Why do people think uncoloured sound is a good thing?
Mar 17, 2003 at 8:05 PM Post #46 of 71
Quote:

Because it's impossible, that's why. Headphones are all sonically 'shaped' whether you like it or not. All headphones are compromised. One will outshine another in one particular area but not in all.


So the freebie earbuds that came with your portable mp3 player will outshine the HD600 in some areas? I doubt it. Sure, all headphones are "colored" in the sense that every time you stick something in the signal path it changes the sound, can't deny that. But you can deduce whether one phone is less colored than another. I bet if you asked 100 people at random whether the R10s or the HD600 sounded more "natural", at least 80 would pick the R10. That's not to discount/dismiss the 20 people who liked the HD600 better, but it is a good way to make generalizations about the R10s seeming to be more natural to more people. Therefore, we can conclude with more certainty that the R10s are indeed "less colored" than the HD600 to *most* people.
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Many people will claim that their headphones are less colored than R10 or whatever because they prefer the sound of theirs. If they believe that their phones sound more like the real thing, then that's their most uncolored headphone, especailly if they paid a handsome amount of money for them. Nobody is going to say they bought a $5000 headphone and they suck, just like nobody is going to admit they have 3 inche.


I see, so this is about money.
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How could you prove such a thing anyway? You can't measure coloration or lack of it.


You make it sound like you're taking these headphones to another planet and asking aliens whether the sound of piano is more realistic on this headphone than that one. Well, if they've never heard a piano, how could they tell you? We don't live in a vacuum where the only way to hear sound is through headphones. We have some frame of reference for what things sound like, and we are perfectly capable of judging whether phone A or phone B sounds more like life. If you get 80 people out of 100 saying the same thing about one headphone, chances are you can extrapolate how person number 101 will likely feel about it.
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Someday someone will market a $6000 dynamic headphone and some will listen to it and claim that they were transported to another planet, but in reality they will still be here on Earth, just travelling down a different road that inevitably leads to the same destination: nowhere.


Ha ha ha ha. You are one bitter dude!
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You want to believe that all headphone preferences are simply a matter of taste, that absolute performance is identical in all headphones and it's just a matter of choosing the coloration you like best, and that's your right. I don't agree. Have you even heard an R10?

Mark
 
Mar 17, 2003 at 9:00 PM Post #47 of 71
you are speaking of films, good! The bests films I remember are black & white and you know that “reality” is not black & white, but this example is very good for explain my idea. I’m a classical musician (guitar) and I can sure to you that I only heard MY guitar 99,999999999% only with the R10 headphone (speaking only of headphone and not amps or sources and cables). And I think because this cans has the quality of “interpreting”, as I said “playing” music, not for less contribute, but exactly for his big contribute to the recording. The extraordinary of a rare object is just this: TO DO something that help to make everything good and beauty. But this is only my opinion…

Nicola

Very nice to speak with you!

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Mar 17, 2003 at 9:21 PM Post #48 of 71
Quote:

Originally posted by markl
You are one bitter dude!
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You want to believe that all headphone preferences are simply a matter of taste, that absolute performance is identical in all headphones.......


I never said that.
 
Mar 17, 2003 at 10:42 PM Post #49 of 71
Nicola...

...you're a musician (and Italian!), so you have to see it that way...
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your R10 as one of the best existing orchestras, capable to «interpret» every instrument timbre in a highly accurate manner. This is not my sight though; every sound reproduction device is build primarily to amplify or transduce the signal which it's fed with as accurate as possible, not to «interpret» it better or worse. Of course this purpose can't be perfectly fulfilled; there are physical limits.

I once had the opportunity to take a short listen to the R10. I was really impressed. And I didn't perceive it as coloring at all, not even in a euphonic sense, as you seem to state. By all means I envy you. Maybe one day you may want to get rid of your R10 – e.g. then when you buy a new guitar and need a better interpreter of that specific timbre. Just PM me in this case!
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Beagle...

...sure, there's no sound transducer without more or less coloration. That doesn't mean that all of them color in the same degree. There are huge differences. The difficulty is that the perception of headphone sound is extremely individual. Nevertheless there is a certain common sense: some headphones get a clear majority of positive ratings with mostly similar characterizations such as «neutral» and «natural». This doesn't mean that they are automatically preferred – some people may find them boring or analytical... What they have in common: they correspond to an idealized diffuse-field-equalization or any similar curve which has turned out to be something like a benchmark when it comes to neutrality. Every gross deviation from it obviously causes the impression of a coloration with most of the listeners.

I for one find the HD 600 rather neutral, just slightly on the overly smooth side («laid back») and veiled with the foam pads, the DT 880 is even more neutral (especially if the treble is slightly attenuated), and the K 501 is also rather neutral, but suffers from an accentuated lower treble which makes it seem bass-shy – while the SR-325 is clearly more colored to my ears (if you trust Headroom's normalized curves, this is objectively the case).


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JaZZ
 
Mar 18, 2003 at 3:59 AM Post #51 of 71
Quote:

Originally posted by Orpheus
dusty:

"You're really on an EQ kick recently, aren't you? Don't make me whip out my speech about the evils of EQ. Is it phase-correct EQ? If not, then it might be introducing more colouration (of a different variety) than it's correcting."

i'm not arguing pro/cons of eq. all i was saying was that in order to get a truly flat or neutral response, you would have to add EQ. otherwise such a headphone does not exist. which is a fact.


No, now you lost me. If you had said neutral frequency response, I would not have been able to argue with you, but there is also the phase response.

By the way, there are less and more accurate headphones, but no completely accurate headphones.

Think about it this way: two recordings, two mastering engineers. One is mastering using HD600's and a Grace headphone amp as their primary headphone reference. The other is using Grado HP-1's and X-CANs as their primary headphone reference. So in the case of the first recording, that system could be considered perfectly neutral, because you are reproducing the final master. But in the second, using HD600's and Grace headphone amp will produce a coloured response, whereas the Grado/MF system will produce a totally neutral response.
 
Mar 18, 2003 at 4:38 AM Post #52 of 71
well, yes, that's a good point.

but in reality, no consumer uses the same system as professionals. and not only do consumers not use the same speakers/headphones as pros, you do not have the same acoustical environment, and you do not have the other playback associated equipment (EQ's, mixers, meters.... etc... all of which are in the signal path.)

so, if want to use the same exact setup as the original mixing engineer so that you have a truly uncolored sound (relative to what the engineer heard)... well, forget it.

a second point is that this is only one perspective. if you are talking about "coloration" relative to the engineer's sound, well, then your point is valid. however, i was thinking more of hearing a truly uncolored sound relative to what's recorded on the CD. if you want to hear music as it is actually recorded, not what the engineer heard, then you still cannot get a truly "uncolored" sound.

but i still say it really doesn't matter. what it really comes down to is your own taste. just use what sounds good to you.
 
Mar 18, 2003 at 8:54 PM Post #53 of 71
Personally, I like colored sound. I believe that the purpose of a good audio system is to shock, provoke, and dismay its user, so I go out of my way to find headphones that are extremely colored.. their characteristics don't matter, as long as they sound bad! But even then, I'd eventually get used to their sound, so I make drastic EQ changes every few minutes to keep myself on my toes.

Still, I think I'm getting jaded or something. Oh, so the mids are squeaky now. Oh, now it sounds like I'm underwater. Yawn. I feel like I need something new to jar me out of my audio complacency, so I've started experimenting with attaching several different pairs of headphones together (duct tape or thick rubber bands work well), turning the volume up really loud so they distort, and arranging them in various places on my head. With any luck I can get some great echoey or cancellation effects.

I like to honk horns while I listen too.. you know, the kind with the squeezy rubber bulb. Nothing makes jazz vocalists sound better than giving oneself the impression that the vocalist is being violated by a farting clown.














Okay, but seriously...
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Putting aside the fact that no headphones will reproduce every frequency perfectly and evenly, clearly some headphones (and players, amps, etc) are more colored than others, and I think it's fair to assume that the people who would ask the topic question in the first place are knowingly, and deliberately, using the more colored hardware.. otherwise it would be a stupid question.

So my question to those people is, if you believe that using equipment known to significantly change the sound of the music you're listening to from the "baseline" encoded into the media (whether that encoding is redbook, mp3, grooves in vinyl, or whatever) consistently makes music better, why? Is your hardware in some way deficient? Does every artist and engineer make "bad" music? Or do you simply have unusual musical tastes or malfunctioning ears?
 
Mar 18, 2003 at 9:01 PM Post #54 of 71
"clearly some headphones (and players, amps, etc) are more colored than others"

--just wanted to note that many cd players do output a pretty much flat response, and some of the better amps (solid-state... tube amps are another story) are also pretty flat. not absolutely perfect... but well enough that i consider them flat--as in their frequency response is almost ruler flat, with maybe some very very insignifcantly small deviations. it's the speakers/headphones that add the most coloration. i haven't seen a speaker/headphone graph that is even remotely flat yet.
 
Mar 18, 2003 at 9:20 PM Post #55 of 71
Quote:

Originally posted by Orpheus
and some of the better amps (solid-state... tube amps are another story) are also pretty flat.


Don't bet on this. The strength of tubes is their linear frequency response...something a transistor or op amp does not match. That's why an no-feedback solid state amp is almost impossible, while a single-ended tube amp with no feedback is not only possible, but simply some of the cleanest sound you'll find. A good tube amp has a natural linearity that a solid state amp cannot match without compromising the sound. (not all tubes are linear, nor will all tube amps take advantage of them when they are. When you find one that does, you'll know it.)
 
Mar 18, 2003 at 11:56 PM Post #56 of 71
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Originally posted by Hirsch
Don't bet on this. The strength of tubes is their linear frequency response...something a transistor or op amp does not match. That's why an no-feedback solid state amp is almost impossible, while a single-ended tube amp with no feedback is not only possible, but simply some of the cleanest sound you'll find. A good tube amp has a natural linearity that a solid state amp cannot match without compromising the sound. (not all tubes are linear, nor will all tube amps take advantage of them when they are. When you find one that does, you'll know it.)


Tubes distort badly. That's why some people like them, because they have colorations in the mid-range, adding a suggestion of warmth.
 
Mar 19, 2003 at 2:51 AM Post #57 of 71
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Originally posted by Mike Scarpitti
Tubes distort badly.


So do transistors. So do op amps. Some people prefer tubes because the distortion is less objectionable than that produced by solid state devices. A good tube amp does NOT necessarily have midrange coloration, nor does it necessarily match your preconceptions of what a tube amp sounds like.
 
Mar 19, 2003 at 6:51 AM Post #58 of 71
Quote:

Originally posted by Orpheus
but in reality, no consumer uses the same system as professionals. and not only do consumers not use the same speakers/headphones as pros, you do not have the same acoustical environment, and you do not have the other playback associated equipment (EQ's, mixers, meters.... etc... all of which are in the signal path.)


Okay, now you're just throwing a red herring at me. They may all be in the signal path, but it's in the path before the recording, so that part ends up being the same -- the consumer gets to hear those EQ's, mixers, etc. (You don't hear meters.) Quote:

so, if want to use the same exact setup as the original mixing engineer so that you have a truly uncolored sound (relative to what the engineer heard)... well, forget it.


Not at all, I specified the Grace/HD600 combination because I happen to know for a fact that at least one very famous mastering house uses that exact combination, and that combination isn't unheard of on this board. Quote:

a second point is that this is only one perspective. if you are talking about "coloration" relative to the engineer's sound, well, then your point is valid.


That is what we are talking about most of the time. Quote:

however, i was thinking more of hearing a truly uncolored sound relative to what's recorded on the CD. if you want to hear music as it is actually recorded, not what the engineer heard, then you still cannot get a truly "uncolored" sound.


And how do we know what this is supposed to sound like? That's why I went with the engineer. The (mastering) engineer knows exactly what he's trying to get that recording to sound like, and (let me take a fictitious example) if he monitors with a Beyer DT770 and RKV combination, his monitoring is going to give him bass-heavy output, and he'll probably compensate by making his mix bass light. Now, this never happens in the real world (yeah, right, but outside the scope of this post), but the point is, what he thinks is a perfectly accurate mix is going to be slightly coloured by his monitoring environment, and that will be different from one recording to another (assuming they're done by different people in different mixing houses). Kind of renders this "absolute sound" which is on the CD as kind of moot, doesn't it?
 
Mar 19, 2003 at 6:53 AM Post #59 of 71
Quote:

Originally posted by Mike Scarpitti
Tubes distort badly. That's why some people like them, because they have colorations in the mid-range, adding a suggestion of warmth.


Actually, that's not true. The popular theory is that people actually like the distortion that tubes introduce because they are similar to the information lost in the digitization process. So it's actually the ultra-high-frequency information that may be what is so nice about them, not the midrange at all.
 
Mar 19, 2003 at 7:33 AM Post #60 of 71
dusty:

"Okay, now you're just throwing a red herring at me. They may all be in the signal path, but it's in the path before the recording, so that part ends up being the same -- the consumer gets to hear those EQ's, mixers, etc. (You don't hear meters.)"

--i tried to make that clear..... i'm talking about PLAYBACK outboard gear in the signal path. ....not the stuff used in recording. simply gear just for monitoring. of course, different studios have different setups.... but most have a complicated playback system.

for instance.... i'll just use my own studio for an example. PLAYBACK ONLY:

1. signal starts at mixing board
2. main inserts are hard-wired, so signal travels to patchbays.
3. signal is split 4 times at patchbay
4. 2 EQ systems are patched in: so, signal travels to BBE system.
5. signal return from BBE
6. signal to Urei graphic EQ
7. signal return to patchbay from Urei
8. signal return from patchbay to mixing board
9. signal through main preamps and metering
10. sometimes signal is also patched to outboard analog meters
11. signal then is passed to monitor section
12. monitor section feed then travels back to patchbay
13. patchbay splits signal 4x
14. speakers are patched in, so signal goes to amps
15. amps to speakers

now................ in a home system, you pretty much just go from preamp to amps.... taking out hundreds of feet of cable and many pieces of preamps and outboard gear.

"(You don't hear meters.)"-- yes, depending on how you patch them in, you probably would "hear" them to some degree. they are directly in the signal path in most cases--signal is fed into the meters, and the outputs are fed back into the signal chain. you could take a split feed and send the signal to the meters....but usually monitor meters have special functions, so you'll also take the outs back to the signal chain.

now... my studio is relatively very simple. pro studios even have much more gear in the MONITOR signal path. not recording.

so, again.......... very doubtful you can reproduce the studio environment at home.

"Not at all, I specified the Grace/HD600 combination because I happen to know for a fact that at least one very famous mastering house uses that exact combination, and that combination isn't unheard of on this board."

--yes, grace was made for pros. i don't doubt pros use it.

"Kind of renders this "absolute sound" which is on the CD as kind of moot, doesn't it?"

--well, yes. i guess. see, the engineer tries to make his music sound good on his target audience's system. it depends on the engineer, but many even check mixes in their cars just for a real-world type audition. you know what the most used monitor in a mixing studio is?--the Yamaha NS-10. it is everywhere. and it sounds like CRAP. you would never ever use something like that at home......... unless if you like listening to crap. the point is......... just use something you think sounds good. forget what the pros use...... it's irrelevant. i was only saying that i want to hear what's on the CD, cause that's what you have..... make the most of it.

i'm not really disagreeing with you Hirsch.... we're kinda talking about different things i think. i'm not saying you're wrong really--it just depends on the perspective you're looking at this from. although, many people don't understand how different a pro's monitor section is different from a consumer's setup. they are made for two very different purposes..... and thus two very different types of signal chains.
 

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