Prog Rock Man
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2009
- Posts
- 3,812
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Having spend around £100-£150 on headphones a few times and doing some research to buy my first new headphones in a decade, if anything deciding what to do is harder now than before.
Ten years ago there were not many reviews. Now there are loads, from YouTube, to forums to the reviews left by customers. There is almost information overload. What is noticeable, is the number of reviews that discuss differences in sound, as opposed to improvements in sound. I watched a couple of YouTube reviews were cheap Grados and Beyerdynamic headphones were compared to far more expensive headphones from the same company, and it was clear that more money does not guarantee a better sound, just a different sound, in that case.
More money does pretty much guarantee headphones made out of more expensive materials, a nice box, may be a choice of cable, but it does not appear to guarantee better sound. "Better" is subjective. "Different" is more objective. "Better" tends to mean all the instruments are clear and you can really hear the music. I remember letting a friend listen to some Grado SR80s and she realised she had misheard some lyrics on a track she had been listening to for years. The "better" SR80s meant she could hear the vocals clearly. "Better" would also be the bass sounds more bass like and not thin. "Better" would tend to mean no tizzy sound on cymbals and generally no distortion. "Different" could also mean more bass, where the bass on both headphones sounds fine, it is a matter of preference as to how much bass the listener would like to hear.
How much money is needed to guarantee a "better" sound than £100ish headphones, such as the AKG K271 Mkii, K702 Grado SR80 or Beyerdynamic DT990? Or does more money just mean a different sound that is not necessarily better?
Ten years ago there were not many reviews. Now there are loads, from YouTube, to forums to the reviews left by customers. There is almost information overload. What is noticeable, is the number of reviews that discuss differences in sound, as opposed to improvements in sound. I watched a couple of YouTube reviews were cheap Grados and Beyerdynamic headphones were compared to far more expensive headphones from the same company, and it was clear that more money does not guarantee a better sound, just a different sound, in that case.
More money does pretty much guarantee headphones made out of more expensive materials, a nice box, may be a choice of cable, but it does not appear to guarantee better sound. "Better" is subjective. "Different" is more objective. "Better" tends to mean all the instruments are clear and you can really hear the music. I remember letting a friend listen to some Grado SR80s and she realised she had misheard some lyrics on a track she had been listening to for years. The "better" SR80s meant she could hear the vocals clearly. "Better" would also be the bass sounds more bass like and not thin. "Better" would tend to mean no tizzy sound on cymbals and generally no distortion. "Different" could also mean more bass, where the bass on both headphones sounds fine, it is a matter of preference as to how much bass the listener would like to hear.
How much money is needed to guarantee a "better" sound than £100ish headphones, such as the AKG K271 Mkii, K702 Grado SR80 or Beyerdynamic DT990? Or does more money just mean a different sound that is not necessarily better?