Headphones and amp questions


I am contemplating getting a set of headphones and headphone amp, again.

In the past when I considered this, the Senn 600's and the Grado RS-2's seem to be the leaders in my research, as well as some AKG's.

First question, the Senn's are open back and can be easily heard by others from what I have read, is this true? Are the Grado's quieter than the Senn's in this respect?

I don't know anything about headphome amps, I was thinking about the Musical Fidelity X-can, is this a good choice?

Will it hinder the music much if I get a long extension for the headphones? I would like to sit, comfortably, a good 14ish feet away.

Any and all opinions will be appreciated.
brianmgrarcom

Showing 1 response by joe_b

Both the Grados and the Sennheisers are open back designs that will leak a little sound. The RS-2 and the HD-600 are both among the best headphones available. They do sound different (I've tried both), but neither is absolutely better than the other. Headphones are very personal choice and you have to try them on for comfort and listen how they sound with your source material. If you're interested in the X-cans, I would try and get the "version 2" edition. For headphone extension cords, I use both a Grado and a Tara Labs extension cable and they both work fine-no signal loss. The Tara is a tiny bit sweeter, but I am not sure it is still made. I got it from Audio Advisor.