Headphone Suggestions

[oracleguy]

The left speaker has mostly died in the earbud headphones that came with my iPod and I need to get some new headphones. I want to stick with the earbud form factor but I just don't know which ones are any good.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[rmedek]

How much are you looking to spend? A lot of manufacturers that were making pro-only in-ear monitors are now making consumer versions that are a little cheaper and still sound incredible. Essentially it's a high-quality driver and some sort of foam/rubber plug that inserts into your ear and seals out outside noise. Any of the Shure consumer models are pretty good (e-1, e-2, e-3…my favs are the e-5s but they are pro models and are very expensive) and run anywhere from $80–$300.

I have a $800 set of custom-molded Westone in-ears (a perk from a gig I had for awhile) and a $80 set of foam Westone e-1s (essentially the same as the Shures) and I can't tell much of a difference. They absolutely blow away virtually any other headphone out there…of course the trade-off is the average headphone/ear bud costs around $20 and you might not want to seal out outside noise.

[oracleguy]

No more than 50 bucks, and totally sealing out outside noise isn't what I want since I wear them at work and when I'm outside.

[croatiankid]

Sennheiser.

[kwhubby]

Fifty bucks for headphones isn't going to get you much in terms of sound quality. If you’re satisfied with the sound of the Ipod headphones, that price range could get you ear buds that would be satisfying for you. The Ipod headphones aren’t that great in sound quality, and could be outperformed with just 50$. I personally like the sound of the sennheiser headphones, as they tend to sound good and not have the hyped higher frequencies. Although I find the more expensive circumaural headphones to be a better deal in terms of sound quality for the price range, their ear bud headphones are still very respectable for the price and form factor. The MX series from sennheiser are the ear buds similar to the Ipod's, the CX series are the ones with more isolation to outside noise.