How to purchase proper headphones?

[Mr.CookieMonster]

Hello,

I bought R79 headphones from Sybaritic and 2 months later, the one side does not work. So, I decided not to waste my time and throw the piece of garbage away. I originally thought that the headphones were all the same regardless of price - the label makes it more expensive. I'm now even considering buying headphones from China Town, i feel that there is no difference buying "real" headphones and buying fake ones because they both break around the same time.

What I want to know, when one buys headphones, what price range should it be in, and how long will it last? What Brand offers the best headphones?

Thanks.

[casspir]

Buying cheap is just that ..... cheap. Done that a lot and it's not worth it.

I would wait until I could afford right stuff. In my case that's Bose.

And then you have to look after your investment.

[Tim_vb]

what you pay for is what you get, try saving up and get something decent. These were the first real earphones I bought and i never looked back.
http://www.dionwired.co.za/audio-vis...one-black.html

[chrisc4290]

Listen to classical music through them, not computer-aided pop music.

[Pada]

With Sennheiser you can get pretty decent headphones from about R400 onwards (HD407), but the more expensive ones (eg. HD558) are better and then them you'll start noticing poor sound cards & amplifiers.

Sennheiser also offers a whole range of different kind of headphones & earphones, for example:
Ear coupling: over-ear [aka circum-aural] (HD 558) vs on-ear [aka supra-aural] (HD407 [flat] / HD203 [cushioned])
Transducer principle: closed (HD203) vs open (HD558)
wired (HD203) vs wireless (RS 110)
...

You can browse their website at http://en-de.sennheiser.com/search?c=50 (home audio group).

Prophecy Shop sells a reasonable amount of Sennheiser headphones at not too bad prices either: http://www.prophecy.co.za/index.php?...filter_id=1743

Just be warned, as soon as you go for a decent set (eg. HD558/HD380Pro), you'd never want to go back to cheap ones

[GhostSixFour]

Depending on your budget, but you can get Sennheiser MX470 at look and listen for R199. Brilliant little earphones.. Not exactly my HD485's, but for the money, I don't think you can beat it.