headphones Best Sounding Headphones

[PenguinMaster]

What is the best sounding headphones, preferred price under $500 unless they are some great sounding headphones.

[Guest]

This is a rabbit hole, run.

 

But seriously, what is your main use? What are you going to use to drive them?

[Crunchy Dragon]

-Moved to Audio-

[PenguinMaster]

On 10/2/2018 at 8:30 PM, Densetsu said:

This is a rabbit hole, run.

 

But seriously, what is your main use? What are you going to use to drive them?

Gaming & Music Listening

[NickTheMajin]

I'm going to throw a few different options based on what kind of sound you're looking for in the $300-500 mark. 

 

V-Moda Crossfade 2 Codex Editions: Warm, good bass, good balance into the mids and highs but a relatively small soundstage. Fun headphones to listen to and extremely comfortable. Wireless or wired

Bowers and Wilkins PX: Bright. Awesome clarity, excellent detail, weaker bass but makes up for it with a much larger sound stage. Wireless or wired. Best build quality. Most iconic brand of the bunch by far known for their speakers that go into the tens of thousands of dollars. 

Sennheiser HD 660: Best sound stage of the bunch. Open back so no using these outside or portably but you will not beat the soundstage or comfort of these guys (Or any of Sennheiser's open back headphones). These guys are only wired and in my opinion require separate amplification (IE not just a headphone jack). 

 

You'll get a lot of recommendations for Audiotecnica headphones but I'd stay away from Audiotecnica personally. They're widely recommended because they're usually babies first foray into audiophile teritory. Most of the people recommending Audiotecnica cans will not have heard of the better and more iconic brands out there like Bowers and Wilkins. A couple non audiophile hyper popular youtubers made reviews on them and made them internet famous but they're just one step above a headphone like beats in my opinion. Not bad but there is better out there. 

[kokakolia]

On 10/2/2018 at 6:30 PM, King Poet said:

This is a rabbit hole, run.

 

But seriously, what is your main use? What are you going to use to drive them?

It is a messy rabbit hole full of hype and snake oil though. I really mean it. Run from this mess. Just get something decent under $200 and call it a day. I like the Sennheiser HD 558 or HD 559. It’s a solid set of cans, just a little over $100. It’s good.

[Monstieur]

99% of open-back headphones have zero sub-bass. 99% of closed-back headphones have high-distortion bass. If a headphone does not reproduce the entire audible range down to 20 Hz without rolling off, it's garbage. This means the HD 650 etc are objectively bad headphones. The few planar magnetic headphones which produce low-distortion sub-bass do not have equal loudness compensation, so you have to boost the bass by 10 dB to hear it at the correct level. You can use Equalizer APO with its "Loudness correction" filter to do this automatically.