Current best non-nc headphones
 

I'll post this here given that most FT technophiles will monitor this thread.

I'd like some advice as to the best reference headsets on the market. As a part of a personal project I am in need of an absolutely top-level set of 'phones. I am currently working with a set of Sennheiser HD 545 reference headphone's. These are seven years old. The music is mainly choral in nature but can vary to large orchestra.

This is for a music restoration project for tapes that span five decades.

I like my Sennheiser HD600 phones that some think are some of the best headphones available.

Check out www.head-fi.org for lots of opinions and www.headphone.com for people who are headphone fanatics and will steer you pretty well.

Simply put, nothing else on the planet can even come close to the sound quality of Stax headphones, particularly when combined with one of their own tube headphone amps or one of the better solid-state headphone amps like Creek [these amps are quite small, about the size of a thick paper-back novel].

I assure you that you will be floored by the sound coming from a pair of Stax electrostatic headphones. The timbrel accuracy of the headphones will put most under-$2500 loud speakers to shame.

If you absolutely refuse to pay for a pair of Stax then the only thing that even comes close are some of the Grado's, starting with the SR-80 and up.

Apparently my current, albeit old, set compare reasonably against the Grado's. They are a good set of cans, no doubt. I'll look into Stax to see if they'll help with the task at hand.

I've already gone through the capture phase, 100+ tapes and two weeks worth of work have resulted in around 100GB of raw uncompressed audio. I'm currently running the first passes to eliminate base hum and hiss, most of which is in the 60hz range given the original equipment with lots of airconditioner blowers on several.

The next pass will be to work on some of the more subtle aural aspects before I start to break the tapes into individual files and start the tagging process, thus the need for high quality reproduction.

Sennheiser Orpheus. A mere $12,000. IMO an inexpensive but VERY VERY neutral headphone is the Etymotic ER-4S. You need custom earmolds to get the most out of it but if you want something with zero coloration and utter neutrality, they're the ones to get.

A side benefit of Etymotics is that they naturally block out noise and seal to the ear canal so ALL you hear are the 'phones. Also, with custom earmolds they fit very comfortably and are not irritating which makes them particularly suitable for hour-on-hour listening. The best place to get earmolds made is anyplace hearing aids are fitted. They'll take a mold of your ear, get the earmolds made, test them on you, then trim them to fit perfectly. Thus, they'll end up being perfect for travel too and block noise more effectively than any active noise cancelling 'phone I've ever seen.

[This message has been edited by kanebear (edited Nov 20, 2003).]

Ok, so I didn't give any constraints in my original post. But, $12k is a little much for this particular application. After all, this is CD-level capture of very old audio tapes of choral performances in not ideal recording environments.

As to the Etymotic's you mentioned. I might be interested in this for travel purposes except for the need to drive them agressively to get solid reproduction. I have a friend who has a set along with an iPod who is satisfied. I don't think I like the idea of using them for home listening though.