The headphones I use are Sony MDR-7506. (Get them HERE.) They’re amazing. Cost is 50 bucks a pair. I have two pair and have had them for seven years, they’re still going strong. The audio quality is excellent, and they’re pretty much the only headphones found in 90% of good recording studios and radio stations.

Neema and I used these headphones to do the music and the film mix for Guns and Weed: The Road to Freedom, I used them to record and mix the Right Arm of Wyoming CD, and I’ve used them to mix and QC every Freedom Feens show, since episode 1. I also use them for constant daily use for listening to music and podcasts.

Taking care of headphones is easy: if they get sweaty (mine do, because I wear them while doing house work and yard care), when you take them off , wipe the sweat off on a cloth, then store them with the ear pads open to the air, rather than touching each other. This will allow them to fully dry.

Even so, after a while, the headphone pads will wear out:

It’s easy to buy new pads, for very little money, and you can put the new ones on very easily….The old ones just slip off and the new ones just slip on. I recently got these replacement earpads, made for this specific model of headphones. They’re nine dollars for two, enough for one set of headphones. They do ship from Hong Kong, with inexpensive shipping, and take about three weeks to arrive.

If 90 dollars is out of your budget, this headset is not bad for seven (!) dollars. And it’s got a microphone, so you can use it for Skype or Mumble, and it will sound better than using your on-board computer mic, by far.

Hope this helps. I’ve been meaning to do this post somewhere for about a year, and thought this nice spring day where it’s actually warm enough to open my windows would be a good time to do it. Whee! Mew!

–Michael W. Dean