IF YVE GOT A 70 OHM IMPEDANCE PUT YR HANDS UP

I'm evangelical about good headphones. Thus far, I've made quite a few of my good friends abandon their ipod buds and enter the realm of listening enlightenment. It never ceases to amaze me how people will put up with listening to music on rubbish laptop speakers, let alone the earbuds that came with your walkman seven years ago.

I've been happy with my Technics pair. They're about as durable as it comes, and play really loud. Downside is they do tend to sap the battery on an ipod.

The step up from here are the Sennheiser HD25's which are absolutely unreal. I listened to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless on them once, and it was like hearing that album for the first time...which was almost too much to deal with. A mind full of pink static.
For the geeks in the house:

Frequency response: 16 - 22,000 Hz
Nominal impedance: 70 ohms
Characteristic SPL: 120 dB
THD: < 0.3 %
Weight: approx. 140 g
Connection cable: detachable 1.5 m single-sided steel cable
Connector: 1/8 in. plug with 1/4 in. adapter

But, it seems there is a compromise for those who want something smaller, with equal sound reproduction. These Shure e3's are fantastic. They're the size of normal earbud phones, but completely cancel out all outside sound and the sound is unreal. You can hear if a floor tom is slightly out of tune, and the bass reproduction is incredible. The only setback is they will cost you around 170 bones. However, for people that truly love music, its well worth it.

As a sidenote, I think that if more people would use great phones, more people would understand how much of today's electronic music blows my mind.

Take this track: Your Body is My Body- Ellen Allien

To quote my pal and occasional DJ partner Blair from music for robots,

"I like the way this song unfolds, starting with a squeaky rhythm, adding layers of synths to the mix, then around the 1:10 mark a great polyrhythm thing starts up and rolls its way through the rest of the song. The synths and beat have a really great crunch to them that I really like - every track on the album has something about it that is purely Allien-esq, as she really works the palate of sounds in ways that others working in the genre don't."

Well put. Listen to the tune, plug in (with good phones)and you'll hear what he's saying straightaway.