I'm sure readers would love it if I proclaim a certain headphone to be "the best," but there are lots of headphones out there for lots of applications and lots of tastes. There are, especially, a lot of great passive, over-ear headphones for $300 to $400 -- the B&W P7 and the Phiaton MS-500, plus the Sennheiser Momentum and of course the M4U 1, too. Of these, the NAD Viso HP-50 is my personal favorite.
That doesn't mean it will necessarily be your personal favorite. I recommend you hear as many of these headphones as you can before you choose one. (Where can you do that? At the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest! You should go. You will not be disappointed.)
And for air travel, I'd still prefer the Bose QC-15, which is more comfortable and has the best noise-cancelling of any over-ear headphone. In fact, that's the one thing I'd really like to change about the HP-50 -- I want a noise-cancelling version. But I hear that might be coming.
I'm sure readers would love it if I proclaim a certain headphone to be "the best," but there are lots of headphones out there for lots of applications and lots of tastes. There are, especially, a lot of great passive, over-ear headphones for $300 to $400 -- the B&W P7 and the Phiaton MS-500, plus the Sennheiser Momentum and of course the M4U 1, too. Of these, the NAD Viso HP-50 is my personal favorite.
That doesn't mean it will necessarily be your personal favorite. I recommend you hear as many of these headphones as you can before you choose one. (Where can you do that? At the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest! You should go. You will not be disappointed.)
And for air travel, I'd still prefer the Bose QC-15, which is more comfortable and has the best noise-cancelling of any over-ear headphone. In fact, that's the one thing I'd really like to change about the HP-50 -- I want a noise-cancelling version. But I hear that might be coming.