The most overused expressions on Head-Fi

Quote:

Originally Posted by PointyFox 

I'll start.

 

"I've heard that the ______ sound even better when paired with a decent amp. "

/ Yeah, like the chain of components downstream into which one plugs headphone / I.E.M. "X" would make a "Night and Day" difference ...

I'll proffer, "Night and Day difference" in answer , per example enclosed ...

- Next ...

Blaming a headphone's problems on the recordings by saying "they will reveal all the flaws in your recordings"

"You don't like how it sounds with X amp? Well when you try it with Y amp you'll be blown away, it's so much better..."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hi-Finthen 

I'll proffer, "Night and Day difference" in answer , per example enclosed ...

Completely took the words out of my mouth.  So I'll have to go with 'veiled'.  It's a term frequently used, and I think most of us have the same interpretation of what it means.  It's probably one of the most used critiques of sound.

-adj:  "Without sufficient burn-in, the sound was a bit veiled."

-n:  "After burn-in, it was as if a veil had been lifted."

More recently I suppose, "THE AUDEZE LCD-2 ARE NOT ROLLED OFF IN THE TREBLE".

Ah I'm just playing around (I heart the LCD-2), my favourite thing about this place is that people try to tell you EXACTLY how a headphone should sound like, despite you having that said headphone right on your head.

"Garbage in, garbage out."

"rolled off" is a really misused term.  I bet none of the new headphones commonly discussed here actually have rolled off treble.

The argument with the LCD-2 is just that roll off is the wrong term because it means a lack of extension into the upper treble, and the LCD-2 extends to like 50khz or something ridiculous.  The term to use is "recessed" if you think the LCD-2 lacks treble.  The K240 Sextett on the other hand, seems to be rolled off. 

I personally think rolling off either end of the spectrum is a much smaller offense compared to what modern headphones seem to have to sacrifice to get that extension.  Rolloff often seems to make it easier to get the more important midrange right.  But I guess that doesn't always happen...

The X were unlistenable out of the box, but after 835437.232 hours of burn-in, they opened up and became Y.

"I'm an audiophile."

With the stock cable they sounded great, but with ____ I was blown away by how much I was missing with the stock cables

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhythmdevils 

"rolled off" is a really misused term.  I bet none of the new headphones commonly discussed here actually have rolled off treble.

 

The argument with the LCD-2 is just that roll off is the wrong term because it means a lack of extension into the upper treble, and the LCD-2 extends to like 50khz or something ridiculous.  The term to use is "recessed" if you think the LCD-2 lacks treble.  The K240 Sextett on the other hand, seems to be rolled off. 

 

I personally think rolling off either end of the spectrum is a much smaller offense compared to what modern headphones seem to have to sacrifice to get that extension.  Rolloff often seems to make it easier to get the more important midrange right.  But I guess that doesn't always happen...

So what exactly is the difference between "rolled off" and "recessed", then?

I always thought that "rolled off" just means that when you look at the FR graph, the line just makes a sudden downward turn past a certain frequency, and remains there. I thought that "recessed" means that all the frequencies are still there, but they just sound slightly further away?

I think you're right.  Roll off is an arc shape to the response, getting lower and lower till it disappears, and recessed means lower than the rest of the spectrum, but still flat and extended.  I think rolled off is actually a term that probably applies more to modern headphone's bass response than treble, because headphones these days extend way beyond what we can hear in the treble. A least that's my understanding. 

Saying that a headphone has rolled off treble doesn't just say that it is warm sounding, or has less treble levels than you'd like, it also suggests that it is unable to produce the highest frequencies.  Not that I use all the right terms or anything because I certainly don't, but this is what causes the hubub in the LCD-2 threads. 

ymmv

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