[Ger]

On Jun 20, 5:48*pm, " wrote:
On Jun 19, 8:30*am, Ger wrote:



On Jun 17, 7:45 pm, " wrote:

On Jun 16, 3:19 am, Sonnova wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:48:05 -0700, Vinyl Rules! wrote
(in article ):

On Jun 2, 12:22 am, " wrote:
Spouse watches TV. I listen to music. She won't close caption. I use
Bose noise-reduction units on my laptop to listen to music, but I can
still here the TV, no matter how low it goes. I assume I need over
the
ear headphones. But what are the best that will close to 100 percent
drown out TV and other noise?

Here's a great professional headphone no one has yet mentioned: The
Sennheiser HD280 Pro

Check 'em out at:
http://www.sennheiserusa.com/newsite...transid=004974

Note the spec that states 'Up to 32 dB of ambient noise reduction."

I have a set of the aforementioned Koss and IMO, the Sennheiser's
sound better, they are lighter, and waaaay more comfortable than the
Koss. As always, YMMV, of course.

And as another poster suggested, get HER to wear them

If both wear them neither will need the headphones to be of the isolation
type.

Got the Beyerdynamic 880s -- love-em. Shame, though, nothing like this
also comes with the Bose-style noise reduction built in, too.

Glad to hear you like them so much. I really don't think you'll ever
look back as far as the issue concerns the 880's vs. the Koss. On the
matter of powering them just through the laptop.... The use of a
decent headphone amp instead of powering straight from the laptop is
not just an issue of volume. In my listening at least, the use of an
amp gives a substantially greater sense of fullness and dimension even
at lower volumes than the laptop's amplification output can manage.
I'm no techie, so I can't explain why, except that having 'headroom'
in the reproduction is different than just being able to reach higher
volumes without distortion. The best of course would be if you were
able to borrow same to listen for yourself for a few days, to see for
yourself. In my own experience it's pretty much the same as having a
better amp in ones home hifi. Even if never running the volume knob
past, say, 10 o'clock. It will sound better as a rule than the amp
that has to run at say 3 o'clock to get the same subjective sense of
volume. As for the noise cancellation issue, again I'm no techie, but
my own listening strongly suggests that the nose cancellation designs
muck with the signal to achieve their goal, with the result being that
clarity (read: mimic of live sound experience) suffers. Note: Do NOT
let her wear them with the TV source ; she'll prefer them to non-
headphone in this case; and you'll be back to the tinny sound of the
TV, which you didn't want to watch/listen in the first place... or
else you'll be stuck with buying a another set. You'll still be a TV-
plus-music couple, but now you'll be laying there as a double set of
phones. You'll both be very happy with your respective sources, but
with all those wires you'll now have a completely different set of
complications when the ecstasy of the good sound leads you two to get
intimate and you both get tangled up in all those wires!

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to price some amps. The 'phones cost
like $280. Should I spend the same amount on an amp? Second question,
when the volume is up on the laptop, my wife has noticed, not
complained mind you, lol, that she can hear the music a little. Are
there head phones at least as nice as the 880s that block the sound
that others might hear emanating from the headphones?

I don't know the answer as far as external sound blocking is
concerned. When I shopped for mine, the only criterion was sound
quality. As it turned out, there is general consensus that, all other
things being equal, the 'closed' designs will give better all-round
music, and incidentally also block out sound better. As for price of
headphone amp, I would go by powerful+small size+battery power... I've
unexpectedly traveled some distances, only to be pleased that a large
size did not preclude good music on the trip. I would also spend the
most that's affordable (no point adding a really cheap link in an
otherwise good chain), my pref once again would be Dr. Xin, depending
on what you can find out re delivery time....