Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Looking for new headphones, what do you recommend?

Hello

Currently I own a Kawai CA-13. I also received a Koss UR/10 headphone for free with this piano.
I am not satisfied with the sound of these headphones. Yesterday I compared it to the Yamaha HPE-150 headphone (which looks like a cheap walkman headphone from the ninetees). To my big surprise this Yamaha sounded much more clear and loud. It also resembled the normal sound of the piano more than the Koss.
I want to buy it just for the better sound it makes, it costs about 69 euros here.
I also tried a Roland and Audiotechnica, but this cheap looking Yamaha sounded much better.

What do you recommend? What is a good headphone which matches with my Kawai CA-13?

Try the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro.

I am really happy with them ...

The Sennheiser HD598 is what I use everyday and it really is a great headset.

Whatever you decide to buy be sure you can return it. You really have to live with headphones for more than several days before you can make an unbiased decision.

A good set of headphones will make everything sound natural because hopefully the headphones themselves will have a relatively flat frequency response.

I'll second the HD598. These are really comfortable and you can wear them for hours at a time if you want. They're 'open' which means you get some noise leakage but it helps give a more realistic sound. They seem to get a lot more detail out of the sound that I didn't know was there before. I will often use at times of the day when there's no reason to do so. You can use them for other things too - eg: when watching a film you get a really immersive sound.

There have been a number of extensive threads on headphones here in recent months, you may want to search them out for a lot of detailed suggestions.

anotherscott is right. Do the search. There are many threads on this topic.

I would add this: The discussion doesn't really matter. No words can properly describe headphone sounds. And even if that were possible, it still doesn't matter: You have to satisfy yourself by trying some phones and picking those that you like.

Your opinion matters. No one else can provide a relevant opinion.

It would also help to know your general budget. Sennheiser HD600s are excellent (and a bit more neutral than the 598 I believe) but that doesn't do you any good if you only want to spend 50 euros.

Alternately, I suppose the headphone answer to everything is Stax SR-009 with a Blue Hawaii amp if you have the money


You may also find http://www.head-fi.org/ useful.

I never liked the Koss phones.

There are a whole series (DTX-series) of Beyerdynamic phones in the $60 to $100 range. That translates to about 50 to 80 Euros.

Amazon has them, with free shipping.

Beyerdynamic DT880 pros, semi open, neutral, warm and verrry comfortable, got mine for $190, you can wear them for hours and not get fatigued and they wont sweat your ears. Such a nice clear and open soundstage. I love mine!

I have the Audio-Technica ATH-M50S Pro Mixing and Monitoring headphones. Flat response, comfortable and found them online for way less than $100 USD.

Another "studio standard" headphone is the AKG K 240.

Good luck.

My Koss UR/10 headphone has lost volume at he left side. So now I have to look for another headphone.
Because Yamaha has a clear and crisp sound which suits a pianosound in my opinion, these two headphones I am interested in right now:



The first one is the Yamaha RH5MA which costs 63 euros, the second one is the Yamaha HPE170 with a pricetag of 119 euros, twice as much.

Is anyone familiar with these headphones?

I only buy headphones where there cables can be easily replaced. You might want to factor that into your decision making proces

Do you need them to be closed? Generally at any given price point an open option will give better sound than a closed option.

In general I'd stay away from Yamaha headphones (especially at that price). There are quite a number of very well-regarded headphone companies discussed continually at head-fi.org but I don't think I've ever seen Yamaha brought up (other than some of their vintage orthos).

Yamaha makes good instruments, but my expectation is that their headphones are a "me too" reaction since they make digital instruments, and I wouldn't expect them to sound any good.

With that said, if you have the chance to listen to them and like them then go for it, but if you want closed cans you should at least also check out Audio Technica ATH-M50, Shure SRH-440 and SRH-840 (and I'm sure there are other good options, that's just off the top of my head, personally I use the Shure 840s). And if you don't need closed then there are many more options as well (try some Grado SR60s if possible and some Sennheisers).

I used a pair of RH5M's as my knock-around, listen-to-music-at-work-every-now-and-then headphones. Too much bass, I ended up partially taping over the slit openings to fix that. The pleather ear coverings rotted away after several years, but after an unsuccessful attempt at repair and I got rid of them. Fairly horrible sound, not worth $10 IMO, stay away.

I can recommend Audio Technica ATH AD700, very comfortable, good balanced sound.

Yamaha 'phones are rubbish. The top Roland ones are re-branded decent Sonys (but even then hardly class-leading). The DP makers that put their names to headphones are buying in mediocre generic headphones and putting their name on them and then charging a vast mark-up. Avoid.

There's many good headphones out there. But it's a very personal choice - as much for wearing comfort as for sound - so recommendations from others are only worth so much. You really need to try them yourself.

All that said, you can't usually go wrong with sensible Sennheiser! I no longer own any Senns but I've had many years out of good ones in the past.

Good luck,

Steve

Is it bad that Im using a pair of $35 SkullCandy headphones for my keyboard? I love SkullCandy, great value for what you pay.

If you want really good build quality I can recommend AKG. I have myself ordered a pair of K240 MkII, that is hopefully coming in this week. http://www.akg.com/site/products/powerslave,id,1063,nodeid,2,_language,EN.html

Regarding the discussion about Yamaha headphones. I got a pair of Yamaha Orthodynamic headphones from my father when I was around 3-4 years (in the late seventies) old, the HP-2 model @150 Ohm and they are still as good as when I got them.

I have Sony MDR 7506 Studio Professional. But they are closed. However, the sound is really nice.

Not bad. But Skull Candy, Beats, Dr Dre and similar all 'colour' the sound.