Headphones

chops

My current living situation means that more often than not I can't play my guitar through my amp, or even my acoustic at any real volume. I've spent the last week or two playing "unplugged" which is tragically unsatisfying. I've decided to look into getting some headphones, but have noticed they get pretty exxy, and don't really know what I'm looking for.

Does anyone have any experience plugging headphones straight into an amp? Does it sound very good? Is it worth the price of the headphones? Are there are brands, or types (studio or something) that I should consider specifically?

While playing without an amp is no good, I don't really want to fork out $1xx for something that isn't much better.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

xtremehardy388

chops wrote:

My current living situation means that more often than not I can't play my guitar through my amp, or even my acoustic at any real volume. I've spent the last week or two playing "unplugged" which is tragically unsatisfying. I've decided to look into getting some headphones, but have noticed they get pretty exxy, and don't really know what I'm looking for.

Does anyone have any experience plugging headphones straight into an amp? Does it sound very good? Is it worth the price of the headphones? Are there are brands, or types (studio or something) that I should consider specifically?

While playing without an amp is no good, I don't really want to fork out $1xx for something that isn't much better.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

It's not that good but it gets the job done. Make sure you can a headphone jack on the amp.

OffHeGoes29

I had a question just like this a couple of months ago...

http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=293692

So I picked up a set of Yamaha Headphones for around 50$. Good investment.

ianvomsaal

Make sure the headphones have a very flat frequency response. Don't get any headphones with
added bass or turbo bass like what some people use for an I-Pod/CD. You'll want to get the best
tone you can - the boosted bass frequencies in those headphones effect the original amps tone.

Trailer

like ian said, make sure they're flat.

last time i was in guitar center they were selling Sennheiser HD280 Pro's for $89. i don't know what you're price range is, but those aren't too expensive and would be good.

chops

Thanks everyone for your advice. My mate who is a DJ reccomended those Senheiser Pro's, even though he no longer used them, he said they were really good quality, and were really comfortable over a longer period of time. I just wasn't sure if playing guitar had different requirements to DJing/Ipod though. I think I may go for a pair like that.

Thanks again.

chops

xtremehardy388 wrote:

It's not that good but it gets the job done. Make sure you can a headphone jack on the amp.

I never thought about that! I just assumed I could plug them in. My amp (FM65R) doesn't have anything that specifically says Headphones, though it has two inputs (obviously can't use them), and three others labelled 'footswitch', 'pre-out' and 'power in'. Could I plug headphones into any of those?

xtremehardy388

chops wrote:

I never thought about that! I just assumed I could plug them in. My amp (FM65R) doesn't have anything that specifically says Headphones, though it has two inputs (obviously can't use them), and three others labelled 'footswitch', 'pre-out' and 'power in'. Could I plug headphones into any of those?

Plug them into your guitar? I've never heard of that working unless you have something to power the sound. I'd probably say Pre-out but I might be wrong.

chops

Sorry, I didn't phrase that very well. I meant I didn't think to check whether the amp actually had a headphone jack in the first place. (Though if you could plug headphones straight into a guitar, and get a reasonable tone, that would be kind of cool...)

ianvomsaal

chops wrote:

I never thought about that! I just assumed I could plug them in. My amp (FM65R) doesn't have anything that specifically says Headphones, though it has two inputs (obviously can't use them), and three others labelled 'footswitch', 'pre-out' and 'power in'. Could I plug headphones into any of those?

nope, you'll probably need to get something like one of these:
http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/amplifiers/mini-headphone
The Vox amPlug works okay:
http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Vox-Amplug-AC30-Headphone-Amp?sku=481676
I used one of these on two different tours (I used it for practicing on the tour bus):
http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Toneworks-Pandora-PX4D-Personal-MultiEffect-Processor?sku=152176
I still use it at night - Mine was just the older blue PX4.

BlackCorduroy

I have these. They're cheaper and good quality. You can plug them into either an amp or a regular headphone jack on an ipod or walkman. http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Closed-back-Dynamic-Monitor-Headphones/dp/B000CMLZFK/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1225007979&sr=8-16