Shure SRH750DJ Professional Quality DJ Headphones (Gold)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: Price Unavailable
Sale Price: $149.99
Today's Bonus:

• Frequency range = 5Hz - 30,000 Hz
• 10ft coiled detachable cable provides plenty of length and easy storage and replacement
• Replaceable ear cup pads and a second set of pads included in the package ensure long product life
• Includes a carrying pouch and threaded ¼-Inch adapter

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First off let me say I own the Shure 440 and 840, I am not fond of either of them. I find their sound to be too powerful and harsh, especially their bass. People claim it to be accurate, but how can this be if nearly everyone agrees the Bass on them both is just incredibly powerful and too harsh at times. Thankfully, Shure listened to its buyers and made the SRH750DJ. Out of the box they sound okay, nothing special. However after 50 hours of burn in, everything improved drastically. Like the difference between night and day. This set is geared for listening to music, where as the 440 and 840 are really not meant for that, they are monitors, meant to pick out subtle abnormalities in music track editing, like static and pops and such. The 750DJ is purely geared for musical experience, even though the box says they are monitors, too. Sure they can be used as that, as any headphone set can, but they are a total 180 degree turn from the 840.

They come with extra ear pads, which i am sorry to say right out of the box are incredibly uncomfortable. They are stiff and hard, but after some usage and clamping them onto a box or something for a day or two, they break in and become very comfortable. I was incredibly worried about the circular design of the earcups not fitting my ears. By the looks of things, the cups seemed pretty small in comparison to the 840 and 440...they are smaller, but totally circular but still fully over my ears. The downside to this is that my ears have a fraction of an inch clearance, almost no space left, my ears just fit. They are DJ headphones anyway, really meant to be slung down on your neck and have 1 earcup pressed up against your ear. So I suppose it wasnt meant to support average sized peoples heads and fully cover their ears...either that or i am a freak and my ears are huge, which they dont appear to be.

The 750s are comparable to the Denon D1001. The sound is similar, just bigger and more powerful all around, with MUCH more bass. And I mean it...much more. Enough to melt your face off if you wanted and had the right EQ. The bass is nothing like the 440 or 840, not even remotely. Its clean and beautiful and not at all harsh even on heavy bass tracks. They can handle high outputs of power, but remain easily driven by my sansa fuze without a problem. Doesnt sound as nice through my sansa as it does amped of course, but still, i am incredibly impressed with their ability to sound that nice and powerful via an mp3 player with no amp at all. The 440 and 840 fail miserably with no amp. The 750dj pass with flying colors. The Denons are more comfortable without question. But in the near future I expect the 750djs to become superior after sufficient burn in and usage. My denon D1001 and Shure 440/840 are no good for acoustic jazz or classical. Their soundstage is pretty awful for those genres of music. However, the 750DJs can power through nearly every type of genre i toss at it and still sound just awesome. This is something anyone with the above models in their inventory will recognize immediately. "Whoa, they sound great with my Superman the Movie soundtrack!!!" AWESOME! While the soundstage is just not as broad as the 840, is improved on the 440 and flat out KO'ed the Denon d1001. Thats not even fair to compare.

What bothers me is this fetish with stock cables and the bayonet locker. Like the 440 and 840, the cable is unique and twist-locks into place for security. I made a mistake in buying a 3.5mm to 3.5mm mini to mini 3 foot cable of my own to use instead of its stock coiled cable. Turns out its a requires a 2.5mm, not a standard mini. Back to radio shack i suppose, bothersome but understandable.

The headband is likely going to be modded very soon. It offers almost no support at all, and has s strange texture on the fabric. I've a buzz cut hairstyle and it kind of grinds on my head, and its really annoying. The clamp factor is pretty good, meaning they dont vice grip your head like some other headphones...coughcough 440/840,es7coughcough...They are somewhat heavy, but not the heaviest ive used.

The sound isolation is pretty good, id say 40% reduction. They tend to get hot, after all they are full sized over the ears and closed backs...you cannot avoid this.

Overall they are a fantastic buy. HIGHLY recommended if you want to buy via Shure. In my humbled opinion, the Shure 750DJ are an overall better choice for the budget of $100-150. The Denon D1001 was king of closed backs for around $100-150, now hail the new king SRH750dj!!! live long, and prosper!

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If my experience is any indicator, this model should be recalled.

The plastic is weaker than that of a child's toy.

It cracked in FOUR places during the first three weeks of normal use.

Korean warranty was no help, so I've appealed to the US SHURE Office for assistance,

since I bought it from an official reseller.

Will update with response.

Best sounding phones I've ever owned.

UPDATE: Free Warranty Service fixed the headband and I BELIEVE replaced the problematic plastic with something stronger. Not confirmed. They feel stronger.

Ask for free replacement if they break under normal conditions like mine did.

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The Shure 750DJ headphones are the top model in Shure's line targetting toward professional DJ use....that is, people that make their bucks spinning music that you want to dance to at your next party.

Disclaimer: I am not a DJ, so I won't try to speak for the professionals. I did buy this headphone just to try out because I already gave an excellent review for their monitor series SRH840 model and I was wanted to see how this differs from that offering. This headphone is meant for DJ use, and I did talk to a couple of people who have done some DJ'ing and offered me some perspectives on what they look out for:

Ability to withstand the rigors of use. These headphones are a tool, so it has to be durable, withstanding some accidental abuse, and is easily transportable to the venue. These headphones do look sturdy enough, there are no parts that will snap easily, the replaceable cable uses a bayonet locking mechanism and is detachable. The headband can be manhandled and bent and it doesn't lose its shape easily. The headphone comes with extra ear cushions, and there is a vinyl bag that keeps everything together. The headphone folds into a compact shape, swinging upward into the headband area.

Fit. These headphones clamp onto your headphone nice and securely, especially for one sided listening (you have swung the other earpiece off one ear to monitor). However, for regular listening, I found that on my size 7 3/4 head, even at maximum extension, they are borderline too small for my head, the earcup arms need more extension range. For extended listening, my head did feel a bit irritated due pretty tight clamping force. Grade = Bbecause they are a bit too tight on my big head.

Sound isolation. These are good in that they block up to 30dB of sound in the treble range, and around 15dB in the midrange. They don't filter anything below 200Hz. Grade = A-

Sound quality: These are definitely tailored toward DJ use as they have an noticeable emphasis in the bass. Their measurements show that the bass response is rock solid down into subwoofer territory of below even 20Hz. Response in the bass region of 20-200 Hz show that the response is elevated at least 10dB compared to the rest of the spectrum. So it's all about the bass here. The bass quality is quite decent, no obvious resonances, and because of the elevated response, bass is clear and omnipresent at all times, which is important in any loud venue. For general listening, the bass did seem to drown out the vocals significantly. In the upper ranges, treble is well controlled and almost a bit too laid back, there is a slight dullness to the shimmering of cymbals. The whole frequency spectrum is represented well enough, and except for the obvious bass centric sound, everything is basically there. Grade B+ for DJ use. For a general use music headphone other than pop or dance music, I suggest you look at the Shure SRH840

Build quality These headphones look great in pictures and from far away, they look like serious equipment, but they are pretty much all plastic and the metallic looking bits are just silver paint molded plastics. The joints and overall structure does creak a lot as you handle them. All in all, don't expect build quality that exceeds the price. Grade = B-

So all in all, these headphones do live up to their billing as DJ use tools. I think most people are better off with other more balanced headphones if you don't earn a living spinning vinyl.

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Let me just say, these headphones sound GREAT. Before these, I owned a pair of Bose Triport over-the-ear style headphones, and while the improvement is not worth ditching your old pair (except in my case: the Bose ones finally died after 3 years), there IS some added bass, which is great. Also loved is the detachable cord, and the swiveling ear cups.

The reason these don't get 5 stars is because the build quality and comfort just isn't all that. After about 50-60 hours of use, I can say that these are not as comfortable as the Bose, due to a much stiffer foam in the ear pads. Also, it is entirely made of plastic, which sometimes creaks when the headphones shift on your head. But my biggest complaint of all would be that the plastic on the adjustable piece on the sides cracked the first week! Nothing some super glue couldn't fix, but it's not something that bodes well for my experience with them down the road.

Overall, I wish I would have spent a bit more money and purchased some headphones with a better build quality. Luckily, the only category I'm not disappointed with is the sound quality, which I would say is the most important.

These headphones broke in three months of casual use. The cheap plastic in the adjuster piece cracked and rendered the headphones useless. I'm going to have to deal with manufacture to get a replacement. Also the foam ear pieces fall off easily.

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Yamaha Survival Kit (SK 88B)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $49.00
Sale Price: $26.36
Today's Bonus: 46% Off

• Includes a felt Grand Piano key cover and Stereo Headphones
• Also comes with a 2-year Extended Warranty (not applicable to the DGX640)
• Contains hundreds of dollars of Rebate Coupons, a full-length "Watch and Learn" DVD, a Survival Kit DVD and "Playing with Styles" DVD

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It's okay, I really just wanted a keyboard cover to avoid all the dust collecting on the keyboard and the rest of the top. This cover just covers the keys, so the dust still collects on the electronic controls. The headphones are ok for the price.

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Yamaha ARIUS YDP-181 Electronic Piano with Bench ,Rosewood

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $2,199.00
Sale Price: $1,699.99
Today's Bonus: 23% Off

• 88-key GH(Graded Hammer) weighted action keyboard
• Dynamic Stereo Sampling AWM piano with 128-note polyphony
• 2-track, 3-song recorder
• USB TO DEVICE port
• LED Display

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A digital piano will not completely replace a real acoustic, but it comes closer and closer as years go by. I think enormous progress has been made and the YDP-181 demonstrates how much. It used to be that keyboards had springy keys and metallic sound.

1) The box

The box is LARGE. If you buy it from a store, unless you have an SUV you will have to open it and put the parts in the trunk after folding the rear seats. It is HEAVY too. At 110 pounds, you need to help to move it around.

2) Assembly

I found assembly straightforward. If you have assembled IKEA furniture, it is not more difficult than that. Again, because of the weight, you will need someone to help you lift the action so that it rests on the sides. After that, you tighten the screws, connect the pedal cord, the power supply, and you are ready to go.

3) The build

The included bench feels a bit tinny. It is not that wide and large, but unless you weigh 300 pounds, I think it will do the job fine. I am not expecting you would use it to play duets with someone else, it is not wide enough.

The console itself feels reasonably solid. The pedals have an adjuster screw that rests on the floor so that you don't bend everything while pressing the pedals. The back board feels a bit flimsy. It is very thin, and I am not sure it has any structural reason being there.

Obviously, it's not the same sturdiness as an upright, nor is it as shiny, but it doesn't feel too cheap either. There is a sliding key cover to protect the keys from dust and other things.

Due to the light weight compared to an upright, you can move it around a room easily. On carpet you can move it one side at a time by yourself, but on hardwood, I would get help to avoid scratching the floor.

I found the pedals require a bit of force to operate. To avoid damage to the unit, you need to make sure the adjuster makes contact with the floor.

4) The action

I was surprised how close the action felt to my upright. Except for the "let-off" (right before the hammer takes off, you feel some resistance on the key) which you won't feel on a digital, the feel is really good. I would say it is lighter than an upright, but I am not sure it is lighter than a grand. So if you move from this digital to an upright, you will need more force, but if you move to a grand, it will likely be similar.

The keys are sensitive to velocity and again here, I am surprised how good it is. You can press very lightly and get a pp or press fast and you will get a ff. It feels easier to control the dynamics than on an acoustic (where it is probably not as linear, I guess), thus when moving to an acoustic, you will need some adjustment. Playing pianissimo on acoustics is one of the difficult things to do.

On an acoustic, you can miss a key by not hitting it fast enough. The hammer barely moves and doesn't strike the strings. On this model, you can miss a key as well, if you hit below a minimum velocity it will not produce any sound. As with a real piano too, the sound is only produced when you reach the bottom of the key.

There are 3 key sensitivity settings. I liked to set it to "hard" so it feels a bit like my upright and allows for more expressive control.

5) The sound

I really liked the sound of the "piano 1" voice. Of course, it is a digital piano, so you will not get the full richness and amplitude of a real piano, and on the upper registers, there is a bit of an "electronic" feel to the sound. Damper resonance also adds another bit of electronic feel to the upper notes, though with chords on the lower registers, it sounds pretty good. It actually sounds better than my upright (crisper sound, and always in tune) and I have seen a couple of uprights in my family that just sound horrible. The 2 speakers have a power of 40 W and they are loud enough so that you won't need to push the volume to the maximum.

Piano 2 sounds more "muffled" than Piano 1. You can adjust how bright you want the piano to be, between "mellow" and a few degrees up to "bright".

I found the soft pedal effect a bit light by default, but this can be changed in the settings to get a more pronounced effect. The middle pedal is "sostenuto" introduced by Steinway a while back, which I think is some gimmick since most repertoire comes from Europe.

The sustain pedal retains notes shorter than a typical upright (which would retain for something like 15-20 seconds). I measured 15 seconds on the leftmost note and 10 seconds for the middle C. This brings a clearer and less muddled sound, but on the other hand, you lose a bit of amplitude with that. I couldn't find an advanced setting. It would have been nice if Yamaha provided it, especially since the settings system based on sections and sub sections allows for adding settings without extra buttons on the unit.

6) The fun

It's always nice to have a few more voices, like organ and harpsichord. You can play Bach the way it sounded when he was alive, or imagine yourself in a church playing the organ. I care less about the "strings" voice, the "guitar" or the "choir" though.

One of the more interesting aspects of a digital piano is the ability to instantly record and play. The keyboard has memory for 3 user songs, and you can plug in a USB drive to store up to 100 songs on it. You can transfer songs back and forth between the user memory and the USB drive.

For practicing, you can record one hand, then listen to it and play the other hand. Or, you can record the "piano 1" part of a 2 piano piece, have the digital piano play it for you while you play the "piano 2" part along. During playback, you can adjust tempo so that you can practice slowly and increase the speed as you feel more comfortable. I find this increasingly useful for working on 2 piano pieces, piano duets, or working with one hand at a time.

I can imagine a whole lot of possibilities with educational software using MIDI. I am sure the software could record yourself, measure your accuracy, compare your playing against a reference, and ask you to practice various exercises.

Another bonus is the ability to play silently and use headphones. You need a 1/4" headphone jack. If your headphone has a 1/8' jack, you can buy a 1/8" to 1/4" converter.

The unit comes with 50 preloaded songs, as well as a sheet music book for these songs. They range from beginner (a few) to intermediate and advanced. Yamaha included many classics: Arabesque No 1 by Debussy, some Chopin Etudes, the Raindrop Prelude, the Moonlight Sonata. They will keep you busy for quite a while.

7) Playback and the pedal

The pedal gets recorded for each part independently (recorded songs can have "left" and "right" parts), and at playback it almost behaves like I have two pianos. I can play along with the pedal, and the pedal only applies to what I am playing, not to what the digital piano plays back. Damper resonance on the other hand applies to everything that is being played. I have yet to see how this behaves with piano software on the PC. I am guessing the pedal changes from the separate parts will get merged by the software. Or, I would have to use a MIDI editor to extract the left and right tracks, play them separately and then merge the resulting wave files so that it feels like there are 2 pianos playing.

8) Other considerations

Unlike an acoustic piano, where you can get a tuner to come by to your house, open the panels, and tune it, voice it, regulate it, etc. on site, for a digital piano, in case of problems, you would need to ship it to Yamaha. The manufacturer's warranty for this model is a 3 year limited parts and labor warranty, according to Yamaha's web site. Stores may offer an extended warranty which covers shipping. Considering the weight of the item and how much it might cost to ship, this might not be a bad idea.

Another consideration is reliability. Since this model just appeared on the market a year ago, I cannot have a record of how it will deal with use and abuse, repeated use of the pedal, hitting some chords hard, plugging/unplugging the headphone jack many times. I trust Japanese products and I am hoping the quality is there.

9) MIDI

There are 2 MIDI connectors, one for in, one for out. There are quite a few options available to configure MIDI, the channels, the control mode, and so forth.

You should use only the Yamaha UX-16 USB to MIDI interface. I tried the Roland UM-One and it skipped notes. The Yamaha USB to MIDI cable works flawlessly. It may be more expensive than other cables but at least you know that it will work because it is from the same brand. Of course, MIDI should be a standard, but I don't know whether the problem is with Roland or Yamaha not being totally compliant with the MIDI specification.

10) The verdict

I hope this review will be useful as I have been quite frustrated with the lack of real reviews on this product on this Internet. Most information I found is the same description, likely translated from Japanese, that says things like "for the beginner and the experienced player alike, this piano will provide playing pleasure, blah blah ...", pretty much copied/pasted everywhere. Obviously this is an expensive product sold in limited numbers, so that plays a factor in the lack of reviews.

Although I am giving it a very favorable review, in the end you should try it out for yourself in a real store before buying online. Feel the touch, listen if you like the sound, bring to the store a flash drive and record on it, then play the resulting MIDI file on a PC, etc.

The good

Crisp, clear sound, good volume

Strong bass

Two kinds of pianos, plus organ, harpsichord, and other goodies (choir, guitar, anyone?)

Action feels similar to real piano, not too springy

Good control over dynamics (key sensitivity)

Half pedal capability

Ability to use headphones for practicing at night

Ability to record and replay, on internal memory or using USB flash drive

Ability to transfer MIDI songs to PC and replay with high quality virtual piano software

50 songs to listen to, plus the sheet music for these

The bad

Bench is narrow

Music rest is a bit narrow too, makes it a bit clumsy to keep an "accordeon" style sheet music in place (I do that for pieces up to 6 pages)

Back panel is very thin

Wish there was a real screen like the more expensive Clavinovas

On the upper registers, the sound feels a bit "electronic", especially with damper resonance enabled

Wish there was a bit more volume on the upper registers

Pedals a bit tough to operate (but it's like a new car, you get used to it pretty quickly)

Might be expensive to repair with shipping

Buy Yamaha ARIUS YDP-181 Electronic Piano with Bench ,Rosewood Now

After comparing many Roland, Casio and Yamaha models, this is the one I settled on and couldn't be happier about it. I played the piano from about age 6 through high school and I wanted to get back into it.

Of all the Roland/Casio/Yamaha models I tested in person, this Yamaha in particular had the best "feel" of a real piano. It lacks some of the electronic/midi compatibility of the Casio AP620, but in terms of the build quality and the feel of a real piano, the YDP-181 is the clear winner.

It is more sturdily built than both the 161 and the 141, and the key action of the 181 is also better than both the 161 and 141. I'd highly recommend spending the few hundred extra dollars if you can afford it.

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In case anyone is interested in more information about the bench that is included... The piano and bench come together in one box, and the bench is Yamaha BC-100DR.

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First off, you are paying for the cabinet here in the price. For what you get, it is arguably a good deal, but remember you can pick up a P-155 with identical key feel, GHE (Which is the same as GH per the Yamaha website), and AWM sound. It is less money, and portable.

If you are looking for an authentic feel and sound you will not go wrong here, it is an amazing value if you need the cabinet with touch/sound, but check out the P-155 as well!

"I am a Piano Teacher and Performer Check me out on YouTube Jonathan Bobal"

This is the perfect piano! I actually like it better than a "real" traditional piano.......It's very easy to put together; I put it together by myself in about an hour (5'5" female). The sound is great and I'm delighted that I purchased this piano.

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Tascam TRACKPacKX1 Recording Bundle with US100, Mic, and Headphone

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $199.99
Sale Price: $149.99
Today's Bonus: 25% Off

• Containing US-100 interface, MC-VT1 dynamic microphone and HP-VT1 headphones.
• Bus-powered USB 2.0 audio interface, US-100
• XLR or 1/4 inch microphone input.
• RCA line inputs switchable to RIAA photo inputs with ground lug.

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This entire package is garbage. The headphones have no bass. I plugged my bass guitar into this thing and the headphones would crackle with every note played. The microphone does plug in through XLR, but vocals come out ugly sounding. The interface itself, while simple to use, gives me terrible latency when using adobe audition 3.0, to where you cant even record vocals because your ears are confused. and that leads me to using the audacity software that comes with it(which there are no instructions for) and im unable to master my vocals. So in short, this entire bundle sucks, and i wouldnt recommend it to anyone.

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I purchased this package as a restock from Guitar Center for $39.99. Even at the list price of $199.99 this would be a great value. I used Cakewalk Music Creator 6 software to lay down 3 vocal tracks and a drum track to test the sound. It sounded great on the initial setting in Music Creator and even better with some tinkering in the software. Contrary to the other review, the headphones sound fine with enough base and the microphone is good quality. Recorded sound through all three inputs (RCA, 1/4 inch Stereo and mic) sounded great. I would use multi-track recording software such as Music Creator or ACID Music Studio though rather than the included Audacity software.

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