I almost purchased these AKG K240 headphones on a whim at a not-to-be-mentioned retail musical instruments shop we all know. I wanted to experiment with a semi-open headphone configuration since I have tinnitus issues and don’t want to go stone cold deaf.

While I was looking at them I wondered if I could do better shopping online–the price was about $150 in the store and at the last second decided that there was probably a nice little markup in that notorious store. Yes, indeed. Priced at $99 online, I have placed my order and am excited to compare the AKG K240 headphones to Sony and Sennheiser. Which headsets give the best sound reproduction while giving me the least amount of hearing damage caused by extended headphone wear? We shall see.

The moral of this story is basically “shop around”. Especially in this economy! I did some research on the AKG K240s, and there’s a mixed bag but the positive reviews say what I need to know–good audio quality in spite of some issues with slippy wear. I can deal with that…

If you have any experience in this area, I’d love to get some feedback.Hearing damage vs. audio quality…the eternal tradeoff.