Choosing Headphones.

How hard is it to buy a new pair of headphones to listen to your favourite music on the go?  Find a pair in the style you like, in your price range, click, click, confirm and two days later you have them nestled in your hands.  Right?  If only it was so easy.

My initial requirements were quite simple.  I wanted some over-ear headphones that offered better sound quality than my current in-ear phones.  They had to not be too bulky, so I wouldn’t look foolish walking down the street wearing them and so they would fit in my bag when I got to work and they also had to be not too expensive.  Pretty simple so far.  Then my search began and that threw the cat amongst the pigeons. 

I started off by reading an article in the Financial Times weekend magazine about Monster Beats Headphones designed by Dr Dre.  They promised to offer the sound the artists heard in the studio and would make your MP3 player roar and sing in a way it has never done before.  I was hooked, but not yet in the landing net.  What sent me out to give them a try was the knowledge the Jimmy Iovine was involved in the project and as he has produced numerous bands I enjoy (most notably for me, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) I went out to give them a hearing test.

Slipping a pair over my ears I was very impressed with the comfort and the sound emanating from the speakers.  The bass was warm and rich (as promised) and the mids and treble was pretty decent too.  The price was way out of my range at over £249 at the time, but boy did they look cool.  That is until I saw numerous footballers and Justin Bieber wearing a pair!  So the sound was good, but the price was a major sticking point and the ‘cool’ factor was on shaky ground.  It was back to the drawing board.

I went on Amazon and read numerous headphone reviews, before going to dedicated musical equipment websites to get another point of view.  The field was narrowing as I realised I needed closed back headphones to block external sound and to prevent me upsetting fellow commuters with sound leakage.

They also needed to be circum-aural so the headphone cup would fit around the ear.  This way sound isolation is improved even more and sound leakage is further reduced.  I also learnt I would have to let the speakers ‘burn in’ long enough before judging the sound fully.  Apparently they need to loosen up to vibrate fully and give the best, warmest sound.

I also wanted as wide a frequency response as possible to give me deeper bass and sharper trebles.  In my online reading I learnt if you want to enjoy music as it was made you need to buy a set of flat response headphones, or at least not a set which has excessively boosted bass (like the Monster Beats).  Of course if you enjoy boosted bass, or music with heavy bass like Hip Hop, these headphones are perfect, but for what I wanted I had to find a pair of monitoring or reasonably flat headphones.

My research continued and every time I thought I had found the pair for me, I read a review of it’s flaws or saw a video on YouTube of it’s headband or cables snapping so that I was still left in doubt.  Surely it shouldn’t be this difficult.

I finally decided on a pair of Sennheiser HD 205- II headphones. The sound was good, although I expected them to get better as they burnt in and they looked pretty nice as well.  The one major flaw was that the headband was WAY too tight and after a short period of listening I had an unbearable headache and couldn’t wear them anymore.  These were returned for a refund and yet again it was back to the drawing board.

The next pair I considered were quite a jump in price, but as I was starting to run out of ideas I went back to a local electronics shop and tested out some Bose AE2’s.  The sound was clear and well balanced and online reviews and the sales advisor heartily recommended them.  Bose’s reputation certainly precede them so I was comfortable with the build and sound quality I would be buying and I thought I had found the headphones for me.

So finally to my relief I had chosen the headphones I was going to buy.  They had enough cable length, excellent sound, enough frequency range, they were closed back, circum-aural, not too bulky, they had a pouch for when they were stored in my bag, the style was good enough for me and the price was right(ish) too.

Am I happy with my decision?  Well the sound started off being excellent and only improved after playing my music through them for a few weeks.  They cope equally well with metal, classical, rock, jazz, pop and anything else I can throw at them.  They are comfortable to wear for prolonged periods and despite not having active sound reduction technology, they manage to block external sound very well indeed.  I wore them on a flight recently and was very impressed with the reduction in the sound of the plane engine and also with the clarity of the music I could hear through them.  I have heard details in my music that I had previously missed up until now and they have held up to regular wear, although I admit it is still early days yet.  All in all I am very satisfied and after a prolonged search, I think I may have just found the headphones to keep me happy as I listen to my music away from the house or work.  Who knew it would take me so long or that I’d be so fussy!