[beastie]

Hi all,

this week i've received two pairs of headphones. the AKG 300 and Denon 750. i fell in love with the denons instantly. but as for the AKG's, well i wasn't impressed. i gave the pair fair chance. i listened to them for the past 3 nights with a variety of music from jazz, techno, to classical. but i'm disspointed. first of all. i dislike open phones. the problem is they are open! i can hear everything that goes on around. just like speakers. when studying, i get distracted from listening, every time i turn over a page. i just don't understand the point of open phones. if i want a wide soundstage, i'll just listen to my speakers. anyway, to music reproduction. everyone seems to praise phones that are not coloured and complain of bloated bass. listening to the AKGs, these phones are so neutral and bass lacking that i find them totally boring to listen to. the music feels so distant that i think i can fall asleep to rap with these cans. even listening to classical music, the merriment and tempo of songs such as blue danube by Strauss and air by Bach. i'm wondering why some people like these type of phones? everything i listen to are apathetic. the Denon 750 are a different story. i guess i really prefer closed cans over open. due to the reason they are closed, they bring intimacy to music. they are very smooth and very good bass responce. i used it on my e10 md player and the sound is very very good. i played dave seaman's Melbourne. this album has some highs that always distort my other soundsystems, but with the 750, the sound was improved greatly.

one feature i dislike about both of the phones is the damn long cable they have. they are so long that i'm cautious that i don't trip over them whenever i need to leave my desk to do something. i wish the companies would make the cables coiled, it would make life much easier.

okay i haven't had the chance to listen to other higher quality headphones. but based on my reading of the forum, it seems like many of the open phones like the AKG and Senns share the same characteristic as my 300. so i'm just wondering what some of you senn 600 are looking for? do you guys like to listen to music that won't bring your excitement and transform you to an state of mind where you can feel what the artists were feeling when they were creating the music?

 

[CRESCENDOPOWER]

beastie writes:

Why do people think uncoloured sound is a good thing?

There is no such thing as a headphone that is not colored. Although, some people would like to believe that just because they like their headphone better than others means that theirs is uncolored, and everybody else's is junk.

 

[Geek]

When I listen to music, I desire totally NATURAL sound. Perhaps the definition I am using is different than "NEUTRAL." I simply want to be transported to where the music is. This is the way the artist, at least in my opinion, intended for his work to sound.

I listen to music in order to make me excited. What doesn't make me excited is something that differs from what I think the artist intended (read below).

Keep in mind that the tone (and therefore musical feeling) of the instrument to the MUSICIAN is SOMETIMES VASTLY DIFFERENT than the apparent tone from the AUDIENCE PERSPECTIVE. When I play my violin, I "feel" myself creating the music. What I hear is a much brigher, grittier, almost harsh tone which distorts in both ears because it is much too loud to be musically smooth. When I listen to one of my teachers play and am standing say six to ten feet away, the sound is much different. I find it more natural: Some instruments sound best to the AUDIENCE and not as good to the PERFORMER.

It just seems right having a natural distance between audience and performer.

I don't think that musicians intended the listener to have his ears perked six to ten inches away from each instrument at the same time. I just don't. In even the most "intimate" music, the audience is at least ten feet away from the point of projection (hard rock).

When you compare different styles of classical, the musicians vary this level of "distancing," with the most distant music usually being the most layered instrumentally. For example, a symphony has a larger audience listening fourty or more feet away and still experiencing the music. Stepping down, a chamber orchestra perhaps halves this distance but cuts out some sections a bit and sizes down the orchestra. Stepping down again, a string quartet: The four basic string sections with audience members hearing the music in a social setting at a distance of five to ten feet.

In none of these situations does the audience member "become" the performer, except perhaps in a metaphorical fashion. The listener does not listen to each instrument in a symphony a foot away from each player all at the same time!

I feel that striving for more detail than this natural live experience would drive me insane, because I would be looking for something reaching past the point of perfection and sacrificing musicality and balance to hear MORE of what each instrumentalist hears.

Moving from philosophy to the discussion of headphones:

If you think that the AKG sound is too "thin" then you might find the HD600 a bit better. HD600s are open headphones with a bass response you just don't expect from an open headphone.

It also has a "laid-back" quality but it is probably different than the AKGs a bit. You may find the same flaws in the HD600s as with the AKGs, but the bass issue you are having is probably going to be fixed. Just keep in mind that you most likely will find music "distanced" or "veiled" with 600s too.

Good luck.

Cheers,
Geek

 

[Geek]

Also, what Crescendopower said is very true. NO headphone is totally uncolored, at least of the ones that I have heard so far.

I hope that my post cleared things up a bit and didn't make things worse.

Cheers,
Geek

 

[ServinginEcuador]

The less coloration you get from your cans, the better your sound will be to the original. If you have an decent setup, interconnects, CDP, and such, the least coloration added by the cans will allow you to hear a more accurate reproduction of the CD sound. This is only good if you don't like a little added warmth to the mids, a bump to the highs, a little bass added, etc. Coloration can make listening more enjoyable, but those who own the Sony R10s say that they blow everything else away since they add so little coloration of their own to the music.

My .02 worth.

 

[Tim D]

You are just mistaking something sounding "too neutral and bass lacking" as neutrality but it isn't. I have doubts that your MD player can power the AKG's sufficiently, and even so it is a lower-end AKG compared to the 401/501's which are still not completely neutral anyhow. The Denon-750's are extremely sensitive phones as well and can play with power out of a weaker source...extreme opposites in power requirements.

Also believe it or not those pair of Denon's probably side more along the analytical side and certainly aren't what I'd call smooth warm or extremely colored in any euphonic way. It sounds more like you are comparing something that is decently powered to something that isn't. The moment you say something sounds too _____, it probably isn't neutral.

 

[wallijonn]

Man can not live by bass alone. (borrowed from a fellow member who said that "Man can not live by treble alone").

you like coiled. others hate them.
you like closed. others hate them.
you like forward. others hate it.
life is good.

 

[NotoriousBIG_PJ]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tim D Also believe it or not those pair of Denon's probably side more along the analytical side and certainly aren't what I'd call smooth warm or extremely colored in any euphonic way. It sounds more like you are comparing something that is decently powered to something that isn't. The moment you say something sounds too _____, it probably isn't neutral.

Actually I found the denons to have a beautiful grado like midrange. Not analytical at all. There only knock is the bloated bass, but it is a fun full bass. The denons have a balanced sound, but they are not neutral (reference being hp-1000's). I will agree that they don't need a good source to sound good... sorry I can't say anything about the akg's.

Biggie.

 

[RacerX]

I believe it was early headphone user, Karl Marx, that said: "From each according to his frequencies, to each according to his ears."

 

[Vertigo-1]

Quote:

Coloration can make listening more enjoyable, but those who own the Sony R10s say that they blow everything else away since they add so little coloration of their own to the music.

Far from it. The R10s remain one of the most obviously colored headphones I've heard. They sound so "natural" though that most people could care less if it sounded colored like a kid's filled out Winnie the Pooh coloring book.

I personally no longer even bother using neutrality or coloration like it's some kind of ruler by which everything must be measured. I'd rather just listen, and if it sounds good to me, cool. I form my system based on that premise nowdays, the main reason being what Crescendo stated earlier.

 

[Geek]

Vertigo-1,

Agreed. I don't have anything to add to your conclusion.

Excellent posts everyone. Too tired to reply to anything else

Cheers,
Geek

 

[Vertigo-1]

What I've also been moving towards while building my system over the past 5 months or so is that concept of naturality. If neutral and colored could be considered the extreme absolutes a system could tend towards, naturality could be added as the third extreme, and probably the most desirable. The problem is, naturality is much harder to pinpoint, being based mostly upon euphonics and PRaT. This is where discussion becomes problematic and uncomfortable, and discussions around naturality tend to break down into demands for proof of the why or how, usually based back upon neutrality or coloration.

Without a doubt though for me, in my experience, neither neutrality or coloration leads to naturality. Building a system that leans heavily towards either one tends to destroy naturality. In instances where I felt my system was obtaining a sound that was close to the flat, even sound that defines neutrality for most audiophiles, I felt my system sounded dead, lifeless. In the other instance where I strived for a heavily colored sound, I'd feel in the long run something was wrong, out of place, too much or too little.

Naturality is what I want my system to sound ultimately. This to me is where the system is simultaneously relaxing, very easy to just swing into the music, and start tapping my toes. At the same time, all of the sounds, the notes, the decays and echoes, the way they are weighed in and placed are all in perfect proportion to each other. Nothing sounds out of place. Quantitatively, the system sounds realistic. Qualitatively, the system is just damn fun to listen to, regardless of what type of music I put through it.


Naturality has so far been much harder to obtain...it has many fine edges and balances that can easily be disrupted. Pushing a system fully into being neutral-like or colored is not a problem...I've tried both in fact in the past, and neither is satisfying in the long run. But when the system sounds natural, it just sings.

I also believe though that one man's natural sound is another man's overcolored or too neutral sound. Naturality is influenced by your reference of what is real to you. This isn't necessarily a live performance either...interestingly enough, one Headfier recently thought a live performance he heard of a band sounded worse then what he heard back at home on a CD. Some also equate a natural sound as the loss of absolute layering of details. This of course highly disagrees with my listening preferences.

In any event...just thought the concept of naturality was worth hashing out. All IMO, and YMMV.

 

[RVD]

Great post, Vertigo-1, an awesome read. I totally agree.

 

[TMC]

Quote:

Originally posted by Vertigo-1 They sound so "natural" though that most people could care less if it sounded colored like a kid's filled out Winnie the Pooh coloring book.

Heh I can't agree or disagree with the above statement since I haven't heard the cans, but I just liked that description.

beastie: I'm glad you like your Denons, because they're one of the most enjoyable headphones I've ever heard for around $100 and work great with the kind of music I like most, pop and rock. They're so easily driven you can plug them into any source no matter how weak and they'll still sound fine, that's to me how all headphones should be.

 

[Audio-Me]

beastie - I have no clue as to what you mean "so neutral and bass lacking". To me that is a contradicting statement.

Naturality, now there's a good word to go on. As for people believing natural is the loss of layering, I think that is false. The layers creating a homogenous sense of depth through linearity and coherency helps in realism. What the hell is all that? My idea of smooth, it's not smearing or masking over where you lose detail and energy, that's a very novice concept and a bad one that leads people to vier even further away from natural. Many happen to like that fake road but hey, that's their thing.

What's funny is, I think that Vert and a few others have the exact same goal in our audio systems, yet all of us approach it in opposite ways. Vert's tried the extreme ends where as I go straight for what I think might be the middle ground, he now does the same thing but at a higher level of components.