[anigbrowl]

I like Bose stuff, except for the noise canceling headphones. It is not accurate. Most people don't know how to set up their speakers in the first place so a pair of excellent speakers in the wrong configuration will sound awful. Bose products sound pretty good under almost all circumstances, while requiring little or no expertise to set up. They're not for the sort of people who like Emacs.

Speakers (as in, small-mid-size near-field monitors, from very expensive to why-not cheap): Genelec ($3000), Adam ($2000), KRK ($750), Logitech ($100). Tastes in speakers vary a lot, and it makes a difference where you will be using them. These numbers are for the upper-middle end of the range. I like KRKs for their clear but slightly forward sound. I don't need a pair of Genelecs, but they are amazingly good. Some people swear by the Adams, they don't evoke any strong response from me. At the cheapie end the Logitech stuff strikes me as having a surprising level of bang for the buck, but it's been a while since I listened carefully to anything like that.

Buy powered speakers. Don't waste money on passive + amp combinations unless you have strong opinions on the electronics of different amplifier classes, in which case you probably want to build your own at some point.

Headphones: Sony MDR7506. The end.

[mitjak]

>Headphones: Sony MDR7506. The end.

Definitely. I've recommended them on HN before. They're the best 'pro' headphones at a very fair price that the companies making overpriced 'amateur professional' products don't want you to know about, including Sony themselves.

[astrange]

> the best

That's a testable statement. It would be difficult to ABX headphones to prove it, but do you have any objective quality comparisons?

[anigbrowl]

Offhand, only anecdotal. For much of the last decade, I have done production sound for film and video. I generally use Schoeps microphones, which cost a couple of thousand apiece (just so you know cost isn't a factor here). The reason I prefer MDR7506s is that when I'd set up every day, they're the only headphones that sound the same when I put them on as when I take them off.