The Headphone Hunt

Forget fighting over truth and justice: it's headphones people really want to scuffle about.

Recently, I picked a high-end headphone from AKG -- the 701 -- as the best of its kind for 2006.

For about the price of a decent French Bordeaux -- say, a 2000 La Mondotte at about $450 -- you could land yourself a powerful, crystal-clear sound as smooth as, well, a 2000 La Mondotte.

The folks at Ultrasone, another high-quality headphone maker, took issue.

The company felt its phones had been overlooked, and insisted on sending over a fresh pair of its midmarket Proline 650s ($299).

And I promised to spend a few weeks "testing" them -- that is, lying around the house like a 15-year-old, giving my music library a thorough listen.

My conclusion? The Proline 650s are definitely not in the same league as the AKG 701s.

In many ways it's not even fair to compare the two (more on that later), but the Ultrasones were impressive nonetheless.

They had real punch in the low-end, which is rare in any headphone.

And they had a decent ability to conjure a valid audio image: Charles Mingus sat where he should be on "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat." Plus the Ultrasones were durable, foldable and not horrifyingly uncomfortable or dorky to look at -- a nice plus.

I would definitely consider the Proline 650s for the now-mandatory headphone upgrade to portable media players. (Yes, it's true. If you have an Apple (AAPL Quote) iPod and you are using the original headphones, you're wasting your time.)

Hearing Aid

Real headphones -- not the slight, in-ear models that are the rage right now, but ones that fully cover the ear (circumaural) -- come in two basic types: ones that are sealed from the sounds of the outside world and ones that are not.

In general, nonsealed, open headphones offer better sound because they let more air in near the ear. More air means more stuff for the headphones to push around and a better simulation of the original music.

But open headphones require quiet rooms, better sound systems and can be fussy to use. The AKG 701s are the classic open-muff headphones -- fabulous in your living room, but don't try bringing them to the beach.

Closed headphones such as the Ultrasones tend to offer a bit lower quality, but they block out the outside world, which always has its merits. (Nothing like tuning out that awful drone of the redeye from Los Angeles.)