Listening to the Beatles on my $6000 cans...

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Originally Posted by dsf3g 

Now, one of the things you often read on these boards is that the headphones of today sound waaay better than the ones released just a decade or two ago.

Where did you get this idea ?

Well, the thing is that microphone, recording tape, and speaker technology was far more mature than headphone technology was then - only recently have headphones begun to catch up.

Give a listen to, say, Blue Train, which was recorded in 1957.  Even today it's far better recorded and mastered than 99% of new albums.  Not because of the technology, but because most pop, rock, and some jazz & classical albums are compressed and clipped (at the very least) until they sound like crap.  Well, that and Rudy Van Gelder is among the best recording engineers of all time (and he built some of his own equipment back then).

Now, there are plenty of horrible, horrible recordings from the fifties and sixties.  The new "big thing" then was stereo - well, we all know how that panned out, but at the time it led to lots of poorly done stereo releases of albums that were originally mastered in mono by the bands.  There's also plenty of poor recordings that were just made quickly, with low budgets, poor recording engineers, poor equipment, and so on.  That still happens today, of course - it just costs less to do.

Regarding playback in that era - the best systems were huge electrostatic panels with limited bass (solved in 1968 with Infinity's development of the subwoofer), and a handful of dynamic speakers that still perform well today.  The most famous of those is probably the Klipschorn - designed way back in 1946!  You can still buy them new, and only minor changes have been made to the design since then.  They're still arguably Klipsch's best speakers today, and although they're not groundbreaking like they were then they're not any lesser for it.

There's honestly not been as much of a revolution in performance since then as you'd think - more like a slow evolution, with the best systems from the 1980s not really entirely eclipsed by the best performing systems today.  Since then, the convenience (not so much the quality) of the CD, cassette, and digital music really have shrunk the market for high fidelity.  People want to hear their music on the go - most don't sit down and actually listen to the music anymore.  So accordingly, the mass market standards have shrunk to give people convenience.  How else can you explain soundbars?!?

At the same time, the portable revolution inspired an entirely new market for headphones.  It's taken time for portable audio to grow big enough to support a high-end niche market.  Sure, there are/were great electrostatic (and of course a handful of great dynamic and orthodynamic) headphones, but they've always been tethered and expensive, so of limited interest compared to stereos.  Anyway, so there's generally been this huge explosion in high quality headphones , which still seems to be gaining pace (at an increasingly fast rate, even).  I think the exploding portable market is influencing the market for home headphones as well - young people that are used to high quality portable headphones want even better ones at home, leading to an increasing market for high-end home headphones as well.  Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to say that it's all young people or even mostly young people that are buying all the high-end headphones - it's just that I think that the expanding market for high quality portable headphones as a whole (driven by the younger generation) is influencing the home high-end market as well.

Beyond all that, no matter how bad the recording, it can still benefit from more faithful reproduction.  Okay, well there's some that could stand to have harshness or other flaws hidden, but you still gain to hear more detail with better headphones (of the right sound signature).

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Originally Posted by dsf3g 

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Originally Posted by BoogieWoogie 

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Originally Posted by dsf3g 

Now, one of the things you often read on these boards is that the headphones of today sound waaay better than the ones released just a decade or two ago.

Where did you get this idea ?

So you're saying that in you estimation it's not true?
 

I think he means Orpheus, et al.

But in terms of headphones that are easily available to the majority of consumers (and practical to use), today is as far as I can tell, far superior.  Perhaps the biggest step up among widely produced headphones since the HD 580 was released (incidentally in 1994, just after the HE-90).

There are headphones made in previous decades that are excellent. There is also a lot of crap.

A couple things have happened, though:

One is that the cost benefit - bang per buck - of headphones have improved immeasurably over the years. One of the highly regarded phones of the era was Yamaha's top of the line headphone in 1976 - the HP-1 - and it cost $200 at the time. This is around $800 in current dollars. There are many headphones in current production now, year 2011, which sound better and cost less. Our sense of the value of vintage phones is affected by the fact that they're vintage. Nobody will sell a new old stock HP-1 for $800 in current dollars - the idea is laughable. They'd be worth a couple hundred, maybe, and they sell to a hobbyist who will going to experiment with modifications to improve them.

Another is that that time has helped filter out the crap. Specific models, like the HD-414, K240, DT-48, and so on, have become values for the discerning audiophile because they still sound good by current standards. However, innumerable headphones of past years - many of which cost just as much new, if not more, than present-day phones - have been forgotten or are at best remembered for distinctive looks rather than comfort or quality sound.

So we tend to imagine a rosy picture of how good and cheap things were at the time that doesn't really compare to reality. I doubt there was an option to blow six grand on a pair of headphones in the mid-70s, but it would not have been difficult to see asking prices for new items from Stax or Beyerdynamics which would translate to over $1,000 in 2011 dollars.

The odds of picking a random $600 pair of headphones and having it sound good are much higher now than they were thirty five years ago. Good headphones are more common and easier to find than they used to be. Dedicated equipment designed specifically for headphones didn't exist on the consumer market (setting aside the amp and transformer boxes required for particular types of headphones). And the best headphones of 2011 are mostly better than the best headphones of 1976; at worst, almost as good or as good as the best of fifteen years ago. But not everything has improved in a uniform progression.

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Originally Posted by dsf3g 

... but spending $6000 to capture subtle nuances that were not captured by the original recording equpiment itself seems rather pointless.

Not pointless - impossible.  If the nuances weren't captured by the original recording equipment, by definition they won't show up in your headphones, whether they cost $60 or $6,000 or $60,000.

But ... good modern headphones (and good modern amps) will bring you the nuances that are there ... so why not hear them?  I've been listening to the Beatles for nearly 48 years, and it's kind of cool to hear everything on the tracks.  There are famous examples (like Ringo's squeaky shoe at the end of "A Day in the Life") and hundreds of others.  And as has been said, the simpler techniques of the Sixties can bring a very real, holographic feel.  It's like being right there in the studio.

I guess the overall question is where do we stop with this?  There's a case to be made that hearing every cough and squeak is inherently beside the point, but actually the kind of gear that brings you the fine detail often - almost always, in fact - serves the music very well too.  There's no real downside.

As for recording quality, a slightly different matter applies.

The best recordings of the 1950s and 1960s still sound excellent by today's standards.

I can recall listening on some fantastically elaborate ultra high-end kit in a dedicated listening room. It was a recording of Frank Sinatra backed by the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. And Frank was in the room, on the stage in front of me, the orchestra spread out behind him, and it was enthralling. That recording was made some time in the mid-1950s, and it had the range, space and dynamics that you'd be hard-pressed to find on many modern recordings.

I'm not even a fan of Sinatra, but I would pay to have that experience again. Yow.

How the source material is made is contingent on the craftsmanship of the people involved, the attention paid to the work, and the quality of the equipment used, not necessarily in that order but I would usually count on an excellent engineer getting a better recording out of mediocre hardware than what a mediocre engineer could get out of excellent hardware. How the material is played back is contingent on the attributes that are more fixed - once your high-quality gear is chosen and assembled in an optimal manner, it's going to make sounds in a reliable and faithful manner regardless of what those sounds are, with little or no additional human intervention.

Compare Jimi Hendrix's Valley of Neptune and Electric Ladyland. Can you tell which one was released in 2010?

It's certainly not pointless. Sonny Rollins' "Way Out West" (recorded in 1957) is one of the best recordings I have ever heard. There is no crossfeed and almost feels like you are, in fact, in the same room as the players. 

Some old recording are not this good though. The Beatles, in comparison to other older source material I have, sounds pretty poor, so it isn't a good example. 

The answer to your question about whether or not it's a waste is: it depends. 

Stereo is, in some ways, only kinda-sorta a technical improvement.

Did you know there were stereo recordings made in the 1920s? Back in the day when recordings were transcribed directly to disc masters, better studios would set up multiple transcribers, each with their own acoustic horns, so that if one machine failed they still had a backup. So they weren't trying to make stereo recordings, and there was never anything reproduced and sold but mono recordings from one or another of the masters. It wasn't until relatively recently that somebody tried playing both transcription disks and got a single multichannel performance.

So stereo is arguably a product of audio technology eventually becoming cheap enough that it could be affordable even when there was two of everything. That's not literally true for a variety of reasons (you still needed just one tape deck, as long as it had multiple heads; you still just needed one record player, as long as it had a compatible needle), but let's roll with it.

Many people consider digital, and especially modern digital mastering techniques, to be major step backwards compared to years past. Digital is hissless, but also compromises quality in the high frequencies (since the sound can move as fast as the digital sampling is able to keep up), and a lot of modern recordings have compromised quality: excessive dynamic compression, simulated acoustics that sound exaggerated and fake, and so on; some of which because they conform to popular tastes, some of which are the products of cost cutting, some of which are raw incompetence.

So I don't think your question can be answered directly, because technology has always progressed in fits and starts, and never in a uniform manner - some years the mics improve dramatically, and then other years the amps do. And not everybody has access to that at the same time. And not everybody who has access knows how to use it. The best recording tech of almost any vintage over the past sixty years can be capable of producing hi fi, even if described purely in terms of features some of it looks awfully primitive. So it's up to the skills of the people involved to make sure the fidelity is the highest possible.

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Originally Posted by dsf3g 

 

 is there a technology whose development radically changed recording technology such that everything before it was of poor quality, and everything that succeeded it has merely been a refinement?

 

Tape would be the obvious turning point in these terms, in the Fifties, and vinyl records.

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Originally Posted by dsf3g Seems to me that depending on your musical preferences, your source tracks might not justify super expensive audio equipment. Sure you will benefit from a nice set of headphones over a pair of $5.00 COBY Wal Mart specials, but spending $6000 to capture subtle nuances that were not captured by the original recording equpiment itself seems rather pointless.

Pointless like a Bugatti Veyron, a Blancpain watch or a $400 filet? Or do you feel like those things are more justified?

How dare you imply that horology is a waste! If I could afford such things I'd be even more offended. 

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Originally Posted by mralexosborn 

How dare you imply that horology is a waste! If I could afford such things I'd be even more offended. 

DAM STRAIGHT.

You can't beat some of the watches.

Individuality is amazing.

But then again I like from Rados to Edoxes to those lightning-struck watches (Don't ask if you don't know what those are).