Best Closed Over-Ear Headphones for under $100

Great info. I may pick up new set of cans. Thanks!

Headphones I’ve listened to:

I like the DT 880 but they are semi-open. The DT 770 Pro is the closed version. In a quiet room, they sound almost as good at the 880. Other groups here at work use them for critical listening and experimental psychology. I can get them for £102 on Amazon including our 20% tax. Looks like they are ~$150 on Amazon US. I’m used to things being less expensive in America. Perhaps they are cheaper elsewhere?

Beyerdynamic sell factory custom builds. I don’t know if you can get that in the US.
https://europe.beyerdynamic.com/catalog/product/view/id/19/s/dt-880-manufaktur/category/1464/

I know you want closed but I need to mention a few open back over the ear headphones.

My everyday headphones are the discontinued Sennheiser HD-580. I got the HD-580s at a huge discount ($99 ??) about 14 years ago. A couple of moderately priced part swaps turned them into stealth flagship clones. Sennheiser still sell repair parts. I bought new HD-650 ear pads just last year. The HD-580, 600 and 650 Lego. There are some bargains coming out of China but can you get parts?

Sennheiser still have the parts and tooling to make HD-600 and 650s at their factory in Ireland. Massdrop has them sometimes as “Massdrop Editions” at good prices. IMHO there isn’t a better headphone at this price point. I’m considering sound quality, comfort, durability and availability of repair parts.

When lookup up Sennheiser on Massdrop, I spotted another bargain.

They’ve got the Koss Electrostatics for $499. Active drop. If I had $$$ sitting around I’d jump on this one.
We have a specially modified set of the Koss headphones for use in our MRI scanner. Dynamic headphones will burn up in an MRI scanner if it doesn’t smash them first :slight_smile: The 4000€ MRI set are closed back but that ruins the bottom end.
NNL - Koss MRI Safe headphones.

Massdrop Edition Koss.

My Frankenstein Sennheisers

I use the old PPA v1 headphone amplifier driven by an Alien DAC. Both are ancient but work very well. I started building a σ22 / β22 but haven’t finished it yet. The σ22 is waiting for me to finish designing a chassis and panel. Until I have the power supply done there isn’t much point in starting on the amp.

Unfinished σ22.

In July, I bought a pair of RHA in-ear MA-650s to use with my phone. I wouldn’t have except I left my 1/4” adapter at home. Couldn’t stand the thought of a transatlantic trip with airline headphones.

For £40 at the airport they were surprising good.

Interested in your findings as I’m in the market for a decent pair of closed headphones.

How about ~$100 headphones with noise canceling?

For me, I like noise isolation not noise canceling.

Interesting.. what's the difference?

A quick Google search reveals:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreymorrison/2013/09/19/noise-cancelling-vs-noise-isolating-headphones/#6ca537ae27a2

Noise isolation means the cup is usually designed to cover the whole ears as to prevent exterior/ambient noise or sounds from entering and mixing with the signal.

Noise cancelling usually has a mic in the cup that ‘listens’ to the noise entering it, then introduces another sound that is out-of-phase with the noise thereby cancelling it, leaving just the music to sound cleaner.

I have several sets of headphones including the 250 ohm DT770 pro’s. I drive those with my WooAudio WA6 and a Cambridge Audio 550C CD player, or the Schiit Audio Asgard (first gen) through my Mac Mini with a Schiit Audio Modi Dac. The DT770 Pro’s are my favorite. I even like them better than my Sennheiser HD 650’s which I sold a few years ago.

Nice setup!

I agree the 770 pro is a very good headphone. The small differences between the 770, 880 and Sen. HD-6xx are more personal preference than a fault with any of them.

The 770 certainly is my recommendation for a closed back over the ear headphone at that price point or anything close to it.

You might want to wait for BlackFriday :wink:

I updated the original post.

The sale on the BossHiFi B8 is over...

Now you can find it for under $65 on Aliexpress; just do a search.

I'm not sure why they sent it to New York, but shipping is coming along nicely...

I got the BossHiFi B8 today.

The stock earpads are surprisingly comfortable.

The left and right audio channels are not switched, so that's good.

I'm going to burn-in for at least 100 hours, then I'll report on sound quality.

So far, it seems very nice in all respects.

I’m an AKG fan and also love the Schiit equipment (they know so much more then i ever will)

Hard to beat a mass drop a 7xx

Mass drop for Every day still have the 712 in the box for when they get worn out.

I've used the BossHiFi B8 for several hours today, after burning them in for 100 hours.

The sound quality is really good.

And the stock earpads are amazingly comfortable.

Before I received the headphones, I complained that the earpads were pleather and I don't like pleather...

Well, there are at least two different types of pleather.

There's cheap polyurethane, which I don't care for.

And then there's really nice protein leather, and that's what the BossHiFi B8 has.

A lot of manufacturers/marketers lie about using protein leather, but the BossHiFi B8 actually has it.

My only complaint so far, and it is a minor one, is that the headphone wire is two meters long.

That's over six feet, and in my opinion, it's too long.

The wire is very nice, but it keeps on getting stuck in my recliner.

I am very happy with this purchase.

I have Sennheiser 650’s, but most of the time I use MUCH cheaper Sennheiser earbuds or canal phones. Many of the over ear types benefit from a good head phone amp.

When I was into “Hi-Fi” back in the ’60’s to ’90’s Stax were the best avail in Electrostats.
(for the normal wage packet.) Germans were closing though.
I had custom KEF Column speakers in lounge.2 x B139, 2 x B110 and T 27 tweeters.
Hand tuned crossovers. 1812th or Tubular Bells made you shiver.
Lead lined Reflex units on concrete bases. You Felt the bass through the walls (solid brick)
I was put onto a pr of Yamaha Electrostats in mid ’70’s. Still use them today,
through an original LEEK 30. AMP/Pre.
The Yamaha’s were a cheaper copy of the Stax but ohhh soooo close. Both Japanese.
Around 195 UK Pounds in those days from memory
Though it took them decades to catch up with speakers.
Mike’s, and styli were Screechy things
These modern Speakers are too clinical. NO soul in music.
Enjoy.

I was into music since I was in high school, then into car stereos during college (the Pioneer KP500 and the Sony TCD-30 (IIRC) auto-reverse was the ‘in’ thing then).

Eventually after some jobs in the construction industry I started my own Hi-Fi store, selling almost everything at that time, from Laser-Disc players, ‘audiophile’ CD players, dynamic and electrostatic speakers and vacuum tube pre/power amps, etc. even carried pro-audio equipment like 32-channel audio mixers, etc.

Though I had few headphones displayed at that time, actually we were not into it really, and sorry to say this in this thread, headphones are considered an ‘unnatural’ way to listen to sound and specifically, Hi-Fi music!

On the other, whatever floats your boat, why not!