For HiFi headphones, Grado is superior to any mass-market brand.

On Tue, 02 Mar 2004 18:03:36 -0800, tommyknocker
wrote:

I am SO frustrated. For the second day in a row I've been unable to make
out Radio Exterior de Espana's newscast over the speaker of my FRG8800.
I've tried SSB (cuts down the static), the tone and the attenuator but
they seem to be just below audibility level. I'm gonna follow some
advice I was given here a couple weeks ago about using headphones. But I
want to get good quality ones, not cheap jogger's ear buds. What brands
of headphones do you guys use?

tommyknocker wrote:

I am SO frustrated. For the second day in a row I've been unable to make
out Radio Exterior de Espana's newscast over the speaker of my FRG8800.
I've tried SSB (cuts down the static), the tone and the attenuator but
they seem to be just below audibility level. I'm gonna follow some
advice I was given here a couple weeks ago about using headphones. But I
want to get good quality ones, not cheap jogger's ear buds. What brands
of headphones do you guys use?
======

I wouldn't recommend hi-fi headphones. The response of such covers a wide
range of frequencies, and would likely exacerbate low frequency rumbles,
hums,
etc. Similarly, one shouldn't have need for the crisp high-frequency
crackles of
clicks, crashes, etc that such hi-fi phones would deliver. Nothing would
seem
better than a bonafide pair of military-style metal disk phones that
responded
to voice frequencies, steeply rolling off below 100 Hz and above 1000 Hz.
In
this regard, I have used an old stenographer's caliper headset which covered
just
about that range of frequency for good result. On the other hand, if I am
in the
mood for listening to music over a superb signal, then I use my standby
JRC-ST-3
headset, having performed some internal surgery to bypass the 8:300 ohm
xfmr,
and rewired the earspkrs to a DPDT switch providing a switchable choice of
'in-phase' or 'out-of-phase' listening ... a dramatic effect. Try it.