[Duncan]

By definition of 'natural' there really is very little bass anyway...

bass is something that we add to just fill in the sound to make it less fatuiging (on neutral setups)... so even the most expensive speakers with their huge woofers are technically colored...

that is one of the first main compromises of headphone listening... with the drivers so close to your ears... those waveforms have gotta do a whole lot of moving for you to be able to hear them (I forget the formula for it now)... hence, most cans either have boosted bass... or too little, I don't know of many if any (even the R10 is classed as bass light) that are 'neutral'...

lost cause for neutrality i'm afraid

 

[williamgoody]

I think it also may be unrealistic to solely look for neutrality from your headphones. You really have to take each piece of your system into account. you may have the most neutral headphone, and most neutral amp, but if your source isn't neutral, you're not going to have a neutral sound.

As far as no headphones being totally neutral, I'm not so sure. For me the HP1000's, well let's just say that if they really aren't NEUTRAL than I really don't know what neutral is.

 

[Duncan]

Maybe the original Grados got it right on... and thats why they're so collectable now...

I'll see if I can find out more info about waveforms and suchlike... should maybe be an intuitive read

 

[markl]

One man's "neutral" is another man's "colored". Ain't no gold standard for "neutrality" that 2 people will agree on, especially with headphones which, as has been said, vary so greatly.

Mark

 

[GanChan]

Quote:

Originally posted by beastie i just don't understand the point of open phones. if i want a wide soundstage, i'll just listen to my speakers.

The problem is that many of us who live in teensy little apartments with thin walls and cranky neighbors don't have the option of playing our speakers whenever or as loud as we want to, but we still want to approximate an open-air ambience, and experience a sense of soundstage. Open phones are great for this.

I switch back and forth between open and closed phones, depending on how much of the outside world I need to block out at the time.

 

[williamgoody]

Quote:

Originally posted by markl One man's "neutral" is another man's "colored". Ain't no gold standard for "neutrality" that 2 people will agree on, especially with headphones which, as has been said, vary so greatly. Mark

True enough.

 

[j-curve]

Geek, FWIW I'm really enjoying your posts of late. Your take on the pro's and con's of the HD600 (in another thread) reminded me of how long it's been since I've listened to a piano concerto on the 580's. For me, nothing tests a headphone's colouration better than a well recorded piano, even more so when there's an orchestra to back it up (with timpani). One thing I wanted to add to your comments here about perspective and distance though, is that being an audience member invariably places you very close to one of the auditorium's boundaries, ie. the floor, which is not a good place to be for its effect on the reverberated sound. Of course, this is something for hall designers to worry about, but if it were possible (in most cases) I would gladly exchange my seat for a swing dangling somewhere near the centre microphone. As you mentioned, if it's too close then this could be a painfully loud position which also throws the balance out (and recording engineers have to use support microphones to pick up the inaudible woodwinds, etc.). On the occasions when I've heard a chamber group or a choir both in the hall and directly off the feed via HD580/600 I've realized that a recording can surpass the live experience. I don't think this is because it's adding an unnatural level of detail, but simply because it's putting you somewhere that you couldn't normally be. That's one of the things which make this whole headphone gig worthwhile.

Vertigo-1, an interesting post taking us into the philosophical realm. For the moment though, I'm content to pursue neutrality further. I think overt colouration can only really work with dry (studio recorded) material or material with synthetic "space" added. The colouration is then less offensive and goes some way to invoking an acoustic environment, which (when it all comes together) contributes to the listening experience. This is how I reconcile the idea of "genre-specific" headphones, although I'm suggesting this should really be "acoustic-specific". I would say the same things about 3D processors and Dolby Headphone. I find them to be a disaster when the recording already expresses an acoustic space. At the same time, I can see how they might be useful for certain (acoustically dead) material.

 

[beastie]

wow. i opened a new thread last night. went to work today and came back to find an intense discussion on naturality. the discussion seems very involved. (hope this thread doesn't provoke anyone to spend anymore hard earned money on new phones and amps. hehe)

first of all, what music do you people mostly listen to? i find the thread: best headphones for the money started by duncan a bit misleading to newbies. the reason i write this is because you are not factoring in the music that some phones seem to do a good job at than others. this is quite obvious because to me akg open phones are not my cup of tea when listening to rap and electronica. this brings to my next issue...

i'm replying to geek. you were saying that some folks like to listen to music the musicians intended the music to be heard. this may very well work of symphonies, orchestras, operas etc. but what about synthetic music? how does someone determine how the artist intend his audience to hear the music? does the musician want his/her listeners to admire the consistency or skill of the musician in creating the music? or does the musician want share an emotion or a story with the audience. as you and many others in other threads described phones such as senn 600 and similar phones, it seems like the listeners is distant from the music without the loss of any detail to the actual music played. to me, the distance created between the two lessen the effect of any emotional story telling the artist may wish to present. why do people pay way more for front roll seats? my answer is to share a closer intimacy to the artist. so my point is, how do you know what form of music the artist intend to pass to the listeners?

now onto a question: do you like to have fun while listening to music or do you want to hear the last bit of detail through the creation of the music? i'm asking this simple question for one reason, i was listening to chopin, some songs with flute playing i believe. when i listen through e10 and a good pair of headphones, i could pick out details such as inhailing of breath by the player and once or twice the pages turning. now, those details bugged me very much. it totally disturbs me from enjoying the mood and the flow of the music. this is why from now on, i either listen to classical through my laptop or on speakers. this way all these miniscule distracting details are filtered out of the system and i'm left with nothing but the beautiful movement of the music. to me, i think a pair of phones that can best produce the the mood of the music, warmth for optimistic music and darkness for moody music, should be the most cherished piece to own. and i think too much detail in the music can actually hurt the reproduction of music. certainly, i don't think the musician wants the listener to hear him cough at the background.

i want to talk about another issue on my mind. but i'll save that for a little later. now i gotta go write a report of school.

cheers.

 

[Steve999]

This is why I like to have lots and lots of headphones.

To me, of course every headphone is going to introduce coloration. Coloration is bad to me when it consistently obscures or renders unpleasant part of the music. If the music isn't obscured, different headphones are like different colors of the rainbow.

I think live venues introduce just as much coloration as headphones. So if you find a headphone you like, maybe that's the tonal balance you'd prefer in a live venue.

An objective standard is so slippery with headphones because even if we could do the impossible and all A/B the same ten good live venues, or ten different good seats at the same live venue, the sounds would be quite different. So there's a question as to what the music actually did sound like, what it should have sounded like, and how the recording should have sounded.

Headphones are great because we all slip them on and are exposed to something similar. No doubt our ears introduce coloration, but still, you've cut way back on variables like room acoustics, live venues, seating position, etc.

We listen to the headphones and talk about it and compare what we like. I find it fascinating and engrossing. It's about as close as you can get to sharing the exact same quality of a complex sensory experience with somebody and then talking about whether you liked it or not.

It's personal and deep and basic and anything but simple, one person likes one set of qualities in a headphone, another person likes another set of qualities. That may seem simple or superficial. But I think what we are actually doing is intensely personal, unexplainable, mystical and meditative.

To complicate it all beyond comprehension, our brains are always adapting, always compensating in astonishingly complex ways for the weaknesses in our ears and in the electronics.

For me, a bad coloration is one that I just can't enjoy after letting my ears acclimate to it... usually, it's when I get frustrated that my attention is drawn away from the music and toward a problem with the sound.

A good coloration is one where I get lost in the enjoyment of sounds and music after my ears acclimate.

This acclimation adds another dimension, reducing the value of our preferences on A/B testing, as we might prefer another sound for extended listening to the one that sounds immediately or obviously better in a side-by-side comparison.

There, that's my two cents worth.

 

[gloco]

I'm gonna go into Socrates mode:

"How do we know when a headphone is neutral?"

and yeah, i agree with a lot of what other people have added so far.

 

[Hirsch]

Quote:

now onto a question: do you like to have fun while listening to music or do you want to hear the last bit of detail through the creation of the music? i'm asking this simple question for one reason, i was listening to chopin, some songs with flute playing i believe. when i listen through e10 and a good pair of headphones, i could pick out details such as inhailing of breath by the player and once or twice the pages turning. now, those details bugged me very much. it totally disturbs me from enjoying the mood and the flow of the music. this is why from now on, i either listen to classical through my laptop or on speakers. this way all these miniscule distracting details are filtered out of the system and i'm left with nothing but the beautiful movement of the music. to me, i think a pair of phones that can best produce the the mood of the music, warmth for optimistic music and darkness for moody music, should be the most cherished piece to own. and i think too much detail in the music can actually hurt the reproduction of music. certainly, i don't think the musician wants the listener to hear him cough at the background. [/B]

The musician probably doesn't want the listener to hear him cough. Still, he did cough and there it is. Those small details that you may find distracting may well be ambience clues for others. When I hear something like a page rustling, it brings it home to me that it is people playing music, not just music occurring in a vacuum. Rather than distracting, I find the greater detail to enhance rather than distract. It makes things more real to me. So, IMO your initial conditions aren't mutually exclusive. It's possible to both enjoy music and have maximal detail. Given a choice, I want both.

 

[ooheadsoo]

The first time I ever heard a nice sound system and heard these little details that I never heard before with the artists scuffing around, breathing, coughing, I was majorly annoyed, just like you are now. Now, I have come around on this 180 degrees. It's those details that take you to the performance, front row seat. When you play piano, you are always moving and your sleeves will flap and rustle and brush against your body. In a way, it's part of the music you're creating. Those details take you to the performance, rather than some disembodied synthesizer producing the music.

I think you are underestimating classical music. Classical music is every bit just as personal and involving as pop forms of music. It's all a matter of perspective. One reason why connoisseurs of classical music like a more hall like sound staging is that it better replicates the normal "proper" way this type of music is consumed. This in turn better pulls them into the music.

At the same time, I personally don't find the 580/600 too polite for heavy music unless I'm really trying to pop my ear drums. I never use my grados, even though they have more impact. I just find it unnecessary. Some people are more "live life on the edge," so it's understandable that they may prefer that type of sound. Finding a balance is much harder imo for classical music, though, because everyone knows what the instruments should sound like in real life. I've heard some phones that sound great for hip hop etc. but when I threw some classical at it, I coulda barfed.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Short answer -- because it's less distracting.

As everyone else has already intimated, there is no such thing as the "perfect" phone -- it might be with one amp, but I guarantee you it won't be with another. But the closer you get towards that impossible "neutral", the less you will get distracted by non-part-of-the-original-recording distractions, like distortion, low bass, laid back highs, fuzzy separation, etc. But yeah, I like to err on the side of "smooth", so even I don't go completely overboard, but I have to disagree with this statement:
Quote:

Originally posted by beastie 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?

Quite the opposite -- transparency/uncoloured sound will bring you closer to the state of mind of the artist, I think.

 

[Orpheus]

Geek is right. technology today cannot produce a headphone or speaker that is "flat" or "without coloration." not even close. look at the frequency response curves of any headphone or speaker..... no matter how expensive, or how good they might sound to you, they definately are not anywhere close to "without coloration," or "neutral" or whatever you want to call it....

so, you might as well find something you like to listen to.

now, that being said.... there are definately headphones that have more bass than others, or more treble, or whatever.... so much so that such frequency bands are too highly exaggerated.... and i would say that you can properly call those very colored. but in general, there is no such thing as a "flat," "neutral," or "non-colored" playback system--(without using EQ.)

i think most people when they something has a "flat" response or is "neutral," what they really mean is that this speaker is closer to what they THINK is flat, or close to what they think is a perfect sound. but without ever hearing what truly flat is, there is no way for this person to know if he is wrong or right.... well, unless if he cheats a little and uses EQ to adjust frequency response.............................. then yes, you can get adequately close to "flat."

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by Orpheus ... well, unless if he cheats a little and uses EQ to adjust frequency response.............................. then yes, you can get adequately close to "flat."

You're really on an EQ kick recently, aren't you? Don't make me whip out my speech about the evils of EQ. Is it phase-correct EQ? If not, then it might be introducing more colouration (of a different variety) than it's correcting.