maxwell, it's actually really hard to make closed headphones sound good, it's hard for headphone makers to tune open headphones well, it's why the lists of recommendations on audio forums and discords is all pretty much the same. Bluetooth headphones are very hit or miss, Sennheiser Accentum, AKG N700 NCM2, Dyson Zone, T+A Solitaire and Focal Bathys are pretty well tuned headphones that rely on bluetooth connectivity, but given how small that list is you should gather that there is tons of really badly tuned wireless headphones. The Maxwell uses a USB dongle for its audio rather than bluetooth connectivity, this reduces latency and increases the amount of information the Maxwell can recieve, decode and play, couple that with them being some exceptionally well tuned closed headphones and you have an absolute market killer (for listening the only closed headphones i would rather use are the Aurorus Australis, and they are comfortably the best closed headphones out there) 

[Pccooler7506]

On 1/23/2024 at 8:13 AM, Cocococo said:

Honestly i prefer K371 and 840A to 700 PRO for all purposes, but i also heavily dislike Beyerdynamic headphones so take my judgement with a bit of salt. Audeze Maxwell is without doubt the best closed headphone to buy but if you really need wires and can't find an Aurorus Australis (they're easily the best closed headphones out there) then i'd just save a pretty penny and get the K371, 840A, NTH-100 and maybe 440A (840 and 440 are tuned very differently, K361 and K371 are tuned almost the same and tbh 371 are just a bit more comfortable) see what you like the most and return what you don't like. 

 

As for your other questions regarding wired, wireless, balanced and XLR of the four XLR and balanced makes the least difference, at best balanced audio just increases volume, however a common practice for balanced amps is to make the unbalanced signal lower quality than the balanced output to really "sell" the idea that balanced is better (think of it like that "taste the difference" food samples in supermarkets where the cheaper brand tastes noticeably worse despite the difference in price between the nasty stuff and the nice stuff being pretty small) if the headphone sounds better on balanced then it was only built for balanced output, same applies reversed. XLR is just a connector and unless you're using some insane electrostatic headphones XLR is only good if you use a speaker amp for your headphones and it doesn't have a 3.5mm or 4.4mm jack.

 

Wired vs Wireless is pretty interesting in the closed headphone space because of the Audeze Maxwell, it's actually really hard to make closed headphones sound good, it's hard for headphone makers to tune open headphones well, it's why the lists of recommendations on audio forums and discords is all pretty much the same. Bluetooth headphones are very hit or miss, Sennheiser Accentum, AKG N700 NCM2, Dyson Zone, T+A Solitaire and Focal Bathys are pretty well tuned headphones that rely on bluetooth connectivity, but given how small that list is you should gather that there is tons of really badly tuned wireless headphones. The Maxwell uses a USB dongle for its audio rather than bluetooth connectivity, this reduces latency and increases the amount of information the Maxwell can recieve, decode and play, couple that with them being some exceptionally well tuned closed headphones and you have an absolute market killer (for listening the only closed headphones i would rather use are the Aurorus Australis, and they are comfortably the best closed headphones out there) 

Hey so I’m having a look at getting two pairs, firstly an audeze Maxwell for gaming and video/audio chat etc, and a Aurorus Australis for anything else. I’m looking at the closed back variant of the Maxwell gaming headset, I’m supposing that’s the one you meant? I see that it has two options, one for Xbox and one for PlayStation. I’m intending on using mine with a pc, does it make any difference if I choose one over the other?

[Cocococo]

6 hours ago, Pccooler7506 said:

Hey so I’m having a look at getting two pairs, firstly an audeze Maxwell for gaming and video/audio chat etc, and a Aurorus Australis for anything else. I’m looking at the closed back variant of the Maxwell gaming headset, I’m supposing that’s the one you meant? I see that it has two options, one for Xbox and one for PlayStation. I’m intending on using mine with a pc, does it make any difference if I choose one over the other?

Xbox Maxwell has dolby licences, if you're not planning on using with anything other than PC and mobile then I'd get the PS version, dolby audio for headphones sucks imo

[Niftyvt]

On 1/26/2024 at 12:44 AM, Pccooler7506 said:

I’m looking at the closed back variant of the Maxwell gaming headset, I’m supposing that’s the one you meant?

I believe, for now anyways, the Maxwell's are only available as closed backs. 

 

My Maxwell's came in last week and if you do pick up a pair I would give them a week or so to see how you like them before dropping the coin for the Aurorus Australis. I have been messing around with mine and I generally like them with the stock EQ but I tried the the 'Bass Boost" preset and it sounds great for movies. In general the Maxwell's sound fantastic!