Three of the world's best headphones
The Denon headphones
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)The Denon AH-D5000, Grado Labs GS-1000, and Ultrasone Edition 9 are all over-the-ear "circumaural" headphones, primarily intended for home use, but that didn't stop me from plugging them into my iPod.
With its lightweight magnesium frame, real mahogany wood earcups and oh-so soft leather ear pads, the Denon AH-D5000 is a real charmer. It's the most comfortable headphone I've ever used, and Its microfiber low-mass diaphragms deliver lightning-fast, detailed sound. Audiophile mavens who crave visceral mojo will go ga-ga over the AH-D5000. This headphone makes a lot of bass. It was equally accomplished with music and home theater.
For the home theater trials I checked out The Flight of the Phoenix DVD, and the plane crash scene fully exploited the headphones' dynamic prowess. The AH-D5000's detailed and airy treble kept my attention glued to the onscreen action.
Plugged into a 4GB iPod Nano rock was acceptable, but the Denon lacked conviction over the Nano. The even more expensive AH-D7000 wasn't yet available when I wrote this review, hope to get my hands on it soon.
The Grados
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)John Grado's latest and greatest headphone is a break from his past designs. The retro, World War II "cans" look is gone. The GS-1000 is still unmistakably Grado, but with more contemporary styled, hand-crafted mahogany earcups with much larger foam ear pads. The headband is covered in real leather.
As much as I love Grado's sound, I've found previous generations Grado headphones' comfort level was below par. The GS-1000 is a vast improvement; the larger ear pad's pressure is low, and the headphones feel light on my head.
Pardon me while I gush over the way GS-1000 clarifies live recordings. The sound seemed to surround me, with a rare ability to resolve depth, just as you would in a concert hall. Ditto for the way this headphone reveals rhythmic underpinnings in rock and jazz CDs. Grados have always been exciting, classical music now sounds more refined. Bass is deep, yet more controlled and precise than ever before.
The GS-1000 worked its magic connected to the Nano. Sure, the cavernous soundstage was especially impressive on Miles Davis/Gil Evans big band albums, but the Nano ran out of juice when I cranked Led Zeppelin.
The Ultrasones
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)The Edition 9 is a closed-back design with incredibly soft Ethiopian sheep's leather ear pads that effectively block outside noise from intruding on your musical bliss. And since the headphones don't "leak" sound to the outside world you can wear the Edition 9 to bed and listen at a fairly loud level without disturbing your partner.
The gleaming chrome over brass earcups triumphantly announce the Edition 9's Germanic design flair, and yet the design feels understated. One nitpick: I felt (literally) the ear pads exerted a little too much pressure on my ears, though the pressure will probably lighten after a few months of use.
The sheer weight of the sound tips the tonal balance down, but the midrange and treble are crisp and clear. Led Zeppelin's first two albums lit up the Edition 9's heavy metal prowess. Jimmy Page's guitar thrash was amazing, the spectacle of Robert Plant's lung-popping vocals loomed large, and John Bonham's thudding percussion kicked harder than I've ever heard over headphones.
Finally, the Edition 9 is super easy to drive, so it really clicked with the Nano, with all sorts of music.
You can read my complete Home Entertainment review of the three headphones by clicking here. Prices? Denon AH-D5000, $699; Grado GS-1000, $995; Ultrasone Edition 9, $1,500
Steve Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to magazines and Web sites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
I'm still trying to find a headphone amp to upgrade to from my CMoy DIY altoids-tin, though, and it's a lot harder to find those to try before buying.
An iPod? Come on! you plugged a $1,500 pair of headphones into a crappy (industry wide know fact) sounding iPod?
And you lost further points by not telling us the bitrate at which the song you were listening to was ripped at.
come on now...are you seriously going to tell us that these facts don't matter? And again...an iPod? OMG. That's like telling Robert Fripp that he has to play Pachibel on a plastic toy ukelele!
An iPod...sheesh...What are you going to test them in next? Various assorted friuts and vegitables?
Ed
Introducing a layer of consistent inferiority can be revealing.
How about a review of under cans under 250 bucks. Open and closed. Has the Audiophile done this? (I haven't checked) Or a review of earbuds?
These should be tested on Levinson or Audio Research gear, not a crappy iPod. I especially like the toy ukelele analogy. Stick the headphone jack in a Conch shell and listen to the ocean.
moretroops - yo! i don't think that many people who drop 1K for headphones are plugging them into iPods, whether you think so or not. most people listen to iPods in environments that are not quiet to begin with. regardless of whether the cans SG is discussing have noise-canceling characteristic or seal off the outer noise, they weren't manufactured to use with iPods.
Why? What would you define as the appropriate monetary cutoff point? I have no problem using my $500-700 cans (price excluding aftermarket wires and mods) with ANY of my MP3 players, and that's INCLUDING iPods. Yes, there's plenty of better sounding gear available, but it's not like iPods are absolute crap even if there's better sounding portables available. And I DARE you to find any gear that's intrinsically tied to your power company's power grid and CALL THAT portable...or take AND use on the city bus or commuter train.
For decades I lived by a general rule of thumb when it came to audio: whatever you spent on your music source, at least double that budget for the speakers. Although there have been bargain exceptions along the way, with all the electronics gear I've gone through it's a guide that by and large has worked pretty well for me and my ears. For me the speaker has always been the main component that influences what I hear the most, followed closely by the amplifier. The source equipment? Just as long as it's good enough.
iPods are compromises for sure. I agree that they are not the best sonically capable gear, even in their own product class. I don't choose to take my 2G Touch out strictly for its SQ, or exclude it for its lack thereof. It does a hell of a lot more things than my top-sounding Sony NWZ-A729, Zen X-Fi or my Zune 80; that's where its real nuggets are. I'm sure that for others the nano and the Apple eco-system make it THE worthwhile choice as well. iPods for all their flaws still have generally acceptable sound that definitely benefits from a set of excellent cans. If dropping a grand for some ear candy causes someone to derive sonic pleasure out of an iPod, so be it.
what do you mean by source? if you mean turntable, then it's completely reasonable to spend half the money you spent on a Linn LP 12 (including tone arm and cartridge), certainly a decent turntable, on a pair of speakers, like the PSB G-Design-GB1 ( http://www.psbspeakers.com/products/G-Design/G-Design-GB1-Monitor ), or B & W CM1s.
when you say that audio is a subtractive process, you are saying that you cannot get 100% of the original acoustic information from any system. when you start with a system, like an iPod, where you can only get 96% ( an arbitrary figure ) of the information, it may be that using a $1K headphone allows you to get 95.5% ( or 99.5% of the 96% ), but in actuality, you might get 95% using a pair of $50 Koss headphones. can you really tell the difference? i don't think so, but i think you get the subjective feeling of "better" partly because the Grados are so well-made.
if someone wants to spend $1000 for a pair of headphones, more power to them. as long as they have an iPod, i figure they might as well plug them into the iPod, but, as i said before, those headphones were not manufactured with iPod use in mind, and you know that as well as i do.
Why is almost everyone who posted a comment here going crazy over the fact that Steve Guttenburg tested three pairs of the world's greatest headphones on an iPod? Is there really an issue?
Firstly, I understand that iPods don't have the best sound quality out there or the best mp3s to test world-class headphones on, but still. So many people use iPods that the fact Mr. Guttenburg tested such high-class headphones on them is just a bit of extra trivia for iPod owners. Besides, with so many people using iPods, how is it a surprise that some people have the money to get headphones like that?
Bottom line is, no one has any right to tell anyone else what is absurd when it comes to things like this. If someone wants to spend $1000 on a pair of headphones for their iPod, then let them.
but do you have the right to say that i don't have the right? lol
Certainly not any of the online media which is compressed enough to show its flaws on these type of headphones. People for the most tend to go with price and convinence and not quality. iTunes has certaily shown that. You could probably get better quality buying a CD rather then downloading.
Its sad that digital has not brought on the higher quality we at first thought would happen. It has only given a option to tweak quality and to allow data to be shrunk to save space. Without the perception of reduction in quality. This of course is not the case. I am only hoping for a day when audio reproduction from the studio to the home is thought of as seriously as HD content is. Only then will these headphone be worth buying.
Am I the only one thinking that, if he's caliming to use the world's best headphones, he should also have a pair of Sennheiser Orpheus's?
I also don't think that the test is much good unless you use a decent headphone amplifier and source. Otherwise, the review should be titled something along the lines of "How really expensive headphones sound with a Nano." I think the limitations of the source make the review superfluous. Refinements in headphones will be lost or inaudible if listening to compressed music from a weak source. At least use a simple amp like a HeadRoom Total Bithead or something that can, you know, drive the headphones.
And who goes around town wearing huge headphones with wood earcups? They aren't exactly portable.
Were these cans broken in, or is the review of them new, without burn in? The sound can change significantly as cans break in.
The review doesn't measure up to the items being reviewed.
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- by tbarbanti July 16, 2009 2:20 PM PDT
- I think that you forgot the impressive headphone of sennheiser, HD800, in opinion of the most referenced magazines about musci production like Electronic Musician, Computer Music, Mix Magazine is the best headphone of all.
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