10-point comparisons of trios of 35 headphones (Grado, Sennheiser, ...) - Headphoneus Supremus Inaugural Post

ruthieandjohn · Aug 24, 2019

This post is my 1,500th, elevating me into the rarified stratosphere of Headphoneus Supremus. While others celebrate with parades, speeches, and shopping across the United States this Memorial Day weekend as a result, I will serve my public by doing more of what got me here... POST!

Over the 16 months on head-fi.org, I have developed a method of comparing groups of three headphones according to 10 acoustic features that are important to my listening. Here, I summarize 18 such comparisons, embracing a total of 35 headphones and amplifiers, and (most importantly) provide references to the detailed description of each of the 18 comparisons, each with its own post (and often its own thread).

Test Method:

I used four songs, all encoded in Apple Lossless Format at CD quality (I actually bought the CDs and ripped them... no internet download involved) and played by my Apple iPod Touch 5th Gen. Because each of the 10 acoustic tests used a limited segment of music (2 - 10 sec), an infinite loop was used to repeat the appropriate segment of each song while headphones were switched in and out.

"You're Going To Miss Me When I'm Gone," by Band of Heathens, from their album One Foot In The Ether (used for fidelity of drum sound, positional resolution of two vocalists, and ability to discern pitch of string bass passages);
"Spanish Harlem," by Rebecca Pidgeon, on The Ultimate Demonstration Disc of Chesky records (used to assess female vocals, transparency, the attack of finger on bass string, and high resolution discrimination of differences in shaker shakes);
"Symphony No. 3 in C Minor Op. 78 (Organ Symphony) - IV" by Camille Saint Saens played by Lorin Maazel and the Pittsburgh Symph
ony Orchestra (used to assess the "ripping" sound of well-rendered lower brass and organ reed pipes, and the ability to hear a very small entrance amidst a bombastic chord of orchestra and organ at full tilt);
"Throwback" by B.o.B. on Underground Luxury (used to assess ability of a bass tone, specifically lowest C on piano at about 32 Hz, to pick me up by the throat and shake me!)

The 10 tests were as follows:

Transparency: What is between me and the music? A felt cloth? A "Sennheiser veil?" A frosted window? Dirty window? Clear Saran wrap? or nothing? At its best, makes me forget I am listening on headphones and am in room with musicians.
Width of sound stage: How far to the left and to the right, (yes, AND up and down in best cases) does it seem the musical sources are arranged?
Positional resolution: Can I distinguish a difference in position of two singers in Song 1?
Bass visceral: Does the bass in third verse of Song 4 actually shake me? Or do I just hear it?
Drum "twang": At start of Song 1, do the bass and tom tom drumhead have a tone and a pitch, rather than just a thump?
Bass pitch perception: For the complicated bass runs in Song 1, do I hear a pitch with sufficient accuracy to sing or transcribe the part?
Bass finger pluck: Do I hear the actual impact of fingers on the bass string just before hearing its sound on Song 2?
Shaker variation: In Song 2, verse 3, do the various shaker shakes sound a bit different from each other, as they should?
"Ripping" of organ / brass: In Song 3, is there the sensation of hearing each vibration of the French horn and low organ reed tones (sort of the tonal counterpart to hearing a "pitch" from a drumhead in Test 5);
Discern added chord: About 1:38 into Song 3, after the full orchestra and organ hold a chord at the top of a passage, can I hear a small number of orchestra instruments join in, as sort of an echo, in the second measure of that chord?

These tests generally emphasize what I find most pleasing in a headphone, namely high-frequency-related features including transparency, upper harmonics of sounds from drum-head, brass, organ pipe, and string bass, and high-resolution effects such as fine detail of each shaker sound and the finger on the bass string.

Headphones and Amps Tested

Here are the headphones and amps tested, listed first by manufacturer and within manufacturer, by model.

Summary Test Results

Here is an example of one three-way comparison, which can be found in a post dedicated to the comparison here.

The Grado PS1000 is compared to the Grado HP1000 and GS1000e for each of the acoustic features noted in the left-most column and elaborated upon in the right-most column. For each feature, the headphone of the three performing the best is given 3 points and its cell is colored blue; 2nd place at 2 points is red, and 3rd place at 1 point s red. Ties are either for first place (blue + red = purple, 2.5 points) or second place (red + yellow = orange = 1.5 points). Rather than being hypersensitive to differences before declaring a ranking, I tried to be confident that I could repeat the ranking most of the time in a blind test. Hence, some ties still had subtle differences.

The last line of the table shows the total preference points for each headphone, summing the numbers above. This gives a ranking that is also color coded. It is this row, for each of the 18 three-way comparisons, that is shown in the tables below. The final row from the table above, for example, is found in the 12th comparison below.

Post-Postscript (August 24, 3019)

Below is an index to each of the three-way comparisons, sorted by

Type of component (e.g., amp, headphone...)
Brand (e.g., HiFiMAN, Grado...)
Model (e.g. EF5, HPA1).

DarthFader · May 23, 2015 at 10:54 AM

Thanks for compiling all of these reviews in one location! Some really interesting comparisons and an impressive amount of work on your part. Thanks and congratulations on elevation into the lofty ranks of Headphoneus Supremus, haha!

Sefelt103 · May 25, 2015 at 9:05 AM

Thankyou for your headphone comparisons. This must have taken a lot of time and effort. It is quite difficult to compare Hi-Fi products like DAPs, amplifiers and headphones because you become atuned and used to a piece of equipment and have to atune to the new item before you get any idea of a comparison. It is also very rare that you ever get two pieces of equipment that sound identical. With headphones the difficulty is also compounded by burn-in. Two comparisons surprised me in particular. The first was the Grado PS500/HiFiman HE500/Shure SE535(IEM) comparison and second the Sennheiser HD598/AKG K712/Fidelio S2(IEM) comparison. In both the IEMs came out with the highest scores. I have always found IEMs to be lacking in the bass region compared to full size headphones which although they might lack bass extension give a much more realistic and deep portrayal of the bass frequencies. IEMs also tend to have poorer soundstaging and imaging compared to full sized headphones. IEMs do obviously have advantages like noise isolation and greater portable capabilities etc. I am just surprised overall you rated them more highly than some rather well regarded headphones.

ruthieandjohn · May 25, 2015 at 9:15 PM

sefelt103 said:
Thankyou for your headphone comparisons. This must have taken a lot of time and effort. It is quite difficult...

In general, when IEMs were compared with over-ears, they would come out ahead at least according to these measures. While they often suffer in sound stage, that is only one of 10 criteria. They often do better in high-frequency detail (several of the 10 criteria, including transparency, bass finger pluck, organ/brass "ripping," and drum twang) and (for the ones I had, even the SE 535s) do better at bass.

For example, the Shure SE535 IEMs are NOT known for bass... it is their big brother, the SE846, that adds the fourth channel of driver to give you that extra bass.

However, a look at their frequency response as compared to over ears., e.g.,

(Shure SE535 is blue)

..shows that its subbass exceeds everything (including bass-renown Beats, the orange) except the V-MODA M-100 (red), which exceeds the Shure by about 2 dB. Other headphone (green) is the HiFiMAN HE-500, which I know from first hand experience has strong, palpable bass.

Sefelt103 · May 26, 2015 at 6:16 AM

Interesting curves, I like the Monster Beats curve. As most people realise these curves are approx. indicators of how a headphone will sound. Comparing curves of different types of audio gear eg. earphones/IEMs/Headphones/Speakers in my view reduces the accuracy of the approximation further. Comparing IEMs with full size headphones is not comparing like with like. Would it not be better to compare the Shure SE535s with the Fidelio S2. Just a thought, anyway thanks again for the information, it's useful for non owners of this equipment.

Saad Abdul Aziz · Sep 29, 2015 at 2:17 PM

hi i saw your post and was curious as i have the HD 800's and the major factor i love it is because it has the best soundstage and the most wide along with its positional cues and separation

i saw your review and you rated he 1000 higher than the HD 800's just confirming if my interpetation of your post is correct and you believe that the HE 1000 has a bigger sound stage and better separation and positional resolution

Thanks

ruthieandjohn · Sep 29, 2015 at 2:40 PM

saad abdul aziz said:
hi i saw your post and was curious as i have the HD 800's and the major factor i love it is because it has the best soundstage and the most wide along with its positional cues and separation

i saw your review and you rated he 1000 higher than the HD 800's just confirming if my interpetation of your post is correct and you believe that the HE 1000 has a bigger sound stage and better separation and positional resolution

Thanks

Yes, I felt that the HE1000 had both a wider sound stage and a better ability to resolve the position of two singers side by side than did the HD 800.

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