For travel and Zune listening, I use earbuds. I tried & put away Bose Quietphones (too bulky). I have been a Etymotics fan for 8 years…I favor the ER4’s. I have also used Sure’s E3’s (decent for the price)and Sony’s noise reducing earbuds (aweful). The only downside to earbuds is that they tend to disappear…after long flights they may remain in a seatback pocket or overlooked in a hotel room, so every few years I need a replacement.

Last week I found myself looking for a replacement and came across AT’s Import Series ATHCK9’s at a deep discount on Circuit City’s website ($144 versus the $299 list price), so I gave them a shot. They arrived last night & I have been thoroughly impressed. They offer a crisp, transparent sound and reproduce lows, highs & midrange extremely well. For portable listening, these have been the best bang-for-buck earbuds I’ve tried so far. Compared to the Etymotics, there are no filters that get gummed up with earwax & require preiodic replacement. Compared to Shure ER6’s, the sound is notably better in every respect (although the Shures have a nicer portable case). These are sleepers… get them while you can at deep discounts since they see to have been a market flop for AT here in the US.

overdub/dj cans.. Sony MDR-V700 they haven’t broken completely yet, and they are not as hifi as the Senns, but they still get use when i dj or overdub tracks.

listening/overdub cans.. rare Calrad Pro Series model 15-133 with individual volume controls for each side.. not the greatest high frequency, but man are they cool with the cloth pads, aluminium and stitched leather, they were probably top of the Japanese-made crop back in the seventies.

i also use cheap walkman non-earbud headphones for street and because when i mix down i listen to as many different speakers as possible.. and believe it or not, i find that a lot of these cheapos actually sound pretty good considering.

i’ve been into AT microphones for a long time, just bought a few more and since i like their mikes i’m definitely considering a pair of their cans for mixing and possibly other things if they’re versatile enough which they just might be.

1) Grado SR-60. Open air headphones that look retro (not necessarily in a good way), but sounds great and are inexpensive ($60.00 I think?). I use these for listening to music on the computer. Very nice sound to them. Good for long listening.

2) Sony MDR-V6. Closed-ear headphones. Very good balanced, analytical sound for only $70.00 at bhphotovideo.com. I use these for recording when I need the closed-ear, monitoring, and just plain pleasure when I want to focus in on what I’m listening to. The bass is quite nice on these, not over-emphasized like most Sonys. They’re a little hard to find though.

3) $30 Panasonic earbuds. These are sort of like in-ear shure/etymotic wannabees. I bought them on a whim when I needed portable headphones. Seriously? They’re not very good. I mean, they’re better than stock earbuds, but they’re not great. Maybe I’ll check out this AT portable line.

-Tristan