Just sorting out my three girls xmas pressies (they’re 14 and 12).
They’re always listening to music now and have managed to lose or break a few pairs of Apple headphones so I’m going to get them some more.

First thought was Soundmagic E10 at about £30 but I see that Richer Sounds also do the Soundmagic ES18 at just £10 which is a big saving. Seeing as they’re also getting a Cambridge Audio Go BT speaker each I feel the ES 10 will do the job fine – and they may lose them anyway!

Am I right or should I cough up for the E10?

My daughter’s 14, and there’s no way I’d spend a lot on her headphones. Half the music she listens to is ripped off Youtube, so quality is hardly a major concern. And that’s without passing judgement on the tedious crap she listens to 🙂

My eldest, who has more money than sense has broken two sets of expensive earbuds so far.

Cheap is good I think.

It amazes me how much people will pay for headphones to listen to mp3 and similar which has a large part of the audio removed to make the file size smaller.

It amazes me how much people will pay for headphones to listen to mp3 and similar which has a large part of the audio removed to make the file size smaller.

Surely that depends on the quality of your MP3s – while my daughter is quite happy listening to hissy low quality audio, that’s not the file format’s fault.

RaveyDavey – Member
It amazes me how much people will pay for headphones to listen to mp3 and similar which has a large part of the audio removed to make the file size smaller.

Tell you what, I’ll challenge you to listen to some tracks in Lossless format, some at 320 Kb, and some at 260Kb, through my Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10 Studio in-ear monitors, and tell me you can hear the difference.
At 128Kb, yes, you’d certainly be able to hear audio artifacting, but once above that, there are so many variables in the way the original tracks were mastered that are audible, that variations in higher bitrates just don’t show up.

It amazes me how much people will pay for headphones to listen to mp3 and similar which has a large part of the audio removed to make the file size smaller.

It amazes me how many people don’t understand how compression works. (-:

I’d gget something like skullcandy – they sound reasonable and are often heavilly discounted.

The cheaper the better!

IME they just get left at school or friends houses never to be seen again.

Oh, and it might be worth looking into getting several pairs of the Knock-off Apple EarPods that litter fleabay, for around a fiver.
I bought a pair of black ones for use at work, because they’re so easy to wear when you have talk to people, but there’s a risk of them getting damaged by the cable getting caught, and honestly, they’ve proved pretty robust; I’ve caught the cable three times recently which has caused the plug to get ripped out of the phone, and they still work fine.
Sound quality is acceptable, there’s a very slight buzz in the right earpiece, but I’m normally only listening to 6Music during the day, and I’m amazed at how good such a cheap ‘phone actually is. The remote works for audio, but there’s no microphone built in, so phone calls are a bust.
Certainly worth buying three or four pairs and keeping one pair in use at a time until they (inevitably) break.
And I’ve had the cables break in a matter of months on phones costing £50-60, these El-cheapo ones are already five or six months old.

My go-tos are still a pair of Aiwa Pipe-Phones I got to go with my cassette Walkman. They sound better than anything else in the house, and must be 22 years old at least.

128k audio files which are what most kids are downloading aren’t of a high enough quality to warrant high end headphones IMVHO of course. For the record I have tinnitus from too many gigs and industrial noise so no issue for me

Got my daughter a pair of RHA headphones(on ear ones)for £30 off the net,she much prefers these to in ear ones,her reasoning is they sound better and go louder.
Can’t argue with her 14yr old logic.

They’ve had on-ear before and either broken them or just not bothered as they’re a bit too big for use when on the bus, rowing on the ergo, etc.

Think I’ll go with the cheapo soundmagics – get good reviews.

When I was 14, I listened to my albums on mono dansette record player. I still fell in love with music.
Kids don’t care about sound quality and my kid has busted my nice Sennheisers.
Get em the cheap ones.

there is a Netto store that recently opened near me so i went in for a mooch…spotted some nice looking Denon headphones for £12

Ebuyer are doing Sennheiser HD 218 Headphones with 2 yr warranty for £15.99

Better be quick though….limited stock!