[doublea71]

Yeah, maybe that's a better description. Okay, time to go get away from the laptop and go into the outside world.
 

 

[ultrabike]

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When I bought headphones the last time, I made an effort to find ones that were as flat as possible. Sometimes you just want to plug into a player directly and EQ isn't available.

 
This is the reason I sold my DT990. Equalized they are great, but if an EQ is not available... 

. 

 

[Joe Bloggs]

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Yeah. I don't know what I'd do with headphones without access to EQ.

 
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Indeed. That's why I made sure to get a portable player with at least some kind of customizable EQ, even though it's limited. When I'm at home of course I have a computer. All the headphones I've had so far possessed what I consider flaws in the FR, most commonly treble peaks which needed taming.

 
I've been spoiled by Electri-Q.  So much so that despite having Poweramp on my phone with 10-band graphic EQ I can't live without burning the Electri-Q parametric EQ settings directly onto the mp3s I put on my phone--at the cost of not being able to use any phones other than the Philips SHE3580 with half my mobile phone library.
 
The closest to neutral IEMs I've heard so far are Etys--but I can't insert them to the designed plug depth, so half-wave resonance occurs at 7.5kHz instead of the designed 13kHz.  This can be compensated for with a single parametric EQ band, available with Neutron player on Android, but it's clunky and slow compared to Poweramp.

 

[xnor]

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The only thing I said was that hi-fi doesn't really mean the same thing to this new wave of enthusiasts.

 
Then how do you define hi-fi?
 
From Wikipedia:
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High fidelity—or hi-fi or hifi —reproduction is a term used by home stereo listeners and home audio enthusiasts (audiophiles) to refer to high-quality reproduction of sound^[1] to distinguish it from the poorer quality sound produced by inexpensive audio equipment, or the inferior quality of sound reproduction characteristic of recordings made until the late 1940s. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has minimal amounts of noise and distortion and an accurate frequency response.
One effort to standardize the term was the 1966 German Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) standard DIN 45500. DIN 45500 approval was intended to provide audio equipment buyers with reassurance that their equipment was capable of good quality reproduction. In theory, only stereo equipment that met the standard could bear the words 'Hi-Fi'. This standard was well intentioned but only mildly successful; in practice, the term was widely misapplied to audio products that did not remotely approach the DIN basis specifications.

 
 
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And for the guy that compared an M3 to a pair of Beats...that's hardly an accurate appraisal of my analogy. An M3 is a very capable car (er, tank) and is more enjoyable to drive than a Corvette (in my opinion). If it was a souped-up Honda with ridiculous rims in my analogy, then you'd have me...

That's why I said the analogy doesn't work. I didn't compare the M3 to Beats, I made a new analogy to your position of dismissing measurements because they don't tell you if you like something. (Which to a degree is wrong as LizardKing1 pointed out.)
 
 
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I think the term  "high fidelity" is in the midst of an etymological change, for better or worse.

I don't think so. This is what we have the "new" terms mid- and low-fi for.
 
 
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Maybe you should tell Jude to stop accepting ad dollars from companies that produce gear with a mid-bass hump or a treble spike, etc. since these companies don't make proper hi-fi gear. That would be akin to sacrilege for a true hi-fi man, no?

No, that doesn't make much sense. Tell people not to buy mid-/low-fi (or crap aka no-fi) if they are looking for hi-fi. It's as simple as that.

 

[doublea71]

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Then how do you define hi-fi?
 
From Wikipedia:
 
 
That's why I said the analogy doesn't work. I didn't compare the M3 to Beats, I made a new analogy to your position of dismissing measurements because they don't tell you if you like something. (Which to a degree is wrong as LizardKing1 pointed out.)
 
 
I don't think so. This is what we have the "new" terms mid- and low-fi for.
 
 
No, that doesn't make much sense. Tell people not to buy mid-/low-fi (or crap aka no-fi) if they are looking for hi-fi. It's as simple as that.
 
 
 

The "associate the guy I'm disagreeing with with Beats in order to discredit him even though there is no evidence to support this" argument is rather weak and as transparent as the gear you seek. I'm not one to consider aesthetics when I choose a set of headphones, but I'd choose to audition a pair of headphones over looking at a chart every time. You may do things differently - that's your prerogative. You clearly feel that your sacred cow is being threatened and are responding emotionally. That's fine with me, as well.
 
With regards to headphones, the meaning of the term "high fidelity" is likely going to change, whether you want it to or not; such is the nature of language. Case in point: (also from wikipedia) The meaning of the term "lo-fi" has changed over time; in the 1970s vacuum tube equipment was considered the lower fidelity alternative to the new semiconductor solid state equipment, although some still consider valves the only "pure" way of listening to music.
 
We are not living in Germany in the 1960s. Headphones can be tuned to suit people's preferences without horrid amounts of noise and distortion and there's nothing inherently wrong with calling them hi-fi products in 2012.

 

[xnor]

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The "associate the guy I'm disagreeing with with Beats in order to discredit him even though there is no evidence to support this" argument is rather weak and as transparent as the gear you seek.

Honestly I have no idea what you're saying here.
 
 
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You clearly feel that your sacred cow is being threatened and are responding emotionally. That's fine with me, as well.

No, why should I? You don't know how it looks like when I get emotional, my previous replies all were unemotional. I just explained to you how a definition of hi-fi might look like, what I meant with the Beats analogy and to give people hi-fi if they ask for hi-fi.
 
 
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With regards to headphones, the meaning of the term "high fidelity" is likely going to change, whether you want it to or not; such is the nature of language. Case in point: (also from wikipedia) The meaning of the term "lo-fi" has changed over time; in the 1970s vacuum tube equipment was considered the lower fidelity alternative to the new semiconductor solid state equipment, although some still consider valves the only "pure" way of listening to music.

Case in point? Some still believe that the earth is flat, so what? How does that change the shape of the earth, or the definition of spheroids? It doesn't, just like some guys loving tubes doesn't change the definition of hi-fi.
I also don't see how the definition changed; technical advancements might have improved tube gear but that didn't change the definitions, just the gear's classification.
 
 
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We are not living in Germany in the 1960s. Headphones can be tuned to suit people's preferences without horrid amounts of noise and distortion and there's nothing inherently wrong with calling them hi-fi products in 2012.

That's what I'm saying, mostly anyway. Take a headphone with low distortion, wide frequency response, ... and equalize them to your preferences. Equalization has its limits though and if you are, just as an example, into big bass then you're probably better off buying some very bassy headphones. I just don't call that hi-fi.
 
edit: Imo some genres don't even need hi-fi gear. Hyper-compressed songs sound bad on cheap desktop speakers but really awful on hi-fi speakers / headphones (even worse).

 

[doublea71]

I could drone on and on and disagree with this little thing you said, that little thing you said, and then you'd type your rebuttal, etc. Neither of us are likely to budge and life has greater offerings than online nerd-jousting, so let's agree to disagree, shall we?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

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I don't think so. This is what we have the "new" terms mid- and low-fi for.

 
Except mid-fi and low-fi mostly just stand for middle- and lo-budget sound systems, with little regard for how hi-fidelity they actually are in the sense of sound production fidelity.  Have to agree with doublea here, in common usage the term "hi-fi" has long since fallen out of meaning "hi fidelity".
 
In fact I'd say in common usage Hi-Fi almost solely describes how expensive a sound system is or how expensive it looks...

 

[Joe Bloggs]

I've been working on a sequel to PiccoloNamek's EQ guide here:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/615417/how-to-equalize-your-headphones-advanced-tutorial-in-progress
 
but haven't had the energy to finish it.  Would love to get some input from the more tech-savvy and objectivist audience here

 

[manveru]

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In fact I'd say in common usage Hi-Fi almost solely describes how expensive a sound system is or how expensive it looks...

 
Sadly this indeed seems to be the case with most people.
 
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I've been working on a sequel to PiccoloNamek's EQ guide here:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/615417/how-to-equalize-your-headphones-advanced-tutorial-in-progress
 
but haven't had the energy to finish it.  Would love to get some input from the more tech-savvy and objectivist audience here

 
I'd love to give it a try but similarly haven't found the energy or inspiration to do so. It would require me rebooting into Windows where none of my music is located, so maybe kind of pointless for me anyway :\

 

[xnor]

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Except mid-fi and low-fi mostly just stand for middle- and lo-budget sound systems, with little regard for how hi-fidelity they actually are in the sense of sound production fidelity.  Have to agree with doublea here, in common usage the term "hi-fi" has long since fallen out of meaning "hi fidelity".
 
In fact I'd say in common usage Hi-Fi almost solely describes how expensive a sound system is or how expensive it looks...

Yeah that's why I argue that measurements are important. Not everything (what an understatement) labeled hi-fi contains hi-fi. And exactly as you wrote, people don't judge by sound quality but to a large extent also by price and looks. Sad indeed.
 
Still, I stick to the definition of hi-fi being high fidelity and use mid-/low-fi for lower fidelity stuff.

 

[autumnholy]

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Except mid-fi and low-fi mostly just stand for middle- and lo-budget sound systems, with little regard for how hi-fidelity they actually are in the sense of sound production fidelity.  Have to agree with doublea here, in common usage the term "hi-fi" has long since fallen out of meaning "hi fidelity".
 
In fact I'd say in common usage Hi-Fi almost solely describes how expensive a sound system is or how expensive it looks...

 
Reminds me of the strings... The elusive-quality strings used to connect devices...

 

[gnarlsagan]

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Except mid-fi and low-fi mostly just stand for middle- and lo-budget sound systems, with little regard for how hi-fidelity they actually are in the sense of sound production fidelity.  Have to agree with doublea here, in common usage the term "hi-fi" has long since fallen out of meaning "hi fidelity".
 
In fact I'd say in common usage Hi-Fi almost solely describes how expensive a sound system is or how expensive it looks...

 
So true. 
 
We need to resurrect this cafe as a haven from the subjectivist tilt of the other forums. I feel like I just ran in here from a hurricane of rich, warm, analog personal preference recommendations. It's insane.
 
There should be a completely different site moderated by Dr. Dre were people can argue over which distortion is the most preferable. They can use adjectives like "good", "better" and "digital" and of course "bad" to let everyone know what they think about the musics. And neutral is never brought up or respected, and the only clamoring among the thousands of posts is for that wonderful, smooth, treble-less but fatigue-free sound enjoyed by our great grandfathers through paper cones.    

 

[bigshot]

Testify!

 

[autumnholy]

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Testify!

 
If not? Crucify?