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ushare
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  #902348 25-Sep-2013 11:40
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Ive got ones that came with my roku 3 and they are AWESOME!!

Of course, the more you pay the better quality you will get.

Its all about preference really.



jpoc
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  #903231 26-Sep-2013 17:46
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One thing to remember is that these devices are pretty much the most commonly faked consumer products around.

If you see earphones offered at a low price, they are almost certainly fake. Online or offline.

With some brands/models, it is so bad that even if you see something at the normal price, it is probably fake.

Some companies in this sector have simply lost control over their supply chain and fake products turn up in reputable stores.

As an example, look on amazon at the reviews for bose earphones. You will see that most reviews are either 5 star raves about how wonderful they are or 1 star moans about rubbish quality products that fall to bits in two months.

Sometimes the fakes come out of the correct factory in the correct packaging. Some dude in the factory will have sneaked in a thousand or so fakes and substituted them for the real thing in order to be able to take the real ones and sell them at the factory back door.

Satch
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  #903715 27-Sep-2013 13:23
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johnr: Factory headphones work fine


What a great piece of advice...

Sure they work fine but I think the OP is asking if they are decent quality.

I have a pair of $400 Sennheiser earbuds which I paid $150 for on sale.  They definitely sound noticeably better than all the factory earbuds I've every used (limited amount), and also a bit better than the $150 earbuds I've had in the past.  I would never pay $400 for earbuds, but since they were on sale...

Basically I'm saying if you are after better quality sound, then it is worth paying a bit extra for better headphones/earphones/earbuds.  But at the end of the day your budget will dictate what you get.



turnin
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  #903941 27-Sep-2013 21:25
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I made an application the other day that allowed me to play frequencies from from 50 to 20000 hz really surprised me that i couldn't hear above 8 thousand hertz and i was resigned to thinking all those pub nights and old age had damaged my hearing. Somewhat relieved that on using $ 100 headphones instead of generic earbuds I could hear the frequencies up to about 13khz. With that said comfort is probably a bigger factor than freq response.

geekiegeek
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  #903957 27-Sep-2013 21:57
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I have Sennheiser HD300 Pro, HD650, CX100, PMX80, PXC450 (noise cancelling) and CX 400 II

There is most definitely a difference in sound quality as you move up the range. The difference between my HD300s and my HD650s is like night and day. Sure the 300s are closed vs the 650s open design but I don't believe that is the full story. Before I got my 650s I had HD555s which are also open and the 650s blow them away.

I would love to try a pair of HD800s and I'm sure that if I do I will have to threaten divorce with my wife so I can buy them :-)

Technofreak
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  #903968 27-Sep-2013 23:43
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The Blackbox C20's have got some good reviews.  I have a pair and they do a good job and are very comfortable.

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/best-headphones-for-phones-25-pairs-tested-1029544/5

http://blogs.lasoo.co.nz/2012/10/blackbox-c20-noise-cancelling-earphones/

Nate, one of the mods on Geekzone has also reviewed them. http://blog.3bit.com/8240

At around $180 they're good value for money




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NZtechfreak
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  #903974 28-Sep-2013 00:11
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geekiegeek: I have Sennheiser HD300 Pro, HD650, CX100, PMX80, PXC450 (noise cancelling) and CX 400 II

There is most definitely a difference in sound quality as you move up the range. The difference between my HD300s and my HD650s is like night and day. Sure the 300s are closed vs the 650s open design but I don't believe that is the full story. Before I got my 650s I had HD555s which are also open and the 650s blow them away.

I would love to try a pair of HD800s and I'm sure that if I do I will have to threaten divorce with my wife so I can buy them :-)


The HD650 are very good, but fortunately/unfortunately the rabbit hole goes a fair way deeper than that in the headphones world!

I've had a month with the HD800 at home and a top quality amp, for the sake of your marriage I'd recommend never ever listening to them :)




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driller2000
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  #904019 28-Sep-2013 09:39
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brought a pair of audio technica m35s for both home and mobile use (note: the cord is long and fixed in place) - and i am very happy with them

paired it with either a galaxy s2 or galaxy tab when mobile - and they do the job

sure there are better head phones at more $$$ - but they do review very favourably and bang for buck wise i am very happy

also added in a Fiio E11 kilimanjaro amp into the chain and this has made them sound even better imho

good luck with your purchase : )

timmmay
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  #904030 28-Sep-2013 10:11
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Blackbox wouldn't send me a pair of headphones for review, they said they were only interested in the NZ market and my reviews website is global. That was a few years ago though.

minimoke
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  #904076 28-Sep-2013 11:22
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simon14: In terms of sound quality, do mobile phone 3.5mm jack headphones differ really?

If so, what is a good make/model to buy?

 

The short answer as you’ll gather by now is “Yes”.

The buds that came with my S1 were absolute rubbish - comparable to my sons IPod ones. The buds that came with the S3 are much better. But I don’t use them preferring my now ruined Ultimate Ear's (UE’s) and I now have a pair of Schures which are great.

There are two other parts to an answer. If you are playing Milley Cyrus at 64 KBPS it doesn't matter what buds you listen through it will still sound crap. My personal preference is 320 KBPS since I have learnt I really can’t distinguish the difference between a FLAC/WAV file and 320 kbps. Music at 128 KBPS is probably the minimum – still won’t sound great and 256 is probably not a bad compromise  between quality and size.

The other part is the DAC your phone uses. I had a Wolfson DAC in my S1. The beauty of the android phone was that I could apply my own mods so I stuck Rockbox on and the quality enhanced the ear buds.

On my S3 I have a Jet Audio music player app with sound modified by Noozxoide. The stock S3 buds sound pretty good but listening through the Schures is much better.

That said, I still can’t beat my trusty old Cowon D2+

Technofreak
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  #904140 28-Sep-2013 13:30
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timmmay: Blackbox wouldn't send me a pair of headphones for review, they said they were only interested in the NZ market and my reviews website is global. That was a few years ago though.


They're marketing globally now from what I can tell.  One of those reviews i linked to was from a UK site.




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webwat
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  #904198 28-Sep-2013 15:49
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richms: More than the quality of the phones is the quality of the fit to your ear for in ear ones. If you are not in the middle of the bell curve for ear hole size etc then a majority of phones will not be much good for you no matter how high end they are.

Yeah and some of them are shaped better or have inserts to fit your ear. I got a Sony earphone thats a only a few dollars more than the cheap ones but has a very good range for its size; you can hear the extra base with quiet music but it probably makes no difference for voice. Check the specs, they should say what range it produces along with the impedance etc.




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NZtechfreak
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  #904220 28-Sep-2013 16:46
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webwat:
richms: More than the quality of the phones is the quality of the fit to your ear for in ear ones. If you are not in the middle of the bell curve for ear hole size etc then a majority of phones will not be much good for you no matter how high end they are.

Yeah and some of them are shaped better or have inserts to fit your ear. I got a Sony earphone thats a only a few dollars more than the cheap ones but has a very good range for its size; you can hear the extra base with quiet music but it probably makes no difference for voice. Check the specs, they should say what range it produces along with the impedance etc.


The frequency range they tell you will likely be completely academic, even the worst headphones will probably say they reproduce audio between 20-20000Hz, which is roughly equivalent to the limits of normal hearing (and most of us won't even get that close to 20,0000Hz at the high end). Lots of good headphones will give ranges up to figures like 50,000Hz and while that may be true, most of that range has utterly no relevance to human hearing.

In terms of impedance they'll likely only give a nominal impedance at 1Khz, and no indication as to impedance variation over the frequency range (balanced armature IEMs in particular can vary very widely). Better to check somewhere like Innerfidelity and/or Goldenears, who will give you their measurements for impedance over the frequency range. As a real world example of how this can work check out the consternation the Galaxy S4 i9505 caused on it's release firmware - it had terrible clipping and distortion in the bass frequencies that manifested on low impedance IEMs (and even some whose nominal impedance wasn't that low, but which actually dips low in the bass frequencies when you look at proper measurements).




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hangon
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  #904281 28-Sep-2013 19:10
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if you looking for quality and value, then this post may help

http://www.head-fi.org/t/625124/over-performing-over-achieving-headphones-iems-for-their-price-range-top-cost-effective-cans-iems

provided many options are not readily available in NZ.

if you don't mind a full size headone, the philips uptown is rather comfortable and decent, and should give you some passive noise isolation, price is not bad at Noel Leeming, on special for $117 (jb hifi retail $179), cheaper than even most ebay sellers.
http://www.noelleeming.co.nz/shop/audio-mp3/portable-audio-mp3/headphones/philips-shl5905b-citiscape-uptown-headphone-black/prod116483.html?ref=pricespy

ideally try them in shop for a bit longer, and compare different models. reviews and opinions are sometimes subjective thus ymmv.

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