Comparing 84 components, 3 at a time (55 HPs, 9 IEMs, 8 DACs, 6 amps, 4 wireless, 2 DAPs) | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org

ruthieandjohn · Aug 24, 2019

"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 Symphony 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. [I use the 12-second segment 0:00 - 0:12 of "You're Going To Miss Me," which is kick drum, guitar, piano, and cymbal for this test]
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? [I use the same 0:00 - 0:12 segment of "You're Going To Miss Me," which starts with kick drum center, guitar #1 right of center piano far right, guitar #2 far left, to see 1) to what extent am I among rather than in front of the musicians, and 2) how wide an angle do those positional extremes of instruments form?]
Positional resolution: Can I distinguish a difference in position of two singers in Song 1? [I use 0:30 to 0:38 of "You're Going To Miss Me," where one vocalist ends a verse and a second vocalist, standing next to him, takes up the next.]
Bass visceral: Does the bass in third verse of Song 4 actually shake me? Or do I just hear it? [This test uses 0:31 through 0:33 of "Throwback, " where the bass drops to the lowest C on the piano.]
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? ["You're Going to Miss Me" 0:00 - 0:12]
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? ["You're Going to Miss Me," 1:02 - 1:23 to see if I can hear the pitch of not only the bass glides and accented notes, but also the grace notes]
Bass finger pluck: Do I hear the actual impact of fingers on the bass string just before hearing its sound on Song 2? ["Spanish Harlem," 0:00 - 0:04, listening most carefully to the repeated 3-note pattern to see if I not only hear an initial attack but some structure immediately following, before the finger leaves the string and the sound just rings)
Shaker variation: In Song 2, verse 3, do the various shaker shakes sound a bit different from each other, as they should? ["Spanish Harlem," 1:40 - 1:47: there are clearly loud and soft shakes, but how many more volume levels of shakes can I distinguish, and can I hear structure within each shake as the seeds hit the shaker wall?]
"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); ["Organ Symphony," initial chord from 0:00 - 0:04 and French horn passage 0:06 - 0:12]
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? ["Organ Symphony," in the passage starting at 1:08, how well can I hear the small additional chord added at 1:16 on top of the full strength organ/orchestra chord in progress? Clearly enough to have noticed it if I weren't already listening for it?]

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.

Here is a sample of the results that appear in each of the three-way comparison posts, this one for the Grado PS2000e vs. the Grado PS1000e vs. the Grado PS1000.

In the chart below, we reinforce the ranking on each row by a color based on the traditional prize ribbon colors (blue = 1st place, or 3 points; red = 2nd place, or 2 points, and yellow = 3rd place, or one point). We allow two-way ties, either for first place (purple = blue + red, 2.5 points) or for second place (orange = red + yellow, 1.5 points). We also tally a total, shown at the bottom of each column, of the sum of the 10 ranking scores, and color code it appropriately as well. Due to uncertainties in measurements, total score differences of 3 or more are considered meaningful.

The figure shows the results of comparing the Grado PS2000e, PS1000e, and PS1000. The PS1000 has the most first-place rankings, excelling in transparency, positional resolution, visceral bass power, resolution of a shaker (a treble detail measure), and the reedy, "ripping" quality of brass. The PS2000e excels in capturing the "twang" (rather than a "thud") of a bass drum, the ability of a string bass to maintain higher-frequency content and ease the determination of its pitch, and the moment of attack of the finger upon a plucked bass string.

PS1000 wins first place in 5 of the 10 acoustic feature comparisons, scoring the highest, with the PS2000e second.

ruthieandjohn

Stumbling towards enlightenment
(Formerly known as kayandjohn.)

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ruthieandjohn

Stumbling towards enlightenment(Formerly known as kayandjohn.)

Users who are viewing this thread

Stumbling towards enlightenment
(Formerly known as kayandjohn.)