Musings on the State of the Art

I’ve decided to start writing reviews of the equipment I use and consider myself a fan. Inspired by Marco who’s reviews I’ve found extremely helpful in a variety of causes.

So here goes – several people recommend the Sennheiser HD280 Pros. They are absolutely fantastic, but I could never get them comfortable on my head. So I started looking for an alternative for the purposes I had in mind.

The headphones had to be

- Closed, because I didn’t want noise to leak.
- Extremely comfortable because I intended on wearing them for hours on end.

The HD 280s failed on the second count. Not that they were uncomfortable, but I could never hit the point where I could “forget” that they were on. After looking at a ton of alternatives including Beyerdynamics, Denon’s AKG’s etc. I bought the Shure SRH 440.

Sound Quality

The sound quality on the Shure is fantastic, and attempts to stay as close to flat as possible. The differ from the HD280 in their bass response. The HD280 had a ‘bigger’ bass response, and so if you’re looking for something that shines on the bassline, you will either have to nudge the EQ a little on the Shure or you might be better off with the HD280.  See the graph below from headroom (now headphone.com) for a comparison between the two on Frequency Response.

As you can see, the HD280 Pro has a significantly better frequency response in the 0 – 100Hz range.  That being said, in my day to day usage, I have not found the Shure’s lacking in bass at all.

 

Although the graph above doesn’t reflect it, I did find that the Shure sounds better in the mid to high range – brighter, but that might just be my perception.

General Fit

The tightness of the Shure is very well suited to my head (which may very well be very different from yours) . Neither too tight, nor too loose. They sit on my ears with what I would describe as a gentle squeeze at best.

In terms of comfort the SRH440 far outshone everything else I tried on, especially the HD280. They were spectacularly comfortable and I could keep them on for hours on end without feeling the need to remove them.

Given that they are not as tight on the head as the HD280, the result is lower isolation from your surroundings as witnessed by the graph below (again courtesy headphone.com)

That being said, I find that my office (my primary usage area) was quiet enough that I gained nothing from the increased isolation of the HD280. The leak from the headphones is probably similar, but there was no good way to test this hypothesis. However both the isolation provided and the leak was well within my acceptable parameters – which implies simply –  that I couldn’t hear my neighbor and he couldn’t hear my music.

 

Cable :

The SRH440 come by default with the coiled cable, but you can also purchase a straight cable. The coiled cable has a few advantages in that it occupies very little room, does not get tangled, and has the ability to stretch quite a bit. However the disadvantage is that it is definitely ‘heavy’. This usually means you have to deploy some strategy to minimize the amount of coiled cable that is suspended mid-air between your head and the device you are plugging it into.

As you can see in the image, it is quite a bit of cable. I can usually walk, and pace around my desk, and so long as the source isn’t mobile, the cable will stretch pretty much as far as I need it to (about 2 meters or so from the desk). However, the force the coiled cable exerts on the source is pretty high – so if you have these plugged into an iPod or your phone for instance, do not expect it to stretch. Instead, it will just yank the device off the table, onto the ground, and then … stretch. If you anticipate that being your primary use case, you will probably prefer the straight cable.

The cable can be disconnected from the headphones, hence the choice of cables and cable lengths. On the end that goes into the headphones the Shure has (what appears to be) a proprietary connection (its smaller than the 1/8th” stereo jack) as seen in the picture to the right. It locks into place by turning to the right, and I can vouch for the fact that once locked in, it is pretty much impossible to accidentally unlock it, or to pull it out without unlocking it.

The cable is only attached to one ear – the left as seen here. This might interfere with those who would prefer a cable on one side over the other, or attached to both sides, but overall, even with my comment about the cable being heavy, this one ear connection doesn’t bother me. I am right handed however. If I was left handed, and kept a mouse to the left of my keyboard, I can see how this cable could quickly become a pain. As with everything else, your mileage might vary.

The other end of the cable has been my biggest issue with the Shure thus far.  The end of the cable that connects to your device is rather large compared to other headphones (although probably not when compared to other headphones in this class – for instance it is the same size as the HD280 if I remember correctly), and sticks straight out.

This means that there is a greater risk of bending this particular end of the cable. Especially in an airplane (I’ve ruined two cables in that manner already.)

The end is gold-plated, and has the threads to allow you to screw on a 1/4″ adapter that Shure sells for these headphones if you truly want to use them as monitors or with any equipment that requires a 1/4″ connection.

Overall, if there was one thing I would change, its this end of cable- which makes these headphones more delicate than they need to be for the kind of day to day usage I put them thru.

A slightly smaller end, less likely to bend or break would have been awesome. That being said, this is mostly user error (I turned the laptop to an undesirable angle etc.) and not the fault of the headphones, so I can’t really blame them.

 

Cups

Also visible in the picture of the proprietary cable connection above is the mechanism that Shure uses to allow the cups to swivel. The fork seen in the picture allows an individual cup to swivel (up and down direction) the whole way until the cable gets in the way.

In addition the entire fork assembly allows a swivel of about 10 – 15 degrees in a back and forth angle to accommodate different head shapes.

The padding around the ear is soft, and a leathery (although I don’t think its really leather) kind of material. The upside is that it is very comfortable and you can definitely forget that you are wearing these headphones. The downside is that it does get warm inside these cups, and when I remove them I do frequently find that my ears enjoy the exposure to the cool air (note, – you do not realize this while wearing them however, just the split second that you remove them). This was even more apparent when I had the HD280 and would experience their vice like grip on my head though, so by contrast, this is a relief and an improvement.  The padding is removable, and also replaceable, which makes for a particularly long lasting pair of headphones – since the cups are the first to wear out, well before the rest of the headphones have begun to show any wear.

To get a good understanding of the size of the cups see the picture with a quarter in it. They are big enough that my ears fit entirely within the cups (as desired) and I am not the least bit uncomfortable.

The headphones are adjustable thru a simple expanding band that connects to both cups.

The band itself is very comfortable, and as with the rest of the headphones I often ‘forget’ that it is on.

 

These are not headphones meant for the gym, or even really for travel/commuting. Certainly not the sort of headphones one would consider portable – although they do fold in on themselves completely.

I generally keep these headphones in one place and do not move them anywhere. I did use them on planes, and they worked great in that context too, however after having two of my cables ruined on a plane, I’ve come to the conclusion that this cable isn’t meant to be handled in that fashion.

Overall, I tried several competitors in this space – closed over the ear headphones for use as my desk/office, and these were easily the best for my head shape, ear size etc. Finally, as with everything else – your mileage might vary.

When I bought them, they were available from J&R in NY for about $65 – which was a steal as far as I was concerned. The cheapest I can find them now is about $85 on Amazon. I didn’t try the Shure SRH 840 but from what I can tell the biggest difference is an extended range (5 – 25K Hz as opposed to the 10 – 22K hz in the 440).

I hope this is useful to some.