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plagueofangels
Metal newbie

Joined: Sat Jul 30, 2011 8:58 pm
Posts: 198
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Sun Jul 25, 2021 5:57 pm 
 

Hello archivists, what would you suggest for headphones for a budget of $500 and under? I want something for doomy and dark ambient style music, specifically for vast and arena-like sounds, where natural atmosphere and environment takes priority over vocals or cockrocky guitar solos, that kind of thing. My current headphones cost $15 on some bargain website several years ago and are worn to fuck, so basically anything at this stage is an improvement. What's worked best for you and what would be the pick of choice for this?

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coupdebleus
Metal newbie

Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:11 pm
Posts: 280
PostPosted: Sun Jul 25, 2021 7:02 pm 
 

It depends. The quality of your audio signal is only gonna be as good as the weakest link in the chain. Are you using any DAC/amp or a sound interface? If not, it'd be good to factor any of those into your budget.
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Lilac Seafoam
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Sun Dec 06, 2020 5:14 pm
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Mon Jul 26, 2021 5:55 pm 
 

DT770 is great for metal. You get a lot of tightness in the bass of the guitar riffs, and still get the boom. Soft pleasant high frequencies. 250 Ohm is recommended but you need a really good amp. Even for 80 ohm, good amp is strongly recommended to get the good tight bass. Perfect for a dark sound.

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LithoJazzoSphere
Veteran

Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:11 pm
Posts: 3576
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Jul 28, 2021 6:10 pm 
 

You probably want some open-back headphones if you want a really large soundstage. But with doom you probably also want a bit more bass to lend more heft to the sound. Sennheiser HD650 are perfect for it. Beyerdynamic DT990 are quite good as well. I love the DT770, but being closed, they're more slanted for pounding bass than a wide, expansive sound. I also love the Audio-Technica ATH-AD900X, though they're lighter on bass. If you do like closed headphones though, the Denon D5000 were also a good compromise between those two, though they're discontinued and probably too expensive now on the secondary market. Ultrasone Pro 900 are good at that as well. There may be newer models out that would work as well or better, but I did my last main headphone research and purchases close to a decade ago now, so these are ones that I own and/or had more experience with.

And yes, I would look into a quality headphone amplifier and a solid digital audio converter if you're playing electronic files. Even a lower-priced one will help out a lot, as some of the better headphones really need more juice to power them properly.

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