Over Ear Headphones.. less than £40

[JimNotJon]

I asked my brother what he wanted for Christmas and he said that he could do with some nice over ear headphones instead of using those nasty apple in-ear ones he got with his iPod. He said he quite likes the Skullcandy ones and there are a good handful in my £40 price range. However after doing a bit of research on them I have come to the conclusion that the titanium speakers are really tinny and lack substance, no bass etc and that they are very poorly made.

When it comes to sounds, he is quite fussy like myself. £40 isn't a great deal to spend on good headphones I know but they must fit or be close to having, Good Bass, Clear crisp sound, well made, and be preferably be over ear, not in-ear.

Any personal recommendations?


ETA: He mainly uses them on his Macbook pro listening to music, watching movies.

Edited by JimNotJon on Thursday 9th December 18:37

[Some Gump]

Jim,

You're right, skull candy make cheap horrible (but well marketed) tat for the kids - great if your musical expectation is an Aiwa "hifi" with mega bass, t bass, "dance" equiliser on, and the bass + treble turned to 11.

Do you want over the ear, are they over the ear portable, or at home over the ear?

or
?

Thats your first ask, after that, pick your fave looking / performing from Sennheiser, AKG, Bayer, etc. I used to be a huge fan of sennheiser, but found even better bits from AKG - the Sennheisers / akg's tend to perform the same, but AKGs seem to be available at a fraction of RRP online / on ebay, so can be a better bet. If they;re portables, looks will come into it a lot though, both the sennies and akg's down at 20-30 quid have some daft "wheel trim" design, which is very marmite..

[Finlandia]

v-Jays are very nice.

[ribbit]

Beyer DT231s are a very good entry-level closed design. They're strictly on-ear rather than over ear, but they're a significant step up from Skullcandy and suchlike. Decent enough to find their way into some studios. Comfortable, lightweight and very nice sound.