[Shahrose]

Quote:

There you go.  You want to hear an unamplified or acoustic live performance, monitor phones like the HD800 are the way to go.  Disregarding their live acoustic stuff if you want to feel like you are at a Godsmack concert, forget about the HD800's.

That's true, but then those kinds of amplified concerts sound like crap. The sound of real instruments is the benchmark for me.

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

That's true, but then those kinds of amplified concerts sound like crap. The sound of real instruments is the benchmark for me.

I don't subscribe to that.  Not all amplified concerts are crap.  There are certain genres that require an electronic emphasis to sound correct.  What is a 'real' instrument to you?  I still think it's a matter of signature preference.  Unless you can find a headphone that can do real acoustics performances and amplified music equally well, I don't subscribe to one phones sound being 'better' than the other as a universal statement.  Music isn't always about sitting back in a Lazyboy picking apart various aspects of a musical paasage in your heard.  Sometimes you need to get up and move your A**.  

     

 

[AhokZYashA]

senns CX300's
end.
 
lol
i never heard anything other than it and HD202
so idk
but from appearance, HE90+HEV90 is the best.

 

[Shahrose]

Quote:

I don't subscribe to that.  Not all amplified concerts are crap.  There are certain genres that require an electronic emphasis to sound correct.  What is a 'real' instrument to you?  I still think it's a matter of signature preference.  Unless you can find a headphone that can do real acoustics performances and amplified music equally well, I don't subscribe to one phones sound being 'better' than the other as a universal statement.  Music isn't always about sitting back in a Lazyboy picking apart various aspects of a musical paasage in your heard.  Sometimes you need to get up and move your A**.  

     

 
Hey, I don't listen to music to analyze it and the HD800s are very involving for me. I don't think all amplified concerts are crap, but if an instrument can be played without being routed through amps/speakers, that's ideal, since you can hear the true timbre instead of the colouration of the electronic equipment. I listen to a wide range of music, including a lot of amplified rock, electronic etc. and I disagree that the 800s are boring...but to each his own I guess.
 
So you like headphones to mimic the concert-type sound instead of accurately reproduce the sound as per the recording? Which headphones do you feel do this?

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

Hey, I don't listen to music to analyze it and the HD800s are very involving for me. I don't think all amplified concerts are crap, but if an instrument can be played without being routed through amps/speakers, that's ideal, since you can hear the true timbre instead of the colouration of the electronic equipment. I listen to a wide range of music, including a lot of amplified rock, electronic etc. and I disagree that the 800s are boring...but to each his own I guess.
 
So you like headphones to mimic the concert-type sound instead of accurately reproduce the sound as per the recording? Which headphones do you feel do this?

 
Actually, I said each flavor of headphone has its place.  I have no problem w/ a phone accurately portraying an acoustic performance and nailing the timbre of the instruments.  My experience has been that usually such phones tend to be a bit dry and souless when it comes to other more 'popular' types of genre.  I think many prefer the T1's over the HD800's w/ respect to the sort of concert experience I mentioned.  My M50's are pretty entertaining at the moment.  I've also got some Grado MS-1i, Ultrasone 2500 and Koss ESP950's on the way to check out, who knows.  Do you think the HD800's are the best phone for say Korn or Disturbed?     
 
Regardless, this thread is about big boys like the HE90, R10, O2's, etc.  I've derailed enough.
 

 

[Caesar2010]

Quote:

Caesar2010, I attend one or two live events each week. I also played in various bands and orchestras from third grade through undergrad. And I don't find the HD-800 boring in the least - I use it more than any of the other headphones. I wasn't crazy about the T1; it's not as transparent as the HD-800 and it sounds like they thickened up the bass as a crowd-pleaser. Not a terrible headphone - I enjoyed hearing it - but I'm not going to buy one.

If you read the Playback review, it comes to the same conclusion as me, but he is more politically correct:
 
"I’m more in the camp that likes, but doesn’t love, the HD 800. I believe that has less to do with outright flaws in the HD 800, and much to do with what I want a headphone to do. I want a headphone to provide an alternative listening experience. I want to hear things on recordings that I don’t hear as well via speakers. This partially comes from my sense that headphones just can’t do the virtual reality thing that traditional speaker-based audio can. At the same time, I need a certain vividness in my headphone listening that makes up for the things headphones inevitably take away.
 
From some perspectives this vividness is called coloration. Maybe. But the declaration of coloration refers to reasonable though arbitrary notions of “correct”. All I know is this: live music is vivid. The HD 800s, at least with the amps I used initially (primarily the Luxman P200 and PS Audio GCHA), are not vivid, which is what keeps me on the “like” side of the line. I have since tried the prototype Woo Audio WA 22 amp (which is tube rather than solid state and has variable output impedance). The WA 22 takes the sense of vividness up a notch, mostly by making the midrange contrast level higher, while introducing minimal if any deleterioius side effects. The mostly subtractive errors noted above are still there, but they are diminished in the overall presentation"
 
 
I always listen to the musical whole.  I don't dissect the sound into audiophile terms.  I judge the equipment by how it gets out of the way.  I just had the $20K Ayre monoblock amplifiers in my 2 channel system.  Very good amps. And they were very transparent.  However, they threw all this detail at me.  I was distracted by it at times, and could not focus on the music.
 
 
But hey, we all hear differently and have different realism triggers.  And this is a hobby. Enjoy! 

 

[Caesar2010]

Quote:

There you go.  You want to hear an unamplified or acoustic live performance, monitor phones like the HD800 are the way to go.  Disregarding their live acoustic stuff if you want to feel like you are at a Godsmack concert, forget about the HD800's.

 
My preference for unamplified acoustic stuff is the Audez'e LCD-2.  It has much more natural tonality than the HD 800.  However, it lacks the PRaT and the weight/ slam of the t1.  
 

 

[Caesar2010]

Quote:

 
  I think many prefer the T1's over the HD800's w/ respect to the sort of concert experience I mentioned. 

Amen!!!!

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

I listened to the T1 and in some ways prefered them to the HD800, possibly the "biggest" way for the music I like. I think it really comes down to how your music is recorded. If you listen to more classical music which has "good" left/right panning (no hard left, hard right sounds obviously fake stereo) the HD800 do better. If you throw some poorly mixed rock in there (my primary genre, and sadly there is a lot of great music recorded poorly that we have to deal with) the T1 do a little bit better. I guess in the end there is no 1 headphone.

Very well put Ari. I completely agree with your impressions here. The T1s are great at classical, don't get me wrong, just they do not keep up with the HD800s. But the opposite for rock and metal (which I mostly listen to as well).

 

[Anaxilus]

So anyone know if AKG will ever make a K1000 again?  They intrigue me.....

 

[desktophifi]

Quote:

So anyone know if AKG will ever make a K1000 again?  They intrigue me.....

I dont think so...
And if there are some...Get them while you still can!