Realistic Expectations?

Try a speaker rig, the next best thing to a live performance ;)

 

 

I doubt it that you will get the exact same experience out of a pair of headphone, think about it for a second, you are positioned in the centre of everything when using headphones, and the drivers are so close to your ears. 

However, if what you are after is the richness of the vocals, the sound of a guitar, you might just get away with a really good setup of DACs and AMPs for your HE500.

I've never heard both of the headphones you mentioned in the thread, but I don't think you want IEMs, ba drivers just don't move air the same way as dynamics, I can enjoy my triple fis on the road, but when I'm at home, rs2 or 701 it is.. I think this really matters when you want the guitar to shine, which I found out the other day that triple fis failed catastrophically in that department, again, I've never owned or listened to a good sets of customs, I might be wrong.

 

oh, about messing up with your head, faking the feeling of a real concert, try some binaural recordings, they are quite rare to come across, but hell, they presented you with some amazing experience. Moreover, cross feed might make things sound better to you as well, although, no matter how good the integration is, you still can feel the driver being awfully close to you. I've heard phonitor and loved it, though I think I appreciated it more as a very nice amp than a sophisticated cross feed processor. 

 

Edited by Allforheather - 1/15/12 at 2:07pm

I think what you need is a Stax SR009, WooAudio WES, and a Smyth SVS Realiser system. If you're still not satisfied, you've *only* lost $13,860. Hey, it's still less than an elite speaker system.

Try Stax.

Though truth be told, no headphones out there right now are truly linear. Some are close, and Stax generally get closer than most, but in terms of linear FR, imaging, and tactile sub-bass, no headphones will ever get close to a high-end speaker system. They will match a good speaker system in resolution, though, and in terms of lightning fast transients the electrostatics at least will easily outdo any speaker rig - a nearly weightless membrane less than 2 microns thick will respond one hell of a lot faster than a 6 inch midrange driver or a 12 inch woofer.

If you're looking for maximum neutrality and linearity, go with speakers in an acoustically treated room. But for an almost linear response together with top-notch resolution something like a SR-507 with a Woo GES or SR-009 with a BHSE will do nicely.

Kanashimu, you have to try the HD600. It's sounds most natural and neutral IMO (I'm a violinist myself) and for soundstage the HD800 nails it. 

 

Well that's the goal of all this high fidelity nonsense eh? If we could produce something like the real thing, then we might have found the holy grail.

We cannot reproduce the real, but with technological advancement we are able to produce the hyperreal. So true.