Guitarfreak wrote: Just doing some preliminary research. Not looking to spend any more than this. No need for high quality sound here, only isolation. What is your opinion on this matter?

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/EX25/
http://www.steveweissmusic.com/product/29459/ear-protection

Are you looking for just sound isolation or headphones that isolate while monitoring during recording?
I think your second link are just ear protectors but the first link (EX25's) are actual headphones??

Oh, good, so it's not just me. Yeah I thought it might just be hearing protection. I talked myself out of it though because the description calls them headphones. I wouldn't call them phones myself if they didn't have some sort of... phonic characteristics.

Anyway. So I guess the first ones are basically what I am looking at here then. Are these worth the money? Anything cheaper that would not sacrifice too much quality?

You might check these out:

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I really like my ATH-M50 for recording....but they are much higher priced than any of those listed...

dvdhawk wrote: You might check these out:

(dead link removed)

I like, do you use these?

I'm all AKG K270 & K240II myself, but I've been thinking of adding some of these for clients when we're up and running.

The guys at MA have a reputation for no BS, no junk: so for $30 what do I have to lose?

Exactly, for the price I can't argue with it. The only thing is that from reading the site description it seems that these are geared more toward a vocalist in a sound booth who needs to hear their voice while recording. Do you think that these will isolate well enough to hear a click track over a guitar amp at moderate volume in a small room? WITHOUT having to crank the headphone volume to the point of physical pain, which is what I am forced to do at this point. That seems to be the question of the hour :D

The description "pretty decent isolation" is pretty subjective and all we have to go on. They don't even specify if they're open or closed back, but "pretty decent isolation" would lead me to believe they're at least semi-closed.

Only negative I ever see is that they have a short cord.

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Well I went ahead and purchased the Direct Sound EX-25's to use while tracking. They are very well designed, not so heavy that they are uncomfortable to wear, but not so light that they feel flimsy. They come with a fairly long cable and a screw-on 1/4" adapter which is nice albeit expected for studio gear headphones. The first thing that I noticed upon donning them as a king would a new crown... is that they are extremely comfortable. They don't squeeze your head like a few other pairs of isolation headphones that I have tried, and I have used a pair of Sony studio mixing headphones that I thought were just uncomfortable, and those were more expensive.

The added benefit that these are indeed isolation headphones makes them even cooler. They cancel out sound fairly well, with nothing playing through them you can still hear things going on in the other room, but very faintly. With sound coming through the headphones, outside noise is nigh undetectable. At one point I performed an experiment where I played an audio track from my library and set the headphone volume to a normal listening level, then proceeded to raise my monitor's volume until I could hear them over the headphones. I got the monitor master volume up past half before hearing it above the music. Without the headphones on, the half way point on the master is the threshold of physical discomfort while sitting in front of the monitors... so the headphones isolate pretty well I'd say :D The sound quality isn't the best though, but that's not why I bought them anyway, so I am cool with it. I just wanted to put that so that anyone reading this would know as such. The bass is a bit muddy and the treble response doesn't really seem all that wonderful, but hey, the isolation is quite wonderful so...

There you go. Direct Sound EX-25 $59.99 USD

Darn it, I chimed in too late!

I have two of the EX-29s, and while the quality of the audio isn't fantastic, they do isolate well.
Drummer gets one and the person closest to the drummer gets the other.

I don't recall exactly, but I think I got them at a much cheaper per unit price than you got the 25s.
Keep an eye out for deals on either the 25 or 29s - they can be had cheap and make great tracking, (relatively)iso phones.