Lossless will help tremendously. While high bitrate AAC is pretty good, Apple Lossless is definitely the way to go if top audio quality is important to you.
Paired with a set of Sennheiser cans, music sounds great.
so....one decent brand (sennheiser) and 2 garbage brands, i hardly consider those audiophile level comments.
I just got the HD 650 and I'm dying to try them out....
won't be much good on an iPhone. iPhone isn't built to drive hd650
Fair enough if you don't like in ear headphones. I would than recommend BOSE noise cancelling headphones. Had some older model a few years ago and they were spectacular. Obviously they are pricey tho. I'm also not sure how good wireless headphones are compared to cabled headphones, I'm sure the sound quality on wireless is worse.
Says you?
I also recommend RHA, I have the 600i and they are excellent.
Not that they are crap per se but for the price ($200-400) you can get some seriously good headphones which blow Bose out of the water.
I found the iPhone 6 to be quite lacking in terms of music playback. Quite a harsh, compressed sound.
It's OK when out and about, but I bought an AMP for my desk at work, which brings out some detail, adds a touch of warmth and is a much nicer experience.
If you only use Earbuds, or poor to average headphones, then it will be fine.
I know a lot of people, audiophiles etc, that disagree. I'm not saying they are the best but they are really good and easily give 100$ headphones a run for their money. Obviously if music quality is crap it won't make a difference but they do not feel like 25$ headphones in my optinion.
Undeniably the standard earPods from Apple and high quality music (itunes, spotify etc) give you a great experience out of the box. The earPods easily beat the crap out of most headphones in the 80-100 dollar range. I have showed people that had high quality headphones the EarPods and they couldn't believe how good they were.
Like?
In what world??? My $50 Sennheiser CX 300 II's kick the living daylights out of the earPods, as do my $20 HD 201's.
They don't isolate sound at all, and that's a major no-no for me. I might as well listen to music from the speaker.
If people think earPods sound good, they obviously haven't tried out much better alternatives. I'm not even talking hundred-dollar+ headphones here.
Indeed, I'm a producer and play many instruments and listen to music all day everyday. Music is a big think for me essentially! When I'm recording I use the very accurate ATH-40fs headphones (I hope to replace with ATH-50 eventually), but out and about I need easy to conceal earphones, I can't wear and carry full size head phones while I'm at lectures and tutorials.
I use the Apple EarPods for day to day use and the quality is outstanding for only 30. Keeping my music compressed down to 256Kbps (I can tolerate 192Kbps too, but 128Kbps is so thin it hurts my brain.) I can really hear the vast majority of frequencies expressed in diverse rock and electronic tracks.
Well it depends if you're looking for open or closed back headphones. Open back leak sound but allow for a terrific soundstage with more width and depth. For example, you'll hear a knock in a song and you'll think someone is knocking on your door. Whereas closed-back don't leak any sound but have less width. You can't use open back in the metro, library, or anywhere you may annoy people.
I'm a big fan of Sennheiser myself, so the HD 598 (open) for around $150 sound literally better than anything Bose has ever done. If you're looking for closed back the Sennheiser Momentum is the best headphone for daily use and costs around $200. Audio Technica ATMH50X is a pretty good bet too.
For around $400 your possibilities are endless as there you enter the Hi Fi realm but they're all going to be open-backed. Beyerdynamics DT-880 is an insane one, but I use the Sennheiser HD 650 with an 02 amp for Hi FI listening.
I would't pay more than $150 for Bose because it's mainly a fashion accessory as the sound objectively falls short (by a great margin) of all the brands I mentioned. Seriously, there are mathematical charts that prove better sound reproduction and fidelity from Hi Fi brands which cost less than Bose and Beats. Sometimes by several hundred dollars.
With Bose and beats you're paying for the brand, not good sound reproduction.
Sorry I'm not an audiophile by any means but I think your are confusing BOSE with Bang and Olafsen (whichs uses Philips or Panasonic tech).
BOSE is quite known for their good sound quality. Again not saying they are the best but they are defiantly not in the Beats league of sound quality.
Well it depends if you're looking for open or closed back headphones. Open back leak sound but allow for a terrific soundstage with more width and depth. For example, you'll hear a knock in a song and you'll think someone is knocking on your door. Whereas closed-back don't leak any sound but have less width. You can't use open back in the metro, library, or anywhere you may annoy people.
With Bose and beats you're paying for the brand, not good sound reproduction.
Sweet. Are the black tips in there Comply or are those Shure olives? The double flange silicone look good.