I'd recommend the Grados for rock music for sure. They have great sound for pretty affordable prices. They are pretty ugly though.

For movies and gaming, I'd suggest getting the headphones I have: Audio-Technica ATH-A900's. They're about $200, and closed and pretty goddamn huge, but they are extremely nice sounding.

Some of us like the retro look. :)

Of course, any mod work done to Grados by headphile.com is stunning & beautiful. Wood is awesome.

http://www.headphile.com/page9.html

I got the Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 pro (like PiccoloNamek... <3) and I love them to death. At the time, it was a toss-up between the Shure e4c and these, and I chose this one after trying both after a while. It only cost about $250. These IEMs are awesome, and I use them for all my travels. I loved it. On shuttles and trains, the only thing I can hear other than my music are the vibrations of the engines on my body. When I enter crowded areas like food courts, the only thing I hear is my music. Sweet, beautiful, fucking awesome music. <3 again. Arainach has offered all the advice I'd give. head-fi.com is the place to go.

I really don't feel like signing up at that forum and asking noob questions, so I'll ask for a product comparison here. I read the CNET reviews for both the Shure E4g and the Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 5 Pro - they gave a higher score to the E4g despite the fact that the Ultimate Ears have two drivers while the Shure ones only have a single driver. Theoretically the Ultimate Ears set should have higher sound quality due to separate drivers for different frequencies - is this true in application? I'll be buying one of the two.

I got those Shure E4c headphones and I was very unimpressed. I spent all of that money on it and yet I basically had to jam it down my earhole just to hear it. Plus it always sounded like I was on an elevator. It actually made me want my ipod headphones back.

Maybe I have weirdly shaped ears or something but I wouldn't recommend it.

This all depends. I know they weren't reviewed by the same person, maybe the one who reviewed the E4gs felt more enthusiastic about them than the person who reviewed the Super.fi 5 Pros, even though they both thought that the particular pair they reviewed was excellent. Perhaps the person who reviewed the E4gs has never even heard sound from the super.fi 5 Pros, and vice versa. Some reviewers may have higher standards or be more conservative with their ratings, even if their subjective listening experience was excellent.

The slightly fragile cord of the super.fi 5 Pros may have lowered the score slightly as well. I haven't had any problems with it, although I can understand how some might. The part of the cord near your ear has a small metal wire inside of it, I can see how it might snap if you keep flexing it over and over again, so I try to keep mine in the same position all the time.

Also of note is that the average user rating for the super.fis is as high as the main review for the E4gs. Another interesting thing from the user reviews:

All I can tell you is that aside from the ocassional ear canal discomfort (which is most likely a personal problem), I totally satisfied with my super.fi 5 Pros.

I'm not really worried about the wire because there is a two year warranty. If it breaks, I'll just get it replaced. And it's not like it will stop working if the form keeping part stops keeping its shape.

True, but it's actually very nice to have wire secured over the ear. It has already saved me several times from having to re-insert my phones after accidentally yanking on the cord.

It really does depend on the person in my experience. I have friends who heard a pair of Grado/Alessandro and instantly fell in love (one now owns a pair of MS-1, one owns a pair of SR-325i with Headphile C-Pads). I have a few friends who just can't get used to them (myself in that group). It often depends on their preferred styles of music. People who exclusively listen to rock often tend to like Grados. Those of us who listen to either a mix or primarily symphonic/jazz tend to prefer other companies (Sennheiser in most cases, although I know a few Beyer fanboys). I may try and trade my er6i for a pair of SR-60 to mess around with, but for the time being I've been quite satisfied with the Senn world.

Are there any particular brands/models one would recommend for VGM? I know there are various "styles" of VGM just like with regular music (Meguro's metal/rock, Sakuraba's heavy synth, Mitsuda's ethnic/Celtic styles), but a lot of it is still synthed, just very well synthed.

I was thinking Grado SR-80s, but if there's something better, that'd be good. Also, one of you mentioned sound leaking out of Grados for others to hear. How bad is it, and are there any other fixes than modding pads for other headphones (I've found myself in a situation wherein I don't have much free time anymore) to fit? I work in an office with a lot of support calls and chatter going on around me, and while 'phones help to cut down the surrounding noise, I don't want to disturb anyone either.

Also, I find earbuds uncomfortable nearly to the point of being unwearable, so I'd prefer suggestions of either regular extra-aural phones, or mondo ear-swallowing phones like the Grados.

Errrmmmmm...anything that's still decent for VGM but won't cost me a week's pay?

Sorry, I really don't mean to be picky. It's just that it'd be for an office environment, and I'll still be getting up, moving around, putting them on and taking them off, and talking to other folks. Just need something for those stretches when I'm alone with only the Sarbanes-Oxley docs to keep me company.

Let's put it this way: what's the best sub-$130 set of VGM/synth/really-good-synth-you'd-swear-it-was-classical-Sung-Woon Jang-I-am-looking-at-you-friendly headphones I can get?

Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Any recommendations for some quality earbuds, I'm fed up with my Sony MDR81 earbuds already...damn wires. :)

Don't get Grado's if you don't want to disturb anyone. They're completely open, and, as a byproduct, give out nearly as much sound as goes into your ears.

I must grudgingly rescind any previous overt Grado-hatred I may have had. While I still believe the SR-125 should be removed from existence, now that I finally own a pair of SR-60 (I traded away my Etymotic er6i for them) I can admit that there are some things they do stunningly. They have no soundstage, they suck for anything Symphonic, and they leak like speakers, but there's just something special when you throw a good rock track on these things. Metallica is stunning, there are new parts of the Beatles that I'd never heard before (and I've lost count of how many times I've listened to those tracks).... they do have their strong points.

Because most of the music I listen to is Symphonic, I'm still a Sennheiser guy. But I can at least see where Grados are coming from.

Is there any headphones that are comfortable also? Maybe after 2 hours or so of listening? I've been reading some about Sennheisers, but most review complain about how they are uncomfortable.

I have a pair of Apple In-Ear phones and they sound pretty good, although they are a bit uncomfortable after a while of sitting in your ears. If you really want a comfortable set of earphones and don't mind coughing up the money for them, the the Shure EG4's.

I don't have them, but a friend of mine does and he practically lives with them stuffed in his ears. I know that he goes through countless hours of pouring over his schoolwork listening to his iPod and sadly enough, the iPod will die before he tires of the headphones in his ear.

I recently returned my Ultimate Ears S5FPs for a pair of Shure E4Gs. To put it bluntly, the E4Gs are better than the 5Pros in every possible way. The most prominent difference are the extremely smooth and clear midtones, which seemed lacking in the 5Pros, especially in the vocal range. Voices always sounded distant and lacking in volume, which made me want to turn the volume up. They have less bass than the 5Pros, but there is still plenty of it, and it is much tighter and more controlled. The terble is just as good and the sound as a whole is clearer, smoother, and more detailed. They are also much more balanced than the 5Pros. It doesn't seem to stress any particular part of the audio range over another.

More importantly, the phones themselves are much smaller than the 5Pros, and I can actually stand to have them in my ears for extended periods of time. The housing on the 5Pros was so big that it was constantly rubbing against my ears, and it hurt. A lot.

All in all, they're clearly a technically superior phone. I'm going to have Sensaphonics make me some custom ear tips soon, and then I'll really be in business.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...k/P1011458.jpg

Oh, and that reminds me: Mucknuggle, how are your Shures working out for you?

I am thinking about buying these, but wanted to ask for other opinions first. I want around the $100 - $150 range.

http://www.amazon.com/Shure-E3c-n-So...&s=electronics

I am not exactly sure what to get, but I just want something better than these damn apple headphones! And something that sounds great!