off-topic but the faux leather on my old pair of headphones was coming off so i was going to get a new one. decided that this time i was actually going to get a decent pair instead of just getting the cheapest ones from okay brands. looked at audiophile shit and found some budget options that would "rival headphones in the several hundred of dollars range". obviously i was pretty excited as i felt that i would be listening to music "properly" for the first time. i can barely tell a difference lol
the only time it really makes a difference is when songs have AWFUL mixing, but then it just makes the song unbearable to listen to :guaido-despair:
What headphones did you end up getting, what did you used to have, and what kind of music do you usually listen to? Sometimes people will heavily exaggerate how they say that certain headphones will punch above their weight, but people won't be able to tell the difference if their last pair were also decent, or if they listen to music where having flat levels across the range or good clarity isn't actually helpful.
for the majority of the past few years i used a Phillips O'Neill and i also used a JBLT450 every now and then. i ended up going for the Superlux HD681 Evo.
i know it's a very common answer and that most people say this, but i listen to a little bit of everything. since i got the headphones i've listened to "hard" rock (Muse, Wolfmother, RATM), pop (Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Blackbear), pop punk (MGK, KennyHoopla), rap (Kanye, Denzel Curry, Juice WRLD) and classic rock (gta v rock radio station)
aside from music sounding a bit better in a way i can't quite explain i can hear some shit that i couldn't earlier, like the singer breathing or licking their lips. the sound staging for gaming is better too. like, it's better but nothing groundbreaking. maybe my expectations were too high.
So, the headphones you got are good, with a bit of modding. I wouldn't say they'll punch into the "hundreds of dollars" range, but they'll definitely get to the "around a hundred" area, for much less. Another thing a lot of people will fight about is the "burn in" period. Some people insist all headphones need to be burned in, others insist it's not a real thing. If you're spending a lot, my opinion is that it's not something to worry about, but a lot of the more "budget hi-fi picks" like the superluxes do seem to benefit from just being played for a number of hours, and then the sound seems to be better after some number of hours of use, a commonly cited time frame being 40-50 hours.
The real budget killer stuff for headsets under 100 will require some modding. My understanding is that the HD681 Evos have a tight headband which you may want to stretch to make it more comfortable, throw on some different earpads, and they skew kinda treble heavy, so you may want to play with EQ or even modify the headphones.
off-topic but the faux leather on my old pair of headphones was coming off so i was going to get a new one. decided that this time i was actually going to get a decent pair instead of just getting the cheapest ones from okay brands. looked at audiophile shit and found some budget options that would "rival headphones in the several hundred of dollars range". obviously i was pretty excited as i felt that i would be listening to music "properly" for the first time. i can barely tell a difference lol
the only time it really makes a difference is when songs have AWFUL mixing, but then it just makes the song unbearable to listen to :guaido-despair:
What headphones did you end up getting, what did you used to have, and what kind of music do you usually listen to? Sometimes people will heavily exaggerate how they say that certain headphones will punch above their weight, but people won't be able to tell the difference if their last pair were also decent, or if they listen to music where having flat levels across the range or good clarity isn't actually helpful.
for the majority of the past few years i used a Phillips O'Neill and i also used a JBLT450 every now and then. i ended up going for the Superlux HD681 Evo.
i know it's a very common answer and that most people say this, but i listen to a little bit of everything. since i got the headphones i've listened to "hard" rock (Muse, Wolfmother, RATM), pop (Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Blackbear), pop punk (MGK, KennyHoopla), rap (Kanye, Denzel Curry, Juice WRLD) and classic rock (gta v rock radio station)
aside from music sounding a bit better in a way i can't quite explain i can hear some shit that i couldn't earlier, like the singer breathing or licking their lips. the sound staging for gaming is better too. like, it's better but nothing groundbreaking. maybe my expectations were too high.
So, the headphones you got are good, with a bit of modding. I wouldn't say they'll punch into the "hundreds of dollars" range, but they'll definitely get to the "around a hundred" area, for much less. Another thing a lot of people will fight about is the "burn in" period. Some people insist all headphones need to be burned in, others insist it's not a real thing. If you're spending a lot, my opinion is that it's not something to worry about, but a lot of the more "budget hi-fi picks" like the superluxes do seem to benefit from just being played for a number of hours, and then the sound seems to be better after some number of hours of use, a commonly cited time frame being 40-50 hours.
The real budget killer stuff for headsets under 100 will require some modding. My understanding is that the HD681 Evos have a tight headband which you may want to stretch to make it more comfortable, throw on some different earpads, and they skew kinda treble heavy, so you may want to play with EQ or even modify the headphones.