Best Headphones for Music

[Guest damonb10]

Hey all,

I just received my headphone adaptor for my SMT5600 and plugged in my Sony MDR-EX51LP headphones. While the sound quality is much improved over the junk throw-ins that came with the phone, I immediately noticed the hiss problem. I read about the hiss problem in some threads and assume it is what I'm hearing. Basically, I detect a steady hiss noise during music playback. Sometimes it is very noticeable; other times not too bad.

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone tried out some different headphones to see which did the best job of "hiding" the hiss noise and still returned some good quality music playback.

Thanks for the responses.

[Guest damonb10]

Hmm, I can't be the only one hearing the hiss or tsss sound. I read the dedicated thread about it. Has anyone found success in minimizing this sound with some good headphones?

FYI, the hiss or tss sound is not as detectable with the crap handsfree headphones that come with the phone. However, these also produce crap sounding music. I'm trying to get the best of both worlds :?:

[Guest RickDawson]

forget using the mobile for music, and get a decent MP3 player.

The audio quality is rubbish compared to my MP3 player, and thats with the same MP3 file.

Dont get rid of your sony earphones. I have those earphones, and they are the best I have ever heard.

[Guest damonb10]

forget using the mobile for music, and get a decent MP3 player.

The audio quality is rubbish compared to my MP3 player, and thats with the same MP3 file.

Dont get rid of your sony earphones. I have those earphones, and they are the best I have ever heard.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, the headphones do sound great with my real MP3 player. I like to use my mobile, though out of convenience. I use my MP3 player when running/working out.

I was just hoping that maybe there were some other headphones that could give me an even better experience and reduce the hiss.

[Guest mossywell]

forget using the mobile for music, and get a decent MP3 player.

The audio quality is rubbish compared to my MP3 player, and thats with the same MP3 file.

Dont get rid of your sony earphones. I have those earphones, and they are the best I have ever heard.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I beg to differ on all points. :)

I couldn't comment on the fact that the audio quality is "rubbish" compared with your MP3 player because I don't have your MP3 player. However, I would suggest that whenever someone tell you that something subjective is rubbish - do remember that it is all subjective. (Personally, I think MP3 is rubbish and for the same bandwidth WMA is eons better. By that's IMHO.)

Either way, you should not hear hiss, indeed on my C500 listening to variable rate compressed WMA, I get no hiss at all. The possibilities:

1. Bad source. Surprising likely - the quality of some CDs is woeful and some of the audio mastering is an insult to ones ears.

2. Bad conversion to MP3. MP3 is quite ruthless to what it does to sound waves to get the size down. However, hiss isn't usually one of the side effects unless you've really gone to town on the compression (in which case you might as well use cotton buds for headphones!)

3. Bad / faulty DAC. There are plenty of poor DACs around, but the one in my C500 is fine on the hiss-front. Perhaps it's a fault on the phone?

4. Rubbish player. I find Betaplayer (or whatever it's called these days) to be fine.

5. Rubbish headphones. This has to be the number 1 culprit, IMHO. I've tried many Sony headphones and personally, I find them dreadful! They are far too shallow in the midrange and vocals to me sound unnatural and fake. I'm am convinced that Sony effectivly like music to sound like the "loudness" button has been pressed! That said, if you listen to drum and bass, and don't care too much for how focussed the bass is or whether there's any midrange, Sonys will do the trick. For a very natural and "untampered with" sound, I find Shure headphones to be extremely good, especially the E5c model. That and lossless compression (and a big memory card!) and the sound is excellent (well, for a portable device anyway).

Just my threepenny bit's worth.

[Guest damonb10]

I beg to differ on all points. :)

I couldn't comment on the fact that the audio quality is "rubbish" compared with your MP3 player because I don't have your MP3 player. However, I would suggest that whenever someone tell you that something subjective is rubbish - do remember that it is all subjective. (Personally, I think MP3 is rubbish and for the same bandwidth WMA is eons better. By that's IMHO.)

Either way, you should not hear hiss, indeed on my C500 listening to variable rate compressed WMA, I get no hiss at all. The possibilities:

1. Bad source. Surprising likely - the quality of some CDs is woeful and some of the audio mastering is an insult to ones ears.

2. Bad conversion to MP3. MP3 is quite ruthless to what it does to sound waves to get the size down. However, hiss isn't usually one of the side effects unless you've really gone to town on the compression (in which case you might as well use cotton buds for headphones!)

3. Bad / faulty DAC. There are plenty of poor DACs around, but the one in my C500 is fine on the hiss-front. Perhaps it's a fault on the phone?

4. Rubbish player. I find Betaplayer (or whatever it's called these days) to be fine.

5. Rubbish headphones. This has to be the number 1 culprit, IMHO. I've tried many Sony headphones and personally, I find them dreadful! They are far too shallow in the midrange and vocals to me sound unnatural and fake. I'm am convinced that Sony effectivly like music to sound like the "loudness" button has been pressed! That said, if you listen to drum and bass, and don't care too much for how focussed the bass is or whether there's any midrange, Sonys will do the trick. For a very natural and "untampered with" sound, I find Shure headphones to be extremely good, especially the E5c model. That and lossless compression (and a big memory card!) and the sound is excellent (well, for a portable device anyway).

Just my threepenny bit's worth.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just to clarify, I use WMA compression at 192kbps. This sounds great in any other mp3/wma music player I've used in the past. The headphones are also satisfactory with other digital players. I'm trying to determine if this issue is the "soundbug" that plagues these phones, or if it is a result of the adaptor I'm using or something else.

[Guest mossywell]

Going back to your OP, you said:

I immediately noticed the hiss problem.  I read about the hiss problem in some threads and assume it is what I'm hearing.  Basically, I detect a steady hiss noise during music playback.  Sometimes it is very noticeable; other times not too bad. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So, no this is not the soundbug that you are hearing. The soundbug is a very short duration tsssss noise every 16 seconds roughly, which I suspect is caused by a bug in the DAC (i.e. WAV, WMA, MP3 bitrates won't make any difference). The sound in between however is "fine". If you are hearing a constant hissing as you say, it is something else. I do not know why your MP3 player sounds fine whereas the phone doesn't but I wouldn't be surprised if the MP3 player has a simple low-pass filter to "kill" any hiss (and also any bona fide sibilant sounds such as cymbals). That's a complete guess by the way. :) What I'm kind of saying is that don't rule out the possibilty that the hiss is actually in the WMA file and the MP3 player is just killing it off whereas the phone isn't. Maybe.

Also, 192K is ample for listening on the move. :D (Why on earth prople compress their audio when listening on their hi fi at home is beyond me - but that's another story.)

[Guest gsmm0n]

I listened to MP3's (mostly 192k) using TCPMP on my Etymotic Research ER-6i's (great pair of earbuds, comprable to something like the Shure E3C's) and things sounded great. My iPod is better but not *that* much better. I attribute most of the difference to my junky 2.5->3.5mm adapter.