A week or so ago I brought my car into the dealership for service and was sitting in the waiting area listening to some music when I realized someone was trying to talk to me and I couldn't even hear them. That reminded me how much I enjoy a good pair of noise-isolating earphones, which in turn reminded me how awesome it is to listen to music on quality equipment.
The phones in question were Etymotic hf2s, and I could not recommend them any more highly. Before these I owned a pair of Etymotic ER 6is, which have been sadly discontinued. What makes these so good? They create a seal with your ear that virtually cuts out all background noise, meaning you don't have to crank the volume up nearly as loud and can hear a lot more detail. If you've been using a pair of Apple earbuds or other cheapies and then switch to these, you'll be entering a whole new world of music. If you're looking at any of their other offerings (or those from another manufacturer), make you you look at ones with a balanced armature versus a dynamic driver, they perform much better. I don't recommend them on planes though, as the pressure changes combined with the seal they create can mess with your ears.
For home use (and planes) I use a pair of Sennheiser HD 380 Pros. They're closed back, over-ear cans. Compared to open-back ones, they're better for listening if you have other people around or are recording (like the Powercast) so you don't have any echo. They have a pretty good seal over my ears and help cut out a lot of noise. They're fairly low impedance too which means my iPod has no problem driving them.
Okay, I lied, also at home, I have an Astro A40 Audio System for gaming. They're open-back, over-ear cans. They have some more bass to them, which is good for gaming, and since it's a headset I can use it for in-game chat and such too. Astro makes some quality products and I suggest them if you want surround sound but don't have the space or if you don't want to bother roommates, siblings, or parents while gaming.
Finally, at work, I have a Sennheiser PC166 USB headset (apparently it's been discontinued). They're closed-back, on-ear cans, so they don't block out as much noise as the others, but they also don't bleed sound. Those are good things, because I need to hear phones ringing and people talking to me and don't want to bother co-workers with my music. I originally used the headset to record the BZPowercast, but have since moved on to a more advanced setup (detailed elsewhere in my blog).
So yeah, I think I might have a headphone problem, especially since I've had my eye on a pair of Sennheisers from their 5xx series for a while...
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