I was really considering getting these until I found out they take 6 months to get here, just not worth the wait. I was hoping to get a pair of open backed headphones to commute with, but I'll probably just stick with the ATH-AD700x from Amazon right now.
geoff.kleinI wouldn't get open-backs for commuting on public transport. People will hate you. A good pair of closed will suit better anyway for your appreciation of the music. Sound blockage works both ways.
geoff.kleinJust so you know, open backs are bad for commute.. not only will sound leak a lot from your headphones to the surroundings, the sound from the surroundings will leak into the headphones too... you will never be able to properly enjoy a pair of open back headphones when in a noisy environment. Hope you got an inkling about that based on the other replies :)
You are better off with a closed back one... even better will be a closed back one with active noise cancellation. Something like the Bose QC35 comes to mind. If that is out of your budget, even a Senn Momentum 2.0 over the ear or an Audio Technica ATHM50X would be better... plus these wouldn't need a dedicated AMP to drive them and is much easier when moving around. Hope that helps.. If you research in head-fi.org , you will get much more details and more options.
dormammuI currently have the first gen Senn Momentum, and they sound great, but cant wear them for too long, or they hurt like hell. I wasnt too impressed with teh Bose QC35 sound, good cancellation, but not great sound for the price. I'm looking more towards the M40x, they just consistently beat out the M50x. Would love the M70x, but cant drop that much on headphones right now.
geoff.kleinThe momentum 2.0 is better than the Momentum first gen though. Yeah, the QC35s aren't the best when in wireless mode, but when plugged in, it sounds much better. I don't use it for serious listening though, just for commuting as it does keep the noise out quite well. QC35 wired in + ANC turned on is a good combo for that. I never owned the M40x but have heard a lot of positives for that and many people prefer these over the M50x. Main point was on the open vs closed phones though and the rest were mostly examples of some of the phones that you could take a look at :)
dormammuWould recommend looking into Sennheiser HD598c, this is the closed back version. Fairly inexpensive to. Got a set from Amazon
They do need to be "broken in" to get best sound eventually