Terry, I am hoping that you will be willing to comment on something that you posted in another thread? See below:
"Terry's Long Post on Enjoyment
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I hope this comes through clear and is not taken as an insult to anybody. This is about enjoying your 2500's or 750's, or could be about any other headphone, I guess, in most ways.
This is coming as a reaction to what seems like a "king of the hill" sort of debate that's warming up in some quarters. No headphone is "the best", or the ultimate for all people. I hear totally opposite "impressions" concerning the bass, mids and highs expressed by people here stated as if they were final edicts of "this is what it is, folks." Geesh! The number of people here with damaged hearing must be very high, or else genetics has produced totally different hearing apparatus for many different people, if you are to believe some of these "impressions"! I feel like I'm from a different planet sometimes - can my hearing be THAT different from other people's? Gack! I really don't know what is really being heard and attempted to be described sometimes. A language issue? Gads, I feel like a computer repair guy listening to people asking about how much weight their "cup holder" can take sometimes... (heh.. a little rant!)
Anyway, I am a different animal - I'm an "audio professional" and have been in sound mixing, recording, sound-reinforcement and video for over 40 years. I have golden ears beyond what most people could hope to have, because they are trained to hear things - yes, actually trained - taught how to listen very closely and hear minute details in things, thanks to demanding mentors and lots of hard work. You just wouldn't believe what all sounds good to me after all these years. Just about everything! I enjoy listening to all kinds of music. (But, on the other hand, I know what might make it sound even better as well. That's "working", though!) I know technical details to levels of nerd-like proportions! I am new to audiophile headphones because, except for being used during tracking for levels and to make sure things are plugged in and working, my use of headphones has been non-critical at best and they have been always absolutely shunned for critical listening purposes, because that is just common knowledge in the pro world, that you never rely on headphones for mixing or critical mastering purposes. Headphones are (well, were) considered too inaccurate for that application.
Then I got an iPod, tried several headphones, quality became an issue. Got some Shure E4c's. Found this website. Got head-fi'd. My wallet doesn't have a say in this anymore!
Like Dex, I come from "speakerland". I got into the Proline 750, sure, eventually, as you all know... but this was after first getting good and used to listening to very good speakers: lots and lots of high quality studio monitors, and most recently, the Polk LSi series (which I own), which are compared with speakers costing ten times more by all audiophile magazine reviewers bar none.
I use a pair of LSi-9's as my main monitors and the LSi-7's as my near-field monitors. They share the same drivers, in particular a very sweet tweeter used in speakers costing $10,000.00 each. I personally am not going to ever need speakers that deliver the goods better than these do. For movies, the LSi-7's get moved into the rears' position.
I like my speakers! A lot!
My needs for a headphone were defined in advance and tailored by this sound: a sound accurate enough to use as a reference for mixing and for repairing other's mixes via mastering techniques. So, I knew what I would be searching for before I went headphone hunting - exactly! - but didn't expect to actually find anything I could use. Still, I embarked anyway. You never know!
As expected, nothing I read about other headphones was impressing me that they delivered anywhere near this kind of 'reference' sound I wanted. Then I run into some pro reviewers talking about these Ultrasone Proline items. "You're kidding me, you'd use these for mixing a final," I thought?!
A search on head-fi brought up Dex's thread early in its development, and that enticed me even more. I talked to the manager of our local pro music shop and he loved his older HFI-650 Trackmasters, and felt confident I would love the Proline 750s. He felt also that I could entrust these headphones to deliver excellent quality mixes - no kidding! I asked about his return policy anyway! He just smiled like he knew that wouldn't become an issue. He told me he was confident I would really be able to enjoy these headphones - they really were what I was looking for. OK!
All this preamble is for this: Present day - I listen to the reference Polk speakers. I put on the headphones. I take them off again and listen to the speakers again. I hear the same thing. That is what I need to hear - the same thing as I hear with my reference speakers. I need to hear the same effect of pushing 4k EQ or pulling a tad at 300. I do. If they were not the same, these headphones would be difficult at best for me to rely upon.
Now, I don't have to drag my Polks around with me to mix at different locations - I can bring along a reliable reference to a gig or to another person's location. My reference needs to be something that can be trusted, and that reference for me is my Proline 750's.
Now get this - my Polks cost $1200 for the LSi-9's, and $900 for the LSi-7's. The Proline 750's cost me $335. WOW! You can have reference sound for around 300 bucks! Portable reference sound! That is totally amazing, folks... it's like a gift from Ultrasone!
So, if you hear metallic highs, I'm telling you that is because metallic highs are in the source (the recording itself) or are being emphasized somewhere in the chain leading up to your headphones. Change your source, or compensate somehow otherwise for it. That's what EQ is there for. (It is not a sin to use it - that seems to be a religious issue in audiophile-land.)
If you only knew what a beating music takes before it gets into your system... there is no-way it sounds "like being there" - it is all art, the whole thing. And you, the audience, are part of that creation - you contribute your part to it, or it wouldn't be art. Via EQ, interconnects, tubes, op-amps, different speakers, headphones, room treatments, and finally, by just sitting back and enjoying it.
I think this factor is why so many people I know in the arts consider the word "enjoy" as being an active verb. It isn't passive like watching TV - the listener is, in this case, a participant - a participant in enjoyment.
The old hick sentiment expressed as, "I may not know art, but I know what I like," is more right-on than people give it credit for. The expression of "I like" is an active form of participation!
What I'm trying to say is that things counterintuitive - like this metallic sound coming as a result of what was carved away or removed in EQing the recording due to a common and oft overused practice in mixing - are little oft-made human errors made during mixing that show up worse on some systems than on others.
If human errors happen, they do not need to be lived with by not changing anything on your own end. A different headphone, EQ setting, or whatever as listed above is OK if it makes listening to it more enjoyable - if it makes you more able to enjoy the music. Enjoy as an active verb. Think about that.
Entice. Entrust. Enjoy. Enjoy your headphones. Enjoy your setup. Enjoy your music.
Terry"
Excellent post that I take at face value. Here is what I am curious about. You reference the 750 giving close to the same sound as your studio monitors. In my limited experience, studio monitors often show a much flatter frequency graph than the ones for the 750. Also recently I saw a frequency graph for a well known IEM that would seem to indicate that they had a pretty good bass, yet they are generally known for having a very weak bass (and that is certainly my experience in listening to them).
I am getting the idea that there is a mis-match between the graphs (at least in how they are commonly used on Head-fi) and what real users actually experience. It looks like the graphs are misrepresenting what takes place as a listening experience, or they are being used incorectly, or incomplete data is being given. Do you have any comments or clarification about this, especially as regards the Ultrasones?
(Now isn't that rather on point folks
.)
